A resource identifier with checksum, also known as a “RIFCS” or “ANDS identifier”, is a unique identifier that is assigned to a digital resource, such as a dataset or a collection of research data. The identifier contains a checksum, which is a value that is calculated based on the data in the resource, and is used to verify the integrity of the resource. In this article, we will explain how to generate a resource identifier with checksum on a Linux system.

Before we begin, there are a few prerequisites that need to be met. First, you must have a Linux system with the uuidgen and sha1sum commands installed. These commands are typically available on most Linux distributions by default. You will also need to have administrative privileges on the system, as the process of generating a resource identifier with checksum requires access to the root user account or a user account with sudo privileges.

To start, let’s create a new file that will contain the data for the digital resource that we want to generate a resource identifier for. For the purpose of this example, we will use a file named “resource.txt” that contains some arbitrary data. You can create this file using any text editor or file manipulation commands, such as echo or cat.

Once the file is created, we can use the uuidgen command to generate a unique identifier for the digital resource. This identifier will be used as the base for the resource identifier with checksum. To generate the identifier, run the following command:

uuidgen > resource-id.txt

This will generate a new identifier and store it in a file named “resource-id.txt“. The identifier will be in the form of a UUID, which is a string of hexadecimal digits separated by dashes, such as “550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000“.

Next, we can use the sha1sum command to generate a checksum for the digital resource. This checksum will be based on the data in the “resource.txt” file, and it will be used to verify the integrity of the resource. To generate the checksum, run the following command:

sha1sum resource.txt > resource-checksum.txt

This will generate a new checksum and store it in a file named “resource-checksum.txt“. The checksum will be in the form of a hexadecimal string, such as “7befa34c0f7d3e0cc13b7e6c9a716b9ed8c1f383“.

Now that we have both the identifier and the checksum for the digital resource, we can combine them to create the resource identifier with checksum. To do this, we can use the cat command to concatenate the contents of the “resource-id.txt” and “resource-checksum.txt” files into a new file named “resource-id-with-checksum.txt“. Run the following command to do this:

cat resource-id.txt resource-checksum.txt > resource-id-with-checksum.txt

This will create the new file, which will contain the resource identifier with checksum. The identifier will be in the form of “550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000:7befa34c0f7d3e0cc13b7e6c9a716b9ed8c1f383“. This identifier can be used to uniquely identify and verify the digital resource.

That’s it! You have successfully generated a resource identifier with checksum for a digital resource on a Linux system. You can now use this identifier to identify and verify the resource.

Christian Wells