Bug 156537

Dear Sirs!
Recently I have downloaded a large set of old and current FreeBSD distributions for various architectures from ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/ and  ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org . After the download had been completed I checked all the ISO-mage files by hash sums, whenever the file with these hashes was applied to the distribution, and I found several mistakes.

Here is the list of mistakes I have noticed.

1. In the directory
ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/alpha/ISO-IMAGES/4.5/
the MD5-sum in the CHECKSUMS.MD5 text file does not coincide with the real MD5-sum
for the file
4.5-disc2.iso .

2. In the directory
ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/alpha/ISO-IMAGES/5.5/
for the files:
5.5-RELEASE-alpha-bootonly.iso          the MD5-sum does not coincide
5.5-RELEASE-alpha-disc1.iso             the MD5-sum does not coincide
5.5-RELEASE-alpha-disc2.iso             the MD5-sum is absent in the file
                                                            CHECKSUM.MD5.

3.In the directory
ftp://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/powerpc/ISO-IMAGES/6.3/
all check-sums for the files available are correct, however there are more ISO-image files in the lists with hash-sums files, then  are present in the directory (see CHECKSUM.MD5 and CHECKSUM.SHA256).
In the real directory the following files don't exist:
6.3-RELEASE-powerpc-disc2.iso
6.3-RELEASE-powerpc-disc3.iso
6.3-RELEASE-powerpc-livefs.iso

I don't know whether these mistakes are connected with errors in the ISO image files or the ISOs themselves are correct, but the hash-sums are wrong. Could you kindly check these items and fix these problemes, I would be very greatful to you.


Another my thought is connected with availability of check sums for old distributions. Many of the old distributions in the FreeBSD archive have no check sums, so after you have downloaded this version of FreeBSD you can't check whether your download was correct or it failed. As I don't trust entirely the reliability of Internet connection I downloaded these distributions twice to my computer and compared these files by contents.

I'm sure FreeBSD is one of the best Unix systems and thus any user should have an opportunity to download these "historical" versions starting with 1.0 and easily check the integrity of these downloads.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to check all these distributions on errors once more and provide all of them (all the ISO images) in the FreeBSD archive with control sums text files. Although it is only my suggestion.


Sincerely yours,
Victor.


victormmr@rambler.ru