Long string of letters and numbers showing up in Checksum column in Casper Admin.

[Seide]

Lately when I've been uploading packages and .dmgs in Casper Admin, I'm getting a long string of random letters and numbers where as before it would say "None". This has happened with the last several items I've uploaded through Casper Admin.

I haven't made any changes to the JSS or anything like that. We're running Casper 9.3.

Any ideas? Is this going to cause problems?

Thanks in advance.

[nessts]

Why would it cause a problem the long string is the checksum, my guess is that if we were to read the release notes there would be something about that in there.

[ahopkins]

I just called about that, I was told its a way admin is keeping tack of things.

[Seide]

I am not sure. I've never come across this before so I was just asking. :)

I just took a look at the release notes for 9.3 and the only thing coming up when I searched "checksum" is this, in the Security Enhancements bullet point: "Options have been added for validating software distribution packages ??
using checksum. In addition, user-initiated re-enrollment of computers can now be restricted to authorized users."

Also, under "Bug Fixes and Enhancements" for Casper Admin it says: "Casper Admin
[D-005693] Fixed an issue that prevented Casper Admin from appearing on the primary display after disconnecting from an external display on which it has been viewed."

If the long string of characters and numbers in Casper Admin is harmless, I'll ignore. Again, I posted the question because I never came across this before.

Thanks for your response.

[Seide]

Thanks, @ahopkins.

[Musgrove]

That long string of letters and numbers is the hexadecimal representation of the package's checksum, calculated when the package is uploaded via Casper Admin (and can be manually calculated if uploaded by other means, by right-clicking on a package and selecting "Calculate Checksum").

The checksum uses an algorithm called "md5" to calculate a value that, for the most part, uniquely represents the content of the file. If a single bit changes in the file, the checksum will be very different. The Casper suite can use this checksum to verify that a package being deployed on a machine via Policy or other means is in the exact same condition that it was when it was uploaded - i.e., there are no corruptions. This is done by recalculating the checksum on the client and comparing it to the one stored in Casper Admin.

Main points to take away:
If the checksum says "None", no checksum has been calculated, and Casper won't attempt to verify a package when deploying it

If the checksum has a long string, then Casper will verify a package before deployment, and refuse to install it if the verification fails

If you manually (e.g. upload to a share without using Casper Admin) replace a package (e.g. an update) that had previously has a checksum calculated, you will need to get Casper Admin to recalculate the checksum by right-clicking the file, and selecting "Calculate checksum", otherwise package verifications will fail and it won't get deployed

I hope this helps