---
name: "sha256"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "hashalot"
version: "0.3-4"
release: "Debian 4.0 (Etch)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/hashalot/8"
---

# sha256(8)

read a passphrase and print a hash

Part of [hashalot(8)](/hashalot/8.md).

## NAME

hashalot - read a passphrase and print a hash

## SYNOPSIS

**hashalot \[ -s SALT \] \[ -x \] \[ -n #BYTES \] \[ -q \] \[ HASHTYPE \]**\
 **HASHTYPE \[ -s SALT \] \[ -x \] \[ -n #BYTES \] \[ -q \]**

## DESCRIPTION

*hashalot* is a small tool that reads a passphrase from standard input, hashes it using the given hash type, and prints the result to standard output.

**Warning**: If you do not use the **-x** option, the hash is printed in binary. This may wedge your terminal settings, or even force you to log out.

Supported values for *HASHTYPE*:\

ripemd160 rmd160 rmd160compat sha256 sha384 sha512

## OPTIONS

The option **-s *SALT*** specifies an initialization vector to the hashing algorithm. You need this if you want to prevent identical passwords to map to identical hashes, which is a security risk.

If the **-x** option is given then the hash will be printed as a string of hexadecimal digits.

The **-n** option can be used to limit (or increase) the number of bytes output. The default is as appropriate for the specified hash algorithm: 20 bytes for RIPEMD160, 32 bytes for SHA256, etc. The default for the "rmd160compat" hash is 16 bytes, for compatibility with the old kerneli.org utilities.

The **-q** option causes **hashalot** to be more quiet and not print some warnings which may be superfluous.

## AUTHOR

Ben Slusky \<sluskyb@paranoiacs.org\>

This manual page was written by Matthias Urlichs \<smurf@debian.org\>.