Data integrity protection with checksums - AWS SDK for Java 2.x
Upload an objectDownload an objectOther checksum calculation options

Data integrity protection with checksums

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) provides the ability to specify a checksum when you upload an object. When you specify a checksum, it is stored with the object and can be validated when the object is downloaded.

Checksums provide an additional layer of data integrity when you transfer files. With checksums, you can verify data consistency by confirming that the received file matches the original file. For more information about checksums with Amazon S3, see the Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide including the supported algorithms.

You have the flexibility to choose the algorithm that best fits your needs and let the SDK calculate the checksum. Alternatively, you can provide a pre-computed checksum value by using one of the supported algorithms.

Note

Beginning with version 2.30.0 of the AWS SDK for Java 2.x, the SDK provides default integrity protections by automatically calculating a CRC32 checksum for uploads. The SDK calculates this checksum if you don't provide a precalculated checksum value or if you don't specify an algorithm that the SDK should use to calculate a checksum.

The SDK also provides global settings for data integrity protections that you can set externally, which you can read about in the AWS SDKs and Tools Reference Guide.

We discuss checksums in two request phases: uploading an object and downloading an object.

Upload an object

When you upload an object with the putObject method and provide a checksum algorithm, the SDK computes the checksum for the specified algorithm.

The following code snippet shows a request to upload an object with a SHA256 checksum. When the SDK sends the request, it calculates the SHA256 checksum and uploads the object. Amazon S3 validates the integrity of the content by calculating the checksum and comparing it to the checksum provided by the SDK. Amazon S3 then stores the checksum with the object.

public void putObjectWithChecksum() {
        s3Client.putObject(b -> b
                .bucket(bucketName)
                .key(key)
                .checksumAlgorithm(ChecksumAlgorithm.SHA256),
            RequestBody.fromString("This is a test"));
}

If you don't provide a checksum algorithm with the request, the checksum behavior varies depending on the version of the SDK that you use as shown in the following table.

Checksum behavior when no checksum algorithm is provided

Java SDK version Checksum behavior
earlier than 2.30.0 The SDK doesn't automatically calculate a CRC-based checksum and provide it in the request.
2.30.0 or later

The SDK uses the CRC32 algorithm to calculate the checksum and provides it in the request. Amazon S3 validates the integrity of the transfer by computing its own CRC32 checksum and compares it to the checksum provided by the SDK. If the checksums match, the checksum is saved with the object.

Use a pre-calculated checksum value

A pre-calculated checksum value provided with the request disables automatic computation by the SDK and uses the provided value instead.

The following example shows a request with a pre-calculated SHA256 checksum.

    public void putObjectWithPrecalculatedChecksum(String filePath) {
        String checksum = calculateChecksum(filePath, "SHA-256");

        s3Client.putObject((b -> b
                .bucket(bucketName)
                .key(key)
                .checksumSHA256(checksum)),
            RequestBody.fromFile(Paths.get(filePath)));
    }

If Amazon S3 determines the checksum value is incorrect for the specified algorithm, the service returns an error response.

Multipart uploads

You can also use checksums with multipart uploads.

The SDK for Java 2.x provides two options to use checksums with multipart uploads. The first option uses the S3TransferManager.

The following transfer manager example specifies the SHA1 algorithm for the upload.

    public void multipartUploadWithChecksumTm(String filePath) {
        S3TransferManager transferManager = S3TransferManager.create();
        UploadFileRequest uploadFileRequest = UploadFileRequest.builder()
            .putObjectRequest(b -> b
                .bucket(bucketName)
                .key(key)
                .checksumAlgorithm(ChecksumAlgorithm.SHA1))
            .source(Paths.get(filePath))
            .build();
        FileUpload fileUpload = transferManager.uploadFile(uploadFileRequest);
        fileUpload.completionFuture().join();
        transferManager.close();
    }

If you don't provide a checksum algorithm when using the transfer manager for uploads, the SDK automatically calculates and checksum based on the CRC32 algorithm. The SDK performs this calculation for all versions of the SDK.

The second option uses the S3Client API (or the S3AsyncClient API) to perform the multipart upload. If you specify a checksum with this approach, you must specify the algorithm to use on the initiation of the upload. You must also specify the algorithm for each part request and provide the checksum calculated for each part after it is uploaded.

    public void multipartUploadWithChecksumS3Client(String filePath) {
        ChecksumAlgorithm algorithm = ChecksumAlgorithm.CRC32;

        // Initiate the multipart upload.
        CreateMultipartUploadResponse createMultipartUploadResponse = s3Client.createMultipartUpload(b -> b
            .bucket(bucketName)
            .key(key)
            .checksumAlgorithm(algorithm)); // Checksum specified on initiation.
        String uploadId = createMultipartUploadResponse.uploadId();

        // Upload the parts of the file.
        int partNumber = 1;
        List<CompletedPart> completedParts = new ArrayList<>();
        ByteBuffer bb = ByteBuffer.allocate(1024 * 1024 * 5); // 5 MB byte buffer

        try (RandomAccessFile file = new RandomAccessFile(filePath, "r")) {
            long fileSize = file.length();
            long position = 0;
            while (position < fileSize) {
                file.seek(position);
                long read = file.getChannel().read(bb);

                bb.flip(); // Swap position and limit before reading from the buffer.
                UploadPartRequest uploadPartRequest = UploadPartRequest.builder()
                    .bucket(bucketName)
                    .key(key)
                    .uploadId(uploadId)
                    .checksumAlgorithm(algorithm) // Checksum specified on each part.
                    .partNumber(partNumber)
                    .build();

                UploadPartResponse partResponse = s3Client.uploadPart(
                    uploadPartRequest,
                    RequestBody.fromByteBuffer(bb));

                CompletedPart part = CompletedPart.builder()
                    .partNumber(partNumber)
                    .checksumCRC32(partResponse.checksumCRC32()) // Provide the calculated checksum.
                    .eTag(partResponse.eTag())
                    .build();
                completedParts.add(part);

                bb.clear();
                position += read;
                partNumber++;
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.err.println(e.getMessage());
        }

        // Complete the multipart upload.
        s3Client.completeMultipartUpload(b -> b
            .bucket(bucketName)
            .key(key)
            .uploadId(uploadId)
            .multipartUpload(CompletedMultipartUpload.builder().parts(completedParts).build()));
    }

Code for the complete examples and tests are in the GitHub code examples repository.

Download an object

When you use the getObject method to download an object, the SDK automatically validates the checksum when the checksumMode method of the builder for the GetObjectRequest is set to ChecksumMode.ENABLED.

The request in the following snippet directs the SDK to validate the checksum in the response by calculating the checksum and comparing the values.

    public GetObjectResponse getObjectWithChecksum() {
        return s3Client.getObject(b -> b
                        .bucket(bucketName)
                        .key(key)
                        .checksumMode(ChecksumMode.ENABLED))
                .response();
    }
Note

If the object wasn't uploaded with a checksum, no validation takes place.

Other checksum calculation options

Note

To verify the data integrity of transmitted data and to identify any transmission errors, we encourage users to keep the SDK default settings for the checksum calculation options. By default, the SDK adds this important check for many S3 operations including PutObject and GetObject.

If your use of Amazon S3 requires minimal checksum validation, however, you can disable many checks by changing the default configuration settings.

Disable automatic checksum calculation unless it's required

You can disable automatic checksum calculation by the SDK for operations that support it, for example PutObject and GetObject. Some S3 operations, however, require a checksum calculation; you cannot disable checksum calculation for these operations.

The SDK provides separate settings for the calculation of a checksum for the payload of a request and for the payload of a response.

The following list describes the settings you can use to minimize checksum calculations at the different scopes.

  • All applications scope—By changing the settings in environment variables or in a profile in the shared AWS config and credentials files, all applications can use these settings. These settings affect all service clients in all AWS SDK applications unless overridden at the application or service client scope.

    • Add the settings in a profile:

      [default]
request_checksum_calculation = WHEN_REQUIRED
response_checksum_calculation = WHEN_REQUIRED

    • Add environment variables:

      AWS_REQUEST_CHECKSUM_CALCULATION=WHEN_REQUIRED
AWS_RESPONSE_CHECKSUM_CALCULATION=WHEN_REQUIRED

  • Current application scope—You can set the Java system property aws.requestChecksumCalculation to WHEN_REQUIRED to limit checksum calculation. The corresponding system property for responses is aws.responseChecksumCalculation.

    These settings affect all SDK service clients in the application unless overridden during service client creation.

    Set the system property at the start of your application:

    import software.amazon.awssdk.core.SdkSystemSetting;
import software.amazon.awssdk.core.checksums.RequestChecksumCalculation;
import software.amazon.awssdk.core.checksums.ResponseChecksumValidation;
import software.amazon.awssdk.services.s3.S3Client;

class DemoClass {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        System.setProperty(SdkSystemSetting.AWS_REQUEST_CHECKSUM_CALCULATION.property(), // Resolves to "aws.requestChecksumCalculation".
                "WHEN_REQUIRED");
        System.setProperty(SdkSystemSetting.AWS_RESPONSE_CHECKSUM_VALIDATION.property(), // Resolves to "aws.responseChecksumValidation".
                "WHEN_REQUIRED");

        S3Client s3Client = S3Client.builder().build();

        // Use s3Client.
    }
}

  • Single S3 service client scope—You can configure a single S3 service client to calculate the minimum amount of checksums using builder methods:

    import software.amazon.awssdk.core.checksums.RequestChecksumCalculation;
import software.amazon.awssdk.services.s3.S3Client;

public class RequiredChecksums {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        S3Client s3 = S3Client.builder()
                .requestChecksumCalculation(RequestChecksumCalculation.WHEN_REQUIRED)
                .responseChecksumValidation(ResponseChecksumValidation.WHEN_REQUIRED)
                .build();

        // Use s3Client. 
    }
// ...
}

Use the LegacyMd5Plugin for simplified MD5 compatibility

Along with the release of CRC32 checksum behavior with version 2.30.0, the SDK stopped calculating MD5 checksums on required operations.

If you need legacy MD5 checksum behavior for S3 operations, you can use the LegacyMd5Plugin, which was released with version 2.31.32 of the SDK.

The LegacyMd5Plugin is particularly useful when you need to maintain compatibility with applications that depend on the legacy MD5 checksum behavior, especially when working with third-party S3-compatible storage providers like those used with S3A filesystem connectors (Apache Spark, Iceberg).

To use the LegacyMd5Plugin, add it to your S3 client builder:

// For synchronous S3 client.
S3Client s3Client = S3Client.builder()
                           .addPlugin(LegacyMd5Plugin.create())
                           .build();

// For asynchronous S3 client.
S3AsyncClient asyncClient = S3AsyncClient.builder()
                                       .addPlugin(LegacyMd5Plugin.create())
                                       .build();

If you want to add MD5 checksums to the operations that require checksums and want to skip adding SDK default checksums for operations that support checksums but are not required, you can enable the ClientBuilder options requestChecksumCalculation and responseChecksumValidation as WHEN_REQUIRED. This will add SDK default checksums only to operations that require checksums:

// Use the `LegacyMd5Plugin` with `requestChecksumCalculation` and `responseChecksumValidation` set to WHEN_REQUIRED.
S3AsyncClient asyncClient = S3AsyncClient.builder()
                                       .addPlugin(LegacyMd5Plugin.create())
                                       .requestChecksumCalculation(RequestChecksumCalculation.WHEN_REQUIRED)
                                       .responseChecksumValidation(ResponseChecksumValidation.WHEN_REQUIRED)
                                       .build();

This configuration is particularly useful when working with third-party S3-compatible storage systems that may not fully support the newer checksum algorithms but still require MD5 checksums for certain operations.