md5sum differences on identical systems

In troubleshooting a problem a colleague noticed that there were md5sum differences in the files of identical systems: ServerOne # md5sum /lib64/libc-2.12.so 27a605fdeaf7c835493a098213c9eec1  /lib64/libc-2.12.so ServerTwo # md5sum /lib64/libc-2.12.so 13e3eb598abd09279efc05e215e77ae2 /lib64/libc-2.12.s Analyzing a hex dump of the .so files showed cyclical differences at matching locations.  This is where I began helping to look at the problem.  […]