crypt

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

crypt — One-way string hashing

Description

string crypt ( string $str [, string $salt ] )

crypt() will return a hashed string using the standard Unix DES-based algorithm or alternative algorithms that may be available on the system.

Some operating systems support more than one type of hash. In fact, sometimes the standard DES-based algorithm is replaced by an MD5-based algorithm. The hash type is triggered by the salt argument. Prior to 5.3, PHP would determine the available algorithms at install-time based on the system's crypt(). If no salt is provided, PHP will auto-generate either a standard two character (DES) salt, or a twelve character (MD5), depending on the availability of MD5 crypt(). PHP sets a constant named CRYPT_SALT_LENGTH which indicates the longest valid salt allowed by the available hashes.

The standard DES-based crypt() returns the salt as the first two characters of the output. It also only uses the first eight characters of str, so longer strings that start with the same eight characters will generate the same result (when the same salt is used).

On systems where the crypt() function supports multiple hash types, the following constants are set to 0 or 1 depending on whether the given type is available:

CRYPT_STD_DES - Standard DES-based hash with a two character salt from the alphabet "./0-9A-Za-z". Using invalid characters in the salt will cause crypt() to fail.
CRYPT_EXT_DES - Extended DES-based hash. The "salt" is a 9-character string consisting of an underscore followed by 4 bytes of iteration count and 4 bytes of salt. These are encoded as printable characters, 6 bits per character, least significant character first. The values 0 to 63 are encoded as "./0-9A-Za-z". Using invalid characters in the salt will cause crypt() to fail.
CRYPT_MD5 - MD5 hashing with a twelve character salt starting with $1$
CRYPT_BLOWFISH - Blowfish hashing with a salt as follows: "$2a$", "$2x$" or "$2y$", a two digit cost parameter, "$", and 22 digits from the alphabet "./0-9A-Za-z". Using characters outside of this range in the salt will cause crypt() to return a zero-length string. The two digit cost parameter is the base-2 logarithm of the iteration count for the underlying Blowfish-based hashing algorithmeter and must be in range 04-31, values outside this range will cause crypt() to fail. Versions of PHP before 5.3.7 only support "$2a$" as the salt prefix: PHP 5.3.7 introduced the new prefixes to fix a security weakness in the Blowfish implementation. Please refer to » this document for full details of the security fix, but to summarise, developers targeting only PHP 5.3.7 and later should use "$2y$" in preference to "$2a$".
CRYPT_SHA256 - SHA-256 hash with a sixteen character salt prefixed with $5$. If the salt string starts with 'rounds=<N>$', the numeric value of N is used to indicate how many times the hashing loop should be executed, much like the cost parameter on Blowfish. The default number of rounds is 5000, there is a minimum of 1000 and a maximum of 999,999,999. Any selection of N outside this range will be truncated to the nearest limit.
CRYPT_SHA512 - SHA-512 hash with a sixteen character salt prefixed with $6$. If the salt string starts with 'rounds=<N>$', the numeric value of N is used to indicate how many times the hashing loop should be executed, much like the cost parameter on Blowfish. The default number of rounds is 5000, there is a minimum of 1000 and a maximum of 999,999,999. Any selection of N outside this range will be truncated to the nearest limit.

Note:
As of PHP 5.3.0, PHP contains its own implementation and will use that if the system lacks of support for one or more of the algorithms.

Parameters

str: The string to be hashed.
salt: An optional salt string to base the hashing on. If not provided, the behaviour is defined by the algorithm implementation and can lead to unexpected results.

Return Values

Returns the hashed string or a string that is shorter than 13 characters and is guaranteed to differ from the salt on failure.

Changelog

Version	Description
5.3.7	Added $2x$ and $2y$ Blowfish modes to deal with potential high-bit attacks.
5.3.2	Added SHA-256 and SHA-512 crypt based on Ulrich Drepper's » implementation.
5.3.2	Fixed Blowfish behaviour on invalid rounds to return "failure" string ("0" or "1"), instead of falling back to DES.
5.3.0	PHP now contains its own implementation for the MD5 crypt, Standard DES, Extended DES and the Blowfish algorithms and will use that if the system lacks of support for one or more of the algorithms.

Examples

Example #1 crypt() examples


<?php
$hashed_password = crypt('mypassword'); // let the salt be automatically generated

/* You should pass the entire results of crypt() as the salt for comparing a
   password, to avoid problems when different hashing algorithms are used. (As
   it says above, standard DES-based password hashing uses a 2-character salt,
   but MD5-based hashing uses 12.) */
if (crypt($user_input, $hashed_password) == $hashed_password) {
   echo "Password verified!";
}
?>

Example #2 Using crypt() with htpasswd


<?php
// Set the password
$password = 'mypassword';

// Get the hash, letting the salt be automatically generated
$hash = crypt($password);
?>

Example #3 Using crypt() with different hash types


<?php
/* These salts are examples only, and should not be used verbatim in your code.
   You should generate a distinct, correctly-formatted salt for each password.
*/
if (CRYPT_STD_DES == 1) {
    echo 'Standard DES: ' . crypt('rasmuslerdorf', 'rl') . "\n";
}

if (CRYPT_EXT_DES == 1) {
    echo 'Extended DES: ' . crypt('rasmuslerdorf', '_J9..rasm') . "\n";
}

if (CRYPT_MD5 == 1) {
    echo 'MD5:          ' . crypt('rasmuslerdorf', '$1$rasmusle$') . "\n";
}

if (CRYPT_BLOWFISH == 1) {
    echo 'Blowfish:     ' . crypt('rasmuslerdorf', '$2a$07$usesomesillystringforsalt$') . "\n";
}

if (CRYPT_SHA256 == 1) {
    echo 'SHA-256:      ' . crypt('rasmuslerdorf', '$5$rounds=5000$usesomesillystringforsalt$') . "\n";
}

if (CRYPT_SHA512 == 1) {
    echo 'SHA-512:      ' . crypt('rasmuslerdorf', '$6$rounds=5000$usesomesillystringforsalt$') . "\n";
}
?>

The above example will output something similar to:

Standard DES: rl.3StKT.4T8M
Extended DES: _J9..rasmBYk8r9AiWNc
MD5:          $1$rasmusle$rISCgZzpwk3UhDidwXvin0
Blowfish:     $2a$07$usesomesillystringfore2uDLvp1Ii2e./U9C8sBjqp8I90dH6hi
SHA-256:      $5$rounds=5000$usesomesillystri$KqJWpanXZHKq2BOB43TSaYhEWsQ1Lr5QNyPCDH/Tp.6
SHA-512:      $6$rounds=5000$usesomesillystri$D4IrlXatmP7rx3P3InaxBeoomnAihCKRVQP22JZ6EY47Wc6BkroIuUUBOov1i.S5KPgErtP/EN5mcO.ChWQW21

Notes

Note: There is no decrypt function, since crypt() uses a one-way algorithm.


Password hashing should be done only with crypt and NEVER with SHA* and MD5 or hash(). The fundamental reason is that crypt is designed to be SLOW which is a VERY good thing for password hashing.





It also automatically generate a salt every time which makes pre-computed tables to "decrypt" passwords useless (the generated salt is stored in the returned string for convenience).

chris at ocportal dot com 29-Mar-2012 10:49


If you need to support older versions of PHP be aware that constants such as CRYPT_BLOWFISH may not actually be defined. So rather than following Example #3, you need a defined('CRYPT_...') call there before checking the constant's value.

harry at simans dot net 27-Sep-2011 05:34


I made a nice little wrapper function for crypt():





<?php


function hasher($info, $encdata = false)


{


  $strength = "08";


  //if encrypted data is passed, check it against input ($info)


  if ($encdata) {


    if (substr($encdata, 0, 60) == crypt($info, "$2a$".$strength."$".substr($encdata, 60))) {


      return true;


    }


    else {


      return false;


    }


  }


  else {


  //make a salt and hash it with input, and add salt to end


  $salt = "";


  for ($i = 0; $i < 22; $i++) {


    $salt .= substr("./ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789", mt_rand(0, 63), 1);


  }


  //return 82 char string (60 char hash & 22 char salt)


return crypt($info, "$2a$".$strength."$".$salt).$salt;


}


}


?>





This wrapper will accept a string as input and hash it, and output the hash result of the string and salt together, plus the salt added on the end. You can then store that output in a db, and pass it on to the function as the 2nd parameter when you go to verify it, along with the user input or whatever as the first.





Examples:





<?php


$hash = hasher($userinput);


if ($hash == hasher($userinput, $hash) {//authed}


?>





Neat huh?

kaminski at istori dot com 05-Feb-2011 03:43


Here is an expression to generate pseudorandom salt for the CRYPT_BLOWFISH hash type:



<?php $salt = substr(str_replace('+', '.', base64_encode(pack('N4', mt_rand(), mt_rand(), mt_rand(), mt_rand()))), 0, 22); ?>



It is intended for use on systems where mt_getrandmax() == 2147483647.



The salt created will be 128 bits in length, padded to 132 bits and then expressed in 22 base64 characters.  (CRYPT_BLOWFISH only uses 128 bits for the salt, even though there are 132 bits in 22 base64 characters.  If you examine the CRYPT_BLOWFISH input and output, you can see that it ignores the last four bits on input, and sets them to zero on output.)



Note that the high-order bits of the four 32-bit dwords returned by mt_rand() will always be zero (since mt_getrandmax == 2^31), so only 124 of the 128 bits will be pseudorandom.  I found that acceptable for my application.

php at nospam dot nowhere dot com 26-Aug-2009 08:21


The makesalt() function code below when used to create an MD5 salt, produces a salt with characters not typically in a salt used by operating system crypt functions.  Some of these characters may have unintended side effects depending on how they are used - including the following: @ ` ~ \ | {}.



I am using the following to create MD5-Crypt hashes, (yes, I am assuming CRYPT_MD5 support is present).



<?php

function md5crypt($password){

    // create a salt that ensures crypt creates an md5 hash

    $base64_alphabet='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'

                    .'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/';

    $salt='$1$';

    for($i=0; $i<9; $i++){

        $salt.=$base64_alphabet[rand(0,63)];

    }

    // return the crypt md5 password

    return crypt($password,$salt.'$');

}

?>

mikey_nich (at) hotmáil . com 04-Mar-2007 07:47


Are you using Apache2 on f.i. WinXP and want to create .htpasswd files via php? Then you need to use the APR1-MD5 encryption method. Here is a function for that:



<?php



function crypt_apr1_md5($plainpasswd) {

    $salt = substr(str_shuffle("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789"), 0, 8);

    $len = strlen($plainpasswd);

    $text = $plainpasswd.'$apr1$'.$salt;

    $bin = pack("H32", md5($plainpasswd.$salt.$plainpasswd));

    for($i = $len; $i > 0; $i -= 16) { $text .= substr($bin, 0, min(16, $i)); }

    for($i = $len; $i > 0; $i >>= 1) { $text .= ($i & 1) ? chr(0) : $plainpasswd{0}; }

    $bin = pack("H32", md5($text));

    for($i = 0; $i < 1000; $i++) {

        $new = ($i & 1) ? $plainpasswd : $bin;

        if ($i % 3) $new .= $salt;

        if ($i % 7) $new .= $plainpasswd;

        $new .= ($i & 1) ? $bin : $plainpasswd;

        $bin = pac