Hi,
What do you think about adding PHPass compatibility to the password hashing
API ?
We could add two new algos : PASSWORD_MD5 and PASSWORD_EXT_DES.
That way, existing password crypted using phpass ($P$, $H$, _* prefix)
could be verified using the password hashing API.
PHPass implementation could then be merged with
https://github.com/ircmaxell/password_compat to provide a forward
compatible PHP Implementation for users without PHP5.5.
?
Nicolas
Nicolas:
On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 7:33 AM, Nicolas Grekas <
nicolas.grekas+php@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
What do you think about adding PHPass compatibility to the password hashing
API ?
We could add two new algos : PASSWORD_MD5 and PASSWORD_EXT_DES.
That way, existing password crypted using phpass ($P$, $H$, _* prefix)
could be verified using the password hashing API.
PHPass implementation could then be merged with
https://github.com/ircmaxell/password_compat to provide a forward
compatible PHP Implementation for users without PHP5.5.
The way password_verify is implemented, it can use any crypt(3) generated
hash for verification. It's just a proxy to crypt() with a few extra checks
(it won't verify STD_DES, as it's too short).
With respect to adding those algorithms for generating hashes, I'm 100%
dead set against it. Both are significantly weaker algorithms than BCrypt.
I'd rather have this API only contain strong algorithms.
As far as merging PHPASS, I don't really see the reason either. It's a
weaker algorithm (by a long shot). And it's not really tested as an
algorithm outside of the PHP community. For versions < 5.3, it's better
than what's trivially available (though PBKDF2 + SHA2 is significantly
better, and easily implementable in 5.2). But for 5.3+ there are a number
of algorithms available that are significantly stronger (SHA256, SHA512,
BCRYPT).
The last thing I want to happen is to give the user the ability to make a
bad choice without knowing any better (which is why BCRYPT is the only
option so far).
If you want to support PHPASS passwords, just write a quick wrapper that
checks the prefix, and if it's PHPASS, hash it with PHPASS, then upgrade
the hash. It's not that difficult to implement...
Anthony
With respect to adding those algorithms for generating hashes, I'm 100%
dead set against it.
Ok, I understand and agree, generating hashes for weaker algos is not a
good idea.
The point I wanted to address was forward/backward compatibility with
existing password databases that use PHPass :
The way password_verify is implemented, it can use any crypt(3) generated
hash for verification.
So forward/backward backward compatibility is granted for CRYPT_EXT_DES,
well done.
Still, for md5 based hashes ($P$/$H$ prefixes), crypt() doesn't work.
What about handling these schemes only in password_verify() ?
I think that could help a lot on adoption rate for the new API, easing the
transition for current phpass users.
Nicolas