3.5.2 Hashes of passwords

For the important case of deriving hashes from passwords, the following specialised predicates are provided:

[semidet]crypto_password_hash(+Password, ?Hash)

If Hash is instantiated, the predicate succeeds iff the hash matches the given password. Otherwise, the call is equivalent to crypto_password_hash(Password, Hash, []) and computes a password-based hash using the default options.

[det]crypto_password_hash(+Password, -Hash, +Options)

Derive Hash based on Password. This predicate is similar to crypto_data_hash/3 in that it derives a hash from given data. However, it is tailored for the specific use case of passwords. One essential distinction is that for this use case, the derivation of a hash should be as slow as possible to counteract brute-force attacks over possible passwords.

Another important distinction is that equal passwords must yield, with very high probability, different hashes. For this reason, cryptographically strong random numbers are automatically added to the password before a hash is derived.

Hash is unified with an atom that contains the computed hash and all parameters that were used, except for the password. Instead of storing passwords, store these hashes. Later, you can verify the validity of a password with crypto_password_hash/2, comparing the then entered password to the stored hash. If you need to export this atom, you should treat it as opaque ASCII data with up to 255 bytes of length. The maximal length may increase in the future.

Admissible options are:

algorithm(+Algorithm)

The algorithm to use. Currently, the only available algorithms are pbkdf2-sha512 (the default) and bcrypt.

cost(+C)

C is an integer, denoting the binary logarithm of the number of iterations used for the derivation of the hash. This means that the number of iterations is set to 2^C. Currently, the default is 17, and thus more than one hundred thousand iterations. You should set this option as high as your server and users can tolerate. The default is subject to change and will likely increase in the future or adapt to new algorithms.

salt(+Salt)

Use the given list of bytes as salt. By default, cryptographically secure random numbers are generated for this purpose. The default is intended to be secure, and constitutes the typical use case of this predicate.

Currently, PBKDF2 with SHA-512 is used as the hash derivation function, using 128 bits of salt. All default parameters, including the algorithm, are subject to change, and other algorithms will also become available in the future. Since computed hashes store all parameters that were used during their derivation, such changes will not affect the operation of existing deployments. Note though that new hashes will then be computed with the new default parameters.

See also

crypto_data_hkdf/4 for generating keys from Hash.