Method: String#crypt

Defined in:

string.c

#crypt(salt_str) ⇒ Object

Returns the string generated by calling crypt(3) standard library function with str and salt_str, in this order, as its arguments. Please do not use this method any longer. It is legacy; provided only for backward compatibility with ruby scripts in earlier days. It is bad to use in contemporary programs for several reasons:

• Behaviour of C’s crypt(3) depends on the OS it is run. The generated string lacks data portability.

• On some OSes such as Mac OS, crypt(3) never fails (i.e. silently ends up in unexpected results).

• On some OSes such as Mac OS, crypt(3) is not thread safe.

• So-called “traditional” usage of crypt(3) is very very very weak. According to its manpage, Linux’s traditional crypt(3) output has only 2**56 variations; too easy to brute force today. And this is the default behaviour.

• In order to make things robust some OSes implement so-called “modular” usage. To go through, you have to do a complex build-up of the salt_str parameter, by hand. Failure in generation of a proper salt string tends not to yield any errors; typos in parameters are normally not detectable.

  • For instance, in the following example, the second invocation of String#crypt is wrong; it has a typo in “round=” (lacks “s”). However the call does not fail and something unexpected is generated.

    "foo".crypt("$5$rounds=1000$salt$") # OK, proper usage
    "foo".crypt("$5$round=1000$salt$")  # Typo not detected
    

• Even in the “modular” mode, some hash functions are considered archaic and no longer recommended at all; for instance module $1$ is officially abandoned by its author: see phk.freebsd.dk/sagas/md5crypt_eol/ . For another instance module $3$ is considered completely broken: see the manpage of FreeBSD.

• On some OS such as Mac OS, there is no modular mode. Yet, as written above, crypt(3) on Mac OS never fails. This means even if you build up a proper salt string it generates a traditional DES hash anyways, and there is no way for you to be aware of.

  "foo".crypt("$5$rounds=1000$salt$") # => "$5fNPQMxC5j6."
  

If for some reason you cannot migrate to other secure contemporary password hashing algorithms, install the string-crypt gem and require 'string/crypt' to continue using it.

# File 'string.c', line 10715

static VALUE
rb_str_crypt(VALUE str, VALUE salt)
{
#ifdef HAVE_CRYPT_R
    VALUE databuf;
    struct crypt_data *data;
#   define CRYPT_END() ALLOCV_END(databuf)
#else
    extern char *crypt(const char *, const char *);
#   define CRYPT_END() rb_nativethread_lock_unlock(&crypt_mutex.lock)
#endif
    VALUE result;
    const char *s, *saltp;
    char *res;
#ifdef BROKEN_CRYPT
    char salt_8bit_clean[3];
#endif

    StringValue(salt);
    mustnot_wchar(str);
    mustnot_wchar(salt);
    s = StringValueCStr(str);
    saltp = RSTRING_PTR(salt);
    if (RSTRING_LEN(salt) < 2 || !saltp[0] || !saltp[1]) {
        rb_raise(rb_eArgError, "salt too short (need >=2 bytes)");
    }

#ifdef BROKEN_CRYPT
    if (!ISASCII((unsigned char)saltp[0]) || !ISASCII((unsigned char)saltp[1])) {
        salt_8bit_clean[0] = saltp[0] & 0x7f;
        salt_8bit_clean[1] = saltp[1] & 0x7f;
        salt_8bit_clean[2] = '\0';
        saltp = salt_8bit_clean;
    }
#endif
#ifdef HAVE_CRYPT_R
    data = ALLOCV(databuf, sizeof(struct crypt_data));
# ifdef HAVE_STRUCT_CRYPT_DATA_INITIALIZED
    data->initialized = 0;
# endif
    res = crypt_r(s, saltp, data);
#else
    crypt_mutex_initialize();
    rb_nativethread_lock_lock(&crypt_mutex.lock);
    res = crypt(s, saltp);
#endif
    if (!res) {
        int err = errno;
        CRYPT_END();
        rb_syserr_fail(err, "crypt");
    }
    result = rb_str_new_cstr(res);
    CRYPT_END();
    return result;
}