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CRYPT(3)		   Linux Programmer's Manual		      CRYPT(3)

NAME
       crypt, crypt_r - password and data encryption

SYNOPSIS
       #define _XOPEN_SOURCE	   /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
       #include <unistd.h>

       char *crypt(const char *key, const char *salt);

       #define _GNU_SOURCE	   /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
       #include <crypt.h>

       char *crypt_r(const char *key, const char *salt,
		     struct crypt_data *data);

       Link with -lcrypt.

DESCRIPTION
       crypt()	is  the password encryption function.  It is based on the Data
       Encryption Standard algorithm with  variations  intended	 (among	 other
       things) to discourage use of hardware implementations of a key search.

       key is a user's typed password.

       salt is a two-character string chosen from the set [a-zA-Z0-9./].  This
       string is used to perturb the algorithm in one of 4096 different ways.

       By taking the lowest 7 bits of each of the first	 eight	characters  of
       the  key, a 56-bit key is obtained.  This 56-bit key is used to encrypt
       repeatedly a constant  string  (usually	a  string  consisting  of  all
       zeros).	 The returned value points to the encrypted password, a series
       of 13 printable ASCII characters (the first  two	 characters  represent
       the salt itself).  The return value points to static data whose content
       is overwritten by each call.

       Warning: The key space consists of 2**56 equal 7.2e16 possible  values.
       Exhaustive searches of this key space are possible using massively par‐
       allel computers.	 Software, such as crack(1), is available  which  will
       search  the  portion of this key space that is generally used by humans
       for passwords.  Hence, password selection  should,  at  minimum,	 avoid
       common words and names.	The use of a passwd(1) program that checks for
       crackable passwords during the selection process is recommended.

       The DES algorithm itself has a few quirks which make  the  use  of  the
       crypt()	interface  a very poor choice for anything other than password
       authentication.	If you are planning on using the crypt() interface for
       a  cryptography project, don't do it: get a good book on encryption and
       one of the widely available DES libraries.

       crypt_r() is a reentrant version of crypt().  The structure pointed  to
       by  data	 is  used  to  store  result data and bookkeeping information.
       Other than allocating it, the only thing that the caller should do with
       this  structure	is  to	set data->initialized to zero before the first
       call to crypt_r().

RETURN VALUE
       On success, a pointer to the encrypted password is returned.  On error,
       NULL is returned.

ERRORS
       EINVAL salt has the wrong format.

       ENOSYS The   crypt()  function  was  not	 implemented,  probably
	      because of U.S.A. export restrictions.

       EPERM  /proc/sys/crypto/fips_enabled has a nonzero value, and an
	      attempt  was  made to use a weak encryption type, such as
	      DES.

ATTRIBUTES
   Multithreading (see pthreads(7))
       The crypt() function is not thread-safe.

       The crypt_r() function is thread-safe.

CONFORMING TO
       crypt(): SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.  crypt_r() is a GNU	 exten‐
       sion.

NOTES
   Glibc notes
       The  glibc2 version of this function supports additional encryp‐
       tion algorithms.

       If salt is a  character	string	starting  with	the  characters
       "$id$" followed by a string terminated by "$":

	      $id$salt$encrypted

       then instead of using the DES machine, id identifies the encryp‐
       tion method used and this then determines how the  rest	of  the
       password	 string is interpreted.	 The following values of id are
       supported:

	      ID  | Method
	      ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
	      1	  | MD5
	      2a  | Blowfish (not in mainline glibc; added in some
		  | Linux distributions)
	      5	  | SHA-256 (since glibc 2.7)
	      6	  | SHA-512 (since glibc 2.7)

       So  $5$salt$encrypted  is  an  SHA-256  encoded	 password   and
       $6$salt$encrypted is an SHA-512 encoded one.

       "salt"  stands  for  the up to 16 characters following "$id$" in
       the salt.  The encrypted part of	 the  password	string	is  the
       actual computed password.  The size of this string is fixed:

       MD5     | 22 characters
       SHA-256 | 43 characters
       SHA-512 | 86 characters

       The  characters in "salt" and "encrypted" are drawn from the set
       [a-zA-Z0-9./].  In the MD5 and SHA  implementations  the	 entire
       key is significant (instead of only the first 8 bytes in DES).

SEE ALSO
       login(1), passwd(1), encrypt(3), getpass(3), passwd(5)

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part  of	 release  3.65	of  the Linux man-pages
       project.	 A description of the project,	and  information  about
       reporting	bugs,	     can	be	 found	     at
       http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

				  2014-02-26			      CRYPT(3)
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