argon2

What is argon2?

The argon2 npm package is a library for hashing passwords using the Argon2 algorithm, which is a modern, secure, and memory-hard hashing algorithm. It is designed to be resistant to GPU cracking attacks and is considered one of the most secure password hashing algorithms available.

What are argon2's main functionalities?

Hashing a password

This feature allows you to hash a password using the Argon2 algorithm. The hash function takes a plain text password and returns a hashed version of it.

const argon2 = require('argon2');
(async () => {
  try {
    const hash = await argon2.hash('password');
    console.log(hash);
  } catch (err) {
    console.error(err);
  }
})();

Verifying a password

This feature allows you to verify a password against a previously hashed password. The verify function takes a hash and a plain text password and returns a boolean indicating whether the password matches the hash.

const argon2 = require('argon2');
(async () => {
  try {
    const hash = await argon2.hash('password');
    const isMatch = await argon2.verify(hash, 'password');
    console.log(isMatch); // true
  } catch (err) {
    console.error(err);
  }
})();

Configuring hashing options

This feature allows you to configure various options for the hashing process, such as the type of Argon2 algorithm to use (argon2d, argon2i, or argon2id), memory cost, time cost, and parallelism.

const argon2 = require('argon2');
(async () => {
  try {
    const hash = await argon2.hash('password', {
      type: argon2.argon2id,
      memoryCost: 2 ** 16,
      timeCost: 5,
      parallelism: 1
    });
    console.log(hash);
  } catch (err) {
    console.error(err);
  }
})();

Other packages similar to argon2

bcrypt

bcrypt is a popular password hashing library that uses the bcrypt algorithm. It is widely used and has been around for a long time. While bcrypt is still considered secure, Argon2 is generally considered to be more secure due to its resistance to GPU cracking attacks and its memory-hard properties.

pbkdf2

pbkdf2 is a password hashing library that uses the PBKDF2 algorithm. It is part of the cryptographic library in Node.js and is widely used. However, PBKDF2 is not memory-hard and is considered less secure than Argon2 for password hashing purposes.

scrypt

scrypt is a password hashing library that uses the scrypt algorithm. It is designed to be memory-hard and is considered secure. However, Argon2 is generally considered to be more secure and efficient than scrypt, and it has been recommended by various security experts and organizations.

README

node-argon2

Bindings to the reference Argon2 implementation.

Want to use it on the command line? Instead check node-argon2-cli.

Usage

It's possible to hash using either Argon2i, Argon2d or Argon2id (default), and verify if a password matches a hash.

To hash a password:

const argon2 = require('argon2');

try {
  const hash = await argon2.hash("password");
} catch (err) {
  //...
}

To see how you can modify the output (hash length, encoding) and parameters (time cost, memory cost and parallelism), read the wiki

To verify a password:

try {
  if (await argon2.verify("<big long hash>", "password")) {
    // password match
  } else {
    // password did not match
  }
} catch (err) {
  // internal failure
}

Migrating from another hash function

See this article on the wiki for steps on how to migrate your existing code to Argon2. It's easy!

TypeScript usage

A TypeScript type declaration file is published with this module. If you are using TypeScript 2.0.0 or later, that means you do not need to install any additional typings in order to get access to the strongly typed interface. Simply use the library as mentioned above.

import * as argon2 from "argon2";

const hash = await argon2.hash(..);

Prebuilt binaries

node-argon2 provides prebuilt binaries from v0.26.0 onwards. They are built every release using GitHub Actions.

The current prebuilt binaries are built and tested with the following systems:

• Ubuntu 20.04 (x86-64; ARM64 from v0.28.2)
• MacOS 11 (x86-64)
• MacOS 12 (ARM64 from v0.29.0)
• Windows Server 2019 (x86-64)
• Alpine Linux 3.18 (x86-64 from v0.28.1; ARM64 from v0.28.2)
• FreeBSD 14 (x86-64 from v0.29.1)

Binaries should also work for any version more recent than the ones listed above. For example, the binary for Ubuntu 20.04 also works on Ubuntu 22.04, or any other Linux system that ships a newer version of glibc; the binary for MacOS 11 also works on MacOS 12. If your platform is below the above requirements, you can follow the Before installing section below to manually compile from source. It is also always recommended to build from source to ensure consistency of the compiled module.

Before installing

You can skip this section if the prebuilt binaries work for you.

You MUST have a node-gyp global install before proceeding with the install, along with GCC >= 5 / Clang >= 3.3. On Windows, you must compile under Visual Studio 2015 or newer.

node-argon2 works only and is tested against Node >=18.0.0.

OSX

To install GCC >= 5 on OSX, use homebrew:

$ brew install gcc

Once you've got GCC installed and ready to run, you then need to install node-gyp, you must do this globally:

$ npm install -g node-gyp

Finally, once node-gyp is installed and ready to go, you can install this library, specifying the GCC or Clang binary to use:

$ CXX=g++-12 npm install argon2

NOTE: If your GCC or Clang binary is named something different than g++-12, you'll need to specify that in the command.

FAQ

How do I manually rebuild the binaries?

$ npx @mapbox/node-pre-gyp rebuild -C ./node_modules/argon2

Run @mapbox/node-pre-gyp instead of node-gyp because node-argon2's binding.gyp file relies on variables from @mapbox/node-pre-gyp.

You can omit npx @mapbox and use just node-pre-gyp if you have a global installation of @mapbox/node-pre-gyp, otherwise prefixing npx will use the local one in ./node_modules/.bin

How do I skip installing prebuilt binaries and manually compile from source?

You can do either of the two methods below:

1. Force build from source on install.

$ npm install argon2 --build-from-source

1. Ignore node-argon2 install script and build manually.

$ npm install argon2 --ignore-scripts
$ npx @mapbox/node-pre-gyp rebuild -C ./node_modules/argon2

I installed Node as a snap, and I can't install node-argon2.

This seems to be an issue related to snap (see #345 (comment)). Installing Node with another package manager, such as asdf or nvm, is a possible workaround.

Differences from node-argon2-ffi

The interface of both are very similar, notably, node-argon2-ffi splits the argon2i and argon2d function set, but this module also has the argon2id option, which node-argon2-ffi does not support. Also, while node-argon2-ffi suggests you promisify crypto.randomBytes, node-argon2 library does that internally.

node-argon2 is much lighter than node-argon2-ffi, at 184 KB for argon2@0.29.1 against 2.56 MB for argon2-ffi@1.2.0. Performance-wise, the libraries are equal. You can run the same benchmark suite if you are curious, but both can perform around 130 hashes/second on an Intel Core i5-4460 @ 3.2GHz with default options.

This library is implemented natively, meaning it is an extension to the node engine. Thus, half of the code is C++ bindings, the other half is Javascript functions. node-argon2-ffi uses ffi, a mechanism to call functions from one language in another, and handles the type bindings (e.g. JS Number -> C++ int).

Contributors

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License

Work licensed under the MIT License. Please check P-H-C/phc-winner-argon2 for license over Argon2 and the reference implementation.