create-ecdh

What is create-ecdh?

The create-ecdh npm package is a library that provides an interface for creating Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) key pairs. It is used to securely exchange cryptographic keys over a public channel and is commonly used in the implementation of secure communication protocols.

What are create-ecdh's main functionalities?

Key Pair Generation

This feature allows the generation of ECDH key pairs, which can be used for secure key exchange.

const createECDH = require('create-ecdh');
const ecdh = createECDH('secp256k1');
ecdh.generateKeys();

Compute Shared Secret

Using this feature, one can compute a shared secret given the other party's public key, which can then be used to derive encryption keys for secure communication.

const theirPublicKey = Buffer.from('their public key hex', 'hex');
const sharedSecret = ecdh.computeSecret(theirPublicKey);

Get Public Key

This feature retrieves the public key of the generated ECDH key pair, which can be shared with the other party.

const publicKey = ecdh.getPublicKey();

Set Private Key

This feature sets the private key for the ECDH instance, which can be used to compute the shared secret or regenerate the public key.

const privateKey = Buffer.from('your private key hex', 'hex');
ecdh.setPrivateKey(privateKey);

Other packages similar to create-ecdh

elliptic

Elliptic is a package that provides a general implementation of elliptic curve cryptography, including ECDH. It offers more comprehensive functionality for elliptic curve operations compared to create-ecdh.

node-forge

Node-forge is a package that includes a wide range of cryptographic operations, including ECDH. It is more extensive than create-ecdh, as it covers other cryptographic mechanisms like RSA, MD5, SHA, and more.

crypto

Crypto is a built-in Node.js module that provides cryptographic functionality, including ECDH. It is directly integrated into Node.js and does not require additional installation, unlike create-ecdh.

README

createECDH

In io.js or node >= 0.11 this module is just a shortcut to crypto.createECDH. In node <= 0.11 or the browser this is a pure JavaScript implimentation, more specifically a wrapper around elliptic, to give it the same API as node. secp256k1, secp224r1 (aka p224), prime256v1 (aka p256, secp256r1), prime192v1 (aka p192, secp192r1), secp384r1 (aka p384), secp521r1 (aka p521) curves all work in both this library and node (though only the highlighted name will work in node).