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 p-224), prime256v1 (aka p-256, secp256r1), prime192v1 (aka p-192, secp192r1) curves all work in both this library and node (though only the highlighted name will work in node).