diffie-hellman

What is diffie-hellman?

The diffie-hellman npm package is a utility for performing Diffie-Hellman key exchange, a method of securely exchanging cryptographic keys over a public channel. This package is particularly useful for creating secure communication channels between two parties without the need to exchange or reveal private keys directly.

What are diffie-hellman's main functionalities?

Generate Diffie-Hellman Keys

This code sample demonstrates how to generate Diffie-Hellman keys using the crypto module in Node.js, which includes the diffie-hellman package functionality. Alice and Bob each generate their keys independently.

const crypto = require('crypto');
const alice = crypto.createDiffieHellman(2048);
const aliceKeys = alice.generateKeys();
const bob = crypto.createDiffieHellman(alice.getPrime(), alice.getGenerator());
bob.generateKeys();

Compute Secret

This code snippet shows how Alice and Bob compute a shared secret using their respective private keys and the other party's public key. The resulting secrets (aliceSecret and bobSecret) should be the same and can be used to encrypt further communication.

const aliceSecret = alice.computeSecret(bob.getPublicKey(), null, 'hex');
const bobSecret = bob.computeSecret(alice.getPublicKey(), null, 'hex');

Other packages similar to diffie-hellman

node-forge

node-forge is a comprehensive Node.js module that includes functionality for creating Diffie-Hellman key exchanges, similar to diffie-hellman. It also offers a wider range of cryptographic operations such as encryption, decryption, and digital signatures, making it more versatile but potentially heavier if only Diffie-Hellman functionality is needed.

elliptic

elliptic is a package that provides implementations of elliptic curve cryptography, including ECDH (Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman). While diffie-hellman focuses on traditional finite field Diffie-Hellman, elliptic supports a broader range of curves and thus can be more suitable for modern cryptographic needs that prefer elliptic curve methods.

README

diffie hellman

pure js diffie-hellman, same api as node, most hard parts thanks to bn.js by @indutny. In node just returns an object with crypto.createDiffieHellman and crypto.getDiffieHellman in the browser returns a shim. To require the pure JavaScript one in node require('diffie-hellman/browser');;