What is hmac-drbg?
The hmac-drbg npm package is an implementation of the HMAC-based Deterministic Random Bit Generator (DRBG) as specified in NIST SP 800-90A. It is used to generate cryptographically secure pseudo-random numbers (CSPRNG) suitable for cryptographic applications.
What are hmac-drbg's main functionalities?
Creating an HMAC-DRBG instance
This code sample demonstrates how to create a new instance of HMAC-DRBG using the SHA-256 hash function, with specified entropy, nonce, and personalization string.
const HmacDrbg = require('hmac-drbg');
const hash = require('hash.js');
const drbg = new HmacDrbg({
hash: hash.sha256,
entropy: 'stringsourceofentropy',
nonce: 'nonce',
pers: 'personalizationstring'
});
Generating random bytes
Once an HMAC-DRBG instance is created, this code sample shows how to generate 16 bytes of random data.
const randomBytes = drbg.generate(16);
console.log(randomBytes);
Other packages similar to hmac-drbg
randombytes
The randombytes package provides a way to generate cryptographically strong random bytes. Unlike hmac-drbg, it does not implement the HMAC-DRBG algorithm, but it uses Node.js's crypto.randomBytes or the browser's crypto.getRandomValues.
uuid
The uuid package can generate unique identifiers using random or pseudo-random numbers. While it is not a direct alternative to HMAC-DRBG, it is another example of a package that uses random number generation for cryptographic purposes.
crypto-js
Crypto-js is a package with various cryptographic algorithms implemented in JavaScript, including hash functions, HMAC, and ciphers. It does not specifically provide an HMAC-DRBG implementation, but it offers building blocks for cryptographic operations.
hmac-drbg

JS-only implementation of HMAC DRBG.
Usage
const DRBG = require('hmac-drbg');
const hash = require('hash.js');
const d = new DRBG({
hash: hash.sha256,
entropy: '0123456789abcdef',
nonce: '0123456789abcdef',
pers: '0123456789abcdef'
});
d.generate(32, 'hex');
LICENSE
This software is licensed under the MIT License.
Copyright Fedor Indutny, 2017.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit
persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the
following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN
NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM,
DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR
OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE
USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.