Argon2 in browser

Argon2 is a password-hashing function, the winner of Password Hashing Competition. Here Argon2 library is compiled for browser runtime.

Live demo

More about Argon2

Usage

The numbers

	Time, ms (lower is better)
Chrome WASM	225
Chrome WASM+SIMD	119
Firefox WASM	195
Firefox WASM+SIMD	135
Safari WASM	174
Native -O3 SSE	15
Native -O3	42
Native -O1	55
Native -O0	395

Test Environment

Environment used to get the numbers above:

Algorithm parameters (-d -t 100 -m 10 -p 1):

• iterations: 100
• memory: 1MiB (1024 KiB)
• hash length: 32
• parallelism: 1
• argon2d

Environment:

• MacBook pro 2020, Intel Core i7, 2.3GHz (x64), macOS 10.14.6 (18G95)
• Chrome 85.0.4183.83 (Official Build)
• Firefox 80.0.1
• Safari 13.1.2 (15609.3.5.1.3)
• native argon2 compiled from https://github.com/P-H-C/phc-winner-argon2 @440ceb9

Code size

ll -h dist

File	Code size, kB
argon2.js	14
argon2.wasm	25

Is Argon2 modified?

No, it's used a submodule from upstream.

SIMD

SIMD is not quite here in WebAssembly, however for those who would like to give it a try, we already provide a working build with SIMD. At the moment it works only in Chrome, to be able to use it, you need to either add this origin trial to your website, or enable the SIMD feature in Chrome flags.

More about WebAssembly SIMD support in V8: https://v8.dev/features/simd

On Firefox you need to enable javascript.options.wasm_simd option in about:config.

To use the SIMD version, load argon2-simd.wasm instead of argon2.wasm.

JS Library

The library can be installed from npm:

npm install argon2-browser

Then add this script to your HTML or use your favorite bundler:

<script src="node_modules/argon2-browser/lib/argon2.js"></script>

Alternatively, you can use the bundled version, this way you can include just one script:

<script src="node_modules/argon2-browser/dist/argon2-bundled.js"></script>

Calculate the hash:

argon2.hash({ pass: 'password', salt: 'somesalt' })
    .then(h => console.log(h.hash, h.hashHex, h.encoded))
    .catch(e => console.error(e.message, e.code))

Verify the encoded hash (if you need it):

argon2.verify({ pass: 'password', encoded: 'enc-hash' })
    .then(() => console.log('OK'))
    .catch(e => console.error(e.message, e.code))

Other parameters:

argon2.hash({
    // required
    pass: 'password',
    salt: 'salt',
    // optional
    time: 1, // the number of iterations
    mem: 1024, // used memory, in KiB
    hashLen: 24, // desired hash length
    parallelism: 1, // desired parallelism (it won't be computed in parallel, however)
    secret: new Uint8Array([...]), // optional secret data
    ad: new Uint8Array([...]), // optional associated data
    type: argon2.ArgonType.Argon2d, // Argon2d, Argon2i, Argon2id
})
// result
.then(res => {
    res.hash // hash as Uint8Array
    res.hashHex // hash as hex-string
    res.encoded // encoded hash, as required by argon2
})
// or error
.catch(err => {
    err.message // error message as string, if available
    err.code // numeric error code
})

argon2.verify({
    // required
    pass: 'password',
    encoded: 'enc-hash',
    // optional
    secret: new Uint8Array([...]), // optional secret data
    ad: new Uint8Array([...]), // optional associated data
    type: argon2.ArgonType.Argon2d, // Argon2d, Argon2i, Argon2id. default: guess
})
// result
.then(res => {
    res.hash // hash as Uint8Array
    res.hashHex // hash as hex-string
    res.encoded // encoded hash, as required by argon2
})
// or error
.catch(err => {
    err.message // error message as string, if available
    err.code // numeric error code
})

Usage

You can use this module in several ways:

1. write the WASM loader manually, for example, if you need more control over memory (example);
2. bundle it with WebPack or another bundler (example);
3. in vanilla js: example;
4. in node.js: example (see a note below).

Bundlers

• WebPack: examples/webpack
• create-react-app: examples/react. Derived from #38

Node.js support

Of course you can use generated WASM in node.js, but it's not sensible: you will get much better speed by compiling it as a native node.js addon, which is not that hard. Wait, it's already done, just install this package.

Is it used anywhere?

It is! KeeWeb (web-based password manager) is using it as a password hashing function implementation. Check out the source code, if you're interested.

Building

You can build everything with

./build.sh

Prerequisites:

• emscripten with WebAssembly support (howto)
• CMake

License

MIT