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=head1 TITLE
crypt() default salt
=head1 VERSION
Maintainer: Mark Dominus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 11 Sep 2000
Mailing List: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Number: 208
Version: 1
Status: Developing
=head1 ABSTRACT
A frequently-asked question is how to generate an appropaite random
salt for password encryption. I propose that Perl generate the salt
automatically if the salt argument is omitted in the call to crypt().
=head1 DESCRIPTION
At present, crypt() requires two arguments:
crypt PLAINTEXT,SALT
It then passes these arguments directly to the C library crypt()
function.
When encrypting a new password, the programmer is required to generate
a salt at random:
@letters = ('A' .. 'Z', 'a' .. 'z', '0' .. '9', '/', '.');
$salt = $letters[rand@letters] . $letters[rand@letters];
$passwd = crypt($passwd, $salt);
This is inconvenient and nonportable. It's also nonobvious: people
frequently ask in the newsgroups how to do it. I propose that if the
SALT argument is omitted, Perl should generate an appropriate salt
internally and use that.
$passwd = crypt($passwd); # Same as above
On systems where the password format is different, Perl can do the
appropriate thing.
=head1 IMPLEMENTATION
For the standard DES-based crypt, the implementation is
straightforward trivial. Perl already has many functions that take an
optional argument, and the C internals of the random-salt generator
are well-known.
Details will vary for systems using alternative password hashing
schemes. On some systems, no salt need be generated. These can be
taken care of with a suitably ifdef'ed section of code if necessary.
If the random number generator has not yet been seeded, Perl should
seed it.
=head1 MIGRATION
C<crypt()> with only one argument is presently a compile-time error,
so there are probably few translation issues. The meaning of this
program will change:
$" = ', ';
$code = "crypt(@ARGV)";
eval $code;
die $@ if $@;
But I don't think this is anything to worry about---it should fall
into the "other 5%" category.
=head1 REFERENCES
perlfunc manpage for discussion of crypt()
crypt(3)
