cpython/Doc/library/hmac.rst

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:mod:`hmac` --- Keyed-Hashing for Message Authentication
========================================================
.. module:: hmac
:synopsis: Keyed-Hashing for Message Authentication (HMAC) implementation
for Python.
.. moduleauthor:: Gerhard Häring <ghaering@users.sourceforge.net>
.. sectionauthor:: Gerhard Häring <ghaering@users.sourceforge.net>
**Source code:** :source:`Lib/hmac.py`
--------------
This module implements the HMAC algorithm as described by :rfc:`2104`.
.. function:: new(key, msg=None, digestmod=None)
Return a new hmac object. *key* is a bytes object giving the secret key. If
*msg* is present, the method call ``update(msg)`` is made. *digestmod* is
the digest constructor or module for the HMAC object to use. It defaults to
the :func:`hashlib.md5` constructor.
An HMAC object has the following methods:
.. method:: HMAC.update(msg)
Update the hmac object with the bytes object *msg*. Repeated calls are
equivalent to a single call with the concatenation of all the arguments:
``m.update(a); m.update(b)`` is equivalent to ``m.update(a + b)``.
.. method:: HMAC.digest()
Return the digest of the bytes passed to the :meth:`update` method so far.
This bytes object will be the same length as the *digest_size* of the digest
given to the constructor. It may contain non-ASCII bytes, including NUL
bytes.
.. warning::
When comparing the output of :meth:`digest` to an externally-supplied
digest during a verification routine, it is recommended to use the
:func:`compare_digest` function instead of the ``==`` operator
to reduce the vulnerability to timing attacks.
.. method:: HMAC.hexdigest()
Like :meth:`digest` except the digest is returned as a string twice the
length containing only hexadecimal digits. This may be used to exchange the
value safely in email or other non-binary environments.
.. warning::
The output of :meth:`hexdigest` should not be compared directly to an
externally-supplied digest during a verification routine. Instead, the
externally supplied digest should be converted to a :class:`bytes`
value and compared to the output of :meth:`digest` with
:func:`compare_digest`.
.. method:: HMAC.copy()
Return a copy ("clone") of the hmac object. This can be used to efficiently
compute the digests of strings that share a common initial substring.
This module also provides the following helper function:
.. function:: compare_digest(a, b)
Returns the equivalent of ``a == b``, but avoids content based
short circuiting behaviour to reduce the vulnerability to timing
analysis. The inputs must be :class:`bytes` instances.
Using a short circuiting comparison (that is, one that terminates as soon
as it finds any difference between the values) to check digests for
correctness can be problematic, as it introduces a potential
vulnerability when an attacker can control both the message to be checked
*and* the purported signature value. By keeping the plaintext consistent
and supplying different signature values, an attacker may be able to use
timing variations to search the signature space for the expected value in
O(n) time rather than the desired O(2**n).
.. note::
While this function reduces the likelihood of leaking the contents of
the expected digest via a timing attack, it still uses short circuiting
behaviour based on the *length* of the inputs. It is assumed that the
expected length of the digest is not a secret, as it is typically
published as part of a file format, network protocol or API definition.
.. versionadded:: 3.3
.. seealso::
Module :mod:`hashlib`
The Python module providing secure hash functions.