On 06/24/2012 04:34 AM, Stefan Fritsch wrote:
> On Sunday 24 June 2012, Graham Leggett wrote:
>> On 24 Jun 2012, at 12:01 AM, Stefan Fritsch wrote:
>>> Openssl is not required, neither for apr nor for httpd. I propose
>>> to import either crypt_blowfish or scrypt into apr, just like
>>> apr contains some foreign sha1 and md5 code. This way we would
>>> not get an additional external dependency.
>>
>> APR-util has a crypto library to deal with this exact problem - the
>> need for low level crypto functions without having to tightly bind
>> ourselves to one toolkit over another, or import code. With the
>> formal move by the Redhat people towards NSS as a shared crypto
>> API, this becomes more important as time goes by.
>>
>> Ideally, like we have a generic synchronous encryption API, we
>> should have a generic hash API too, so that the user can use
>> whatever hash that the underlying toolkit provides.
> 
> I rather like the fact that you can use htpasswd on one system and use 
> the result on another system, regardless of the operating system. If 
> we are willing to give that up, we may just make htpasswd use the more 
> advanced schemes offered by the system's crypt() function.

One complication to keep in mind: when you don't do all your
cryptography via a specific crypto library (OpenSSL, NSS, etc.) then
FIPS 140-2 compliance goes from trivial (for 2.4) to messy. Not
generally a problem outside of the U.S., but it very much matters
anywhere in the U.S. government market.

-Steve M.

-- 
Steve Marquess
OpenSSL Software Foundation, Inc.
1829 Mount Ephraim Road
Adamstown, MD  21710
USA
+1 877 673 6775 s/b
+1 301 874 2571 direct
[email protected]
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