password-hash is a node.js library to simplify use of hashed passwords.

Storing passwords in plain-text is bad. This library makes the storing of passwords (and subsequent validation of) hashed passwords a bit easier.

password-hash provides functions for generating a hashed passwords and verifying a plain-text password against a hashed password. For a bit of added strength, a random salt is generated when the password is hashed. The hashed password contains both the cryptographic algorithm that was used as well the salt, so all that is needed to verify a plain-text password is the hashed password itself.

npm install password-hash

Generates a hash of the required password argument. Hashing behavior can be modified with the optional options object:

• algorithm - A valid cryptographic algorithm for use with the crypto.createHmac function, defaults to 'sha1'.
• saltLength - The length of the salt that will be generated when the password is hashed, defaults to 8.
• iterations - The number of times the hashing algorithm should be applied, defaults to 1.

Errors are thrown if:

• password is not a string
• options.algorithm is specified but not a valid cryptographic algorithm
• options.saltLength is specified but not a positive integer

The hashed password will be in the format algorithm$salt$hash.

Example:

    var passwordHash = require('password-hash');

    var hashedPassword = passwordHash.generate('password123');

    console.log(hashedPassword); // sha1$3I7HRwy7$cbfdac6008f9cab4083784cbd1874f76618d2a97

Compares a plain-text password (password) to a hashed password (hashedPassword) and returns a boolean. Both arguments are required.

Example:

    var passwordHash = require('./lib/password-hash');

    var hashedPassword = 'sha1$3I7HRwy7$cbfdac6008f9cab4083784cbd1874f76618d2a97';
    
    console.log(passwordHash.verify('password123', hashedPassword)); // true
    console.log(passwordHash.verify('Password0', hashedPassword)); // false

Check if a password (password) is hashed. Returns a boolean.

Example:

    var passwordHash = require('./lib/password-hash');

    var hashedPassword = 'sha1$3I7HRwy7$cbfdac6008f9cab4083784cbd1874f76618d2a97';
    
    console.log(passwordHash.isHashed('password123')); // false
    console.log(passwordHash.isHashed(hashedPassword)); // true

node 0.5.8 introduced crypto.randomBytes, which generates cryptographically strong pseudo-random data. If the version of node supports crypto.randomBytes it is used to generate the salt, otherwise Math.random, which is not cryptographically strong, is used. This is handled transparently within the salt generation function and does not impact the module's API.

password-hash is inspired by the password hashing found in Werkzeug.