dart_sodium 2.0.0

Wrapper library for the libsodium cryptography library. Contains functions for password hashing, random numbers, encryption, message authentication etc.

dart_sodium is a wrapper library for the Sodium cryptography library (libsodium) written in C (https://libsodium.gitbook.io/). Below you find a list of covered libsodium apis and their counterparts in dart_sodium. Every api is wrapped inside its own mini library.

Secret-key cryptography

topic	libsodium api	dart_sodium lib
Authenticated encryption	crypto_secretbox_*	secret_box
Encrypted streams	crypto_secretstream_*	secret_stream
Authentication	crypto_auth_*	auth

Public-key cryptography

topic	libsodium api	dart_sodium lib
Authenticated encryption	crypto_box_*	box
Public-key signatures	crypto_sign_*	sign

Hashing

topic	libsodium api	dart_sodium lib
Generic hash	crypto_generichash_*	generic_hash

Rest

topic	libsodium api	dart_sodium lib
Random data	crypto_randombytes_*	random_bytes
Password hashing	crypto_pwhash_*	pwhash

Not every api is fully covered yet. dart_sodium tries to resemble libsodium as much as possible while following Dart's conventions. To avoid repetition dart_sodium's api documentation is rather terse. For more information about apis and algorithms and when to use them I would recommend the libsodium documentation.

How to use

Before calling any other function of dart_sodium, you should call

import 'package:dart_sodium/sodium.dart' as sodium;

void main(){
    sodium.init()
}

to initialize a suitable random number generator. You just need to do this once per application, not per isolate. Calling init() multiple times has no effect.

You have to install libsodium on your machine. If you use Linux or MacOS you can use the corresponding package manager to do that; in the case of Windows you have to manually copy the .dll into the System32 directory. Alternatively you could copy the shared library into the root directory of your application.

Examples

Secret box

final key = secret_box.keyGen();
final msg = utf8.encode('hello world');

final nonce = random_bytes.buffer(secret_box.nonceBytes);
final c = secret_box.easy(msg, nonce, key);

final decrypted = secret_box.openEasy(c, nonce, key);

Secret stream

final key = secret_stream.keyGen();
final message = utf8.encode('hello world');
final message2 = utf8.encode('hello to the world');

final pushStream = secret_stream.PushStream(key);
final encChunk = pushStream.push(message);
final encChunk2 = pushStream.push(message2, tag: secret_stream.Tag.finalize);

final pullStream = secret_stream.PullStream(key, pushStream.header);
final decChunk = pullStream.pull(encChunk);
final decChunk2 = pullStream.pull(encChunk2);

Password hash

final password = utf8.encode('my password');
final hash = pwhash.store(
    password, pwhash.OpsLimit.interactive, pwhash.MemLimit.interactive);
final isValid = pwhash.verify(hash, password);

Security

Please keep in mind that when snapshotted, random_bytes might produce the same output (https://libsodium.gitbook.io/doc/generating_random_data#note).

Since Dart uses a garbage collector you should take measures against heap dump attacks. Be aware that keys and other sensitive information might be in memory for a long time. The GC can move memory around to optimize the layout (eg defragmentation), so overwriting sensitive information might not have the desired effect. In short: Only use dart_sodium on machines / platforms you fully trust and which take approrpiate measures to isolate them from the outside world. Don't use it for client software like a password manager.