summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Documentation/siphash.txt
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/siphash.txt')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/siphash.txt100
1 files changed, 100 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/siphash.txt b/Documentation/siphash.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..e8e6ddbbaab4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/siphash.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
+ SipHash - a short input PRF
+-----------------------------------------------
+Written by Jason A. Donenfeld <jason@zx2c4.com>
+
+SipHash is a cryptographically secure PRF -- a keyed hash function -- that
+performs very well for short inputs, hence the name. It was designed by
+cryptographers Daniel J. Bernstein and Jean-Philippe Aumasson. It is intended
+as a replacement for some uses of: `jhash`, `md5_transform`, `sha_transform`,
+and so forth.
+
+SipHash takes a secret key filled with randomly generated numbers and either
+an input buffer or several input integers. It spits out an integer that is
+indistinguishable from random. You may then use that integer as part of secure
+sequence numbers, secure cookies, or mask it off for use in a hash table.
+
+1. Generating a key
+
+Keys should always be generated from a cryptographically secure source of
+random numbers, either using get_random_bytes or get_random_once:
+
+siphash_key_t key;
+get_random_bytes(&key, sizeof(key));
+
+If you're not deriving your key from here, you're doing it wrong.
+
+2. Using the functions
+
+There are two variants of the function, one that takes a list of integers, and
+one that takes a buffer:
+
+u64 siphash(const void *data, size_t len, const siphash_key_t *key);
+
+And:
+
+u64 siphash_1u64(u64, const siphash_key_t *key);
+u64 siphash_2u64(u64, u64, const siphash_key_t *key);
+u64 siphash_3u64(u64, u64, u64, const siphash_key_t *key);
+u64 siphash_4u64(u64, u64, u64, u64, const siphash_key_t *key);
+u64 siphash_1u32(u32, const siphash_key_t *key);
+u64 siphash_2u32(u32, u32, const siphash_key_t *key);
+u64 siphash_3u32(u32, u32, u32, const siphash_key_t *key);
+u64 siphash_4u32(u32, u32, u32, u32, const siphash_key_t *key);
+
+If you pass the generic siphash function something of a constant length, it
+will constant fold at compile-time and automatically choose one of the
+optimized functions.
+
+3. Hashtable key function usage:
+
+struct some_hashtable {
+ DECLARE_HASHTABLE(hashtable, 8);
+ siphash_key_t key;
+};
+
+void init_hashtable(struct some_hashtable *table)
+{
+ get_random_bytes(&table->key, sizeof(table->key));
+}
+
+static inline hlist_head *some_hashtable_bucket(struct some_hashtable *table, struct interesting_input *input)
+{
+ return &table->hashtable[siphash(input, sizeof(*input), &table->key) & (HASH_SIZE(table->hashtable) - 1)];
+}
+
+You may then iterate like usual over the returned hash bucket.
+
+4. Security
+
+SipHash has a very high security margin, with its 128-bit key. So long as the
+key is kept secret, it is impossible for an attacker to guess the outputs of
+the function, even if being able to observe many outputs, since 2^128 outputs
+is significant.
+
+Linux implements the "2-4" variant of SipHash.
+
+5. Struct-passing Pitfalls
+
+Often times the XuY functions will not be large enough, and instead you'll
+want to pass a pre-filled struct to siphash. When doing this, it's important
+to always ensure the struct has no padding holes. The easiest way to do this
+is to simply arrange the members of the struct in descending order of size,
+and to use offsetendof() instead of sizeof() for getting the size. For
+performance reasons, if possible, it's probably a good thing to align the
+struct to the right boundary. Here's an example:
+
+const struct {
+ struct in6_addr saddr;
+ u32 counter;
+ u16 dport;
+} __aligned(SIPHASH_ALIGNMENT) combined = {
+ .saddr = *(struct in6_addr *)saddr,
+ .counter = counter,
+ .dport = dport
+};
+u64 h = siphash(&combined, offsetofend(typeof(combined), dport), &secret);
+
+6. Resources
+
+Read the SipHash paper if you're interested in learning more:
+https://131002.net/siphash/siphash.pdf