Bug in crypt(3) man page

Bug in crypt(3) man page

[Paul A Sand]

Hi --

I have version 3.23 of man-pages (Fedora 13). At the very
end of 'Glibc Notes' of crypt(3):

    In the SHA implementation the entire key is significant
    (instead of only the first 8 bytes in MD5).

I'm pretty sure that's incorrect. I think both MD5 and SHA implementations
use the whole key, and the 8-byte significance restriction is
applies to (just) the original DES. 

I also have version 2.39 of man-pages on Red Hat 5; I think it's more
accurate there.

The problem is also present on the online man page:

    http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/online/pages/man3/crypt.3.html

The man page also may be incorrect with the max salt lengths.
I think this is eight bytes for MD5, 16 for SHA-256 and SHA-512.
(The page implies 16 for MD5 too.)

Thanks much for your work on the man pages.




-- 
-- Paul A. Sand                 | Necessity is the plea for every infringement
-- University of New Hampshire  | of human freedom. It is the argument of
-- pas-JNhspZqLHXk@public.gmane.org                  | tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
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Re: Bug in crypt(3) man page

[Petr Baudis]

On Sat, Jun 05, 2010 at 07:44:05AM -0400, Paul A Sand wrote:
> Hi --
> 
> I have version 3.23 of man-pages (Fedora 13). At the very
> end of 'Glibc Notes' of crypt(3):
> 
>     In the SHA implementation the entire key is significant
>     (instead of only the first 8 bytes in MD5).
> 
> I'm pretty sure that's incorrect. I think both MD5 and SHA implementations
> use the whole key, and the 8-byte significance restriction is
> applies to (just) the original DES. 

Thanks, this shold be already fixed in the git version.

> The man page also may be incorrect with the max salt lengths.
> I think this is eight bytes for MD5, 16 for SHA-256 and SHA-512.
> (The page implies 16 for MD5 too.)

I think the manpage is not strictly wrong here, though it could be more
detailed; patches are welcome.

-- 
				Petr "Pasky" Baudis
The true meaning of life is to plant a tree under whose shade
you will never sit.
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