path: root/docs/history/1.6.rst

===========
Passlib 1.6
===========

**1.6.5** (2015-08-04)
======================

   Fixed some minor bugs in the test suite which were causing erroneous test failures
   (:issue:`57` and :issue:`58`). The passlib library itself is unchanged.

.. rst-class:: toc-always-toggle

**1.6.4** (2015-07-25)
======================

    This release rolls up assorted bug & compatibility fixes since 1.6.2.

Bugfixes
--------

    * Correctly detect bcrypt 2.0.  Previous releases were incorrectly detecting it as py-bcrypt,
      causing spurious errors (:issue:`56`).

    * CryptContext now accepts scheme names as unicode (:issue:`54`).

    * :mod:`passlib.ext.django` now works correctly with Django 1.7-1.8. Previous
      releases had various test failures (:issue:`52`).

    * :class:`passlib.apache.HtpasswdFile` now recognizes bcrypt, sha256_crypt, sha512_crypt
      hashes (:issue:`55`).

BCrypt Changes
--------------

    A few changes have been made to the :class:`~passlib.hash.bcrypt` hash:

    * It now supports the ``$2b$`` hash format.

    * It will now issue a :exc:`~passlib.exc.PasslibSecurityWarning` if the active backend
      is vulnerable to the :ref:`wraparound bug <bsd-wraparound-bug>`,
      and automatically enable a workaround (py-bcrypt is known to be vulnerable as of v0.4).

    * It will throw a :exc:`~passlib.exc.PasslibSecurityError` if the active backend
      is vulnerable to the :ref:`8-bit bug <crypt-blowfish-bug>` (none of Passlib's
      backends are known to be vulnerable as of 2015-07).

    * Updated documentation to indicate the cffi-based `bcrypt <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/bcrypt>`_
      library is now the recommended bcrypt backend.

    * Backend capability detection code refactored to rely on runtime detection
      rather than hardcoded information.

Other Changes
-------------

    * Source repo's ``tox.ini`` updated.  Now assumes python3 by default, and refactored test
      environments to more cleanly delineate the different setups being tested.

    * Passlib releases are now published as wheels instead of eggs.

**1.6.3** (2015-07-25)
======================

    This was relabeled as **1.6.4** due to PyPI upload issues.

**1.6.2** (2013-12-26)
======================

    Minor changes & compatibility fixes

    * Re-tuned the :attr:`~passlib.ifc.PasswordHash.default_rounds` values for all of the hashes.

    * Added the new :doc:`bcrypt_sha256 </lib/passlib.hash.bcrypt_sha256>` hash,
      which wraps BCrypt using SHA256 in order to work around BCrypt's password size limitations
      (:issue:`43`).

    * :doc:`passlib.hash.bcrypt </lib/passlib.hash.bcrypt>`:
      Added support for the `bcrypt <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/bcrypt>`_
      library as one of the possible bcrypt backends that will be used if available.
      (:issue:`49`)

    * :mod:`passlib.ext.django`: Passlib's Django extension
      (and it's related hashes and unittests) have been updated to handle
      some minor API changes in Django 1.5-1.6. They should now be compatible with Django 1.2 and up.
      (:issue:`50`)

**1.6.1** (2012-08-02)
======================

    Minor bugfix release

    * *bugfix*: Various :class:`~passlib.context.CryptContext` methods
      would incorrectly raise :exc:`TypeError` if passed a :class:`!unicode`
      user category under Python 2. For consistency,
      :class:`!unicode` user category values are now encoded to ``utf-8`` :class:`bytes` under Python 2.

    * *bugfix*: Reworked internals of the :class:`CryptContext` config compiler
      to fix a couple of border cases (:issue:`39`):

        - It will now throw a :exc:`ValueError`
          if the :ref:`default <context-default-option>` scheme is marked as
          :ref:`deprecated <context-deprecated-option>`.
        - If no default scheme is specified, it will use the first
          *non-deprecated* scheme.
        - Finally, it will now throw a :exc:`ValueError` if all schemes
          are marked as deprecated.

    * *bugfix*: FreeBSD 8.3 added native support for :class:`~passlib.hash.sha256_crypt` --
      updated Passlib's unittests and documentation accordingly (:issue:`35`).

    * *bugfix:* Fixed bug which caused some :mod:`!passlib.apache` unittests to fail
      if mtime resolution >= 1 second (:issue:`35`).

    * *bugfix:* Fixed minor bug in :mod:`!passlib.registry`, should now work correctly under Python 3.3.

    * Various documentation updates and corrections.

**1.6** (2012-05-01)
====================

Overview
--------

    Welcome to Passlib 1.6.

    The main goal of this release was to clean up the codebase, tighten input
    validation, and simplify the publically exposed interfaces. This release also
    brings a number of other improvements: 10 or so new hash algorithms,
    additional security precautions for the existing algorithms,
    a number of speed improvements, and updated documentation.

Deprecated APIs
...............
    In order to improve the publically exposed interface,
    some of the more cumbersome and less-used functions in Passlib
    have been deprecated / renamed. This should not affect 99% of applications.
    That said, all the deprecated interfaces are still present, and will continue
    to be supported for at least one more major release.
    To help with migration, all deprecated functions should issue an informative
    :exc:`DeprecationWarning` when they are invoked, detailing their suggested replacement.
    The following interfaces have changed:

    * The semi-internal :class:`!CryptPolicy` class has been deprecated
      in its entirety. All functionality has been rolled into the
      parent :class:`!CryptContext` class (see :ref:`below <crypt-policy-deprecated>` for more).

    * The interface of the :mod:`passlib.apache` classes has been improved:
      some confusing methods and options have been renamed, some new
      constructors and other functions have been added.

    * The (undocumented) :mod:`!passlib.win32` module has been deprecated,
      all of its functionality is now offered through the
      :doc:`lmhash </lib/passlib.hash.lmhash>` and :doc:`nthash </lib/passlib.hash.nthash>`
      algorithms.

New Hashes
----------
    The release adds support for a number of hash algorithms:

    :doc:`cisco_pix </lib/passlib.hash.cisco_pix>`, :doc:`cisco_type7 </lib/passlib.hash.cisco_type7>`
        Two hash formats frequently found on various
        Cisco devices *(for Cisco Type 5 hashes, see*
        :doc:`md5_crypt </lib/passlib.hash.md5_crypt>` *).*

    :ref:`django_pbkdf2_sha256 <django-1.4-hashes>`, :ref:`django_pbkdf2_sha1 <django-1.4-hashes>`, :ref:`django_bcrypt <django-1.4-hashes>`
        All three of the new hash schemes introduced in Django 1.4.

    :doc:`lmhash </lib/passlib.hash.lmhash>`, :doc:`nthash </lib/passlib.hash.nthash>`
        Microsoft's legacy "Lan Manager" hash, and the replacement
        NT password hash. *(the old* ``nthash`` *algorithm in Passlib 1.5 has been renamed to*
        :class:`~passlib.hash.bsd_nthash` *, to reflect its lineage)*.

    :doc:`msdcc </lib/passlib.hash.msdcc>`, :doc:`msdcc2 </lib/passlib.hash.msdcc2>`
        Microsoft Windows' Domain Cached Credentials, versions 1 and 2.
        These algorithms also go by the names "DCC", "MSCache", and "MSCash".

    :doc:`mssql2000 </lib/passlib.hash.mssql2000>`, :doc:`mssql2005 </lib/passlib.hash.mssql2005>`
        Hash algorithms used by MS SQL Server 2000 and later.

    :doc:`scram </lib/passlib.hash.scram>`
        A hash format added specifically for storing the complex digest
        information needed to authenticate a user via the SCRAM protocol
        (:rfc:`5802`). It can also be used in the same way as any other
        password hash in Passlib.

Existing Hashes
---------------
    Additionally, the following new features have been added to the existing hashes:

    .. _password-size-limit:

    *Password Size Limit*
        All hashes in Passlib will now throw :exc:`~passlib.exc.PasswordSizeError`
        if handed a password that's larger than 4096 characters.

        This limit should be larger than any reasonable password size,
        and prevents various things including DOS abuses, and exploitation
        of OSes with a buggy :func:`!crypt` implementation.
        See :exc:`~passlib.exc.PasswordSizeError` for how to change this limit.

    .. _consteq-issue:

    *Constant Time Comparison*
        All hash comparisons in Passlib now use the "constant time" [#consteq]_
        comparison function :func:`~passlib.utils.consteq`, instead
        of ``==``.

        This change is motivated a well-known `hmac timing attack <http://rdist.root.org/2009/05/28/timing-attack-in-google-keyczar-library/>`_
        which exploits short-circuit string comparisons.
        While this attack is not currently feasible against
        most password hashes, some of the weaker unsalted
        hashes supported by Passlib may be vulnerable; and this
        change has been made preventatively to all of them.

        .. [#consteq] "constant time" is a misnomer, it actually takes ``THETA(len(righthand_value))`` time.

    .. _strict-parameters:

    *Strict Parameters*
        Previous releases of Passlib would silently correct any invalid values
        (such as ``rounds`` parameters that were out of range). This is was deemed
        undesirable, as it leaves developers unaware they are requesting
        an incorrect (and potentially insecure) value.

        Starting with this release, providing invalid values to
        :meth:`PasswordHash.encrypt <passlib.ifc.PasswordHash.encrypt>`
        will result in a :exc:`ValueError`. However, most hashes now accept
        an optional ``relaxed=True`` keyword, which causes Passlib
        to try and correct invalid values, and if successful,
        issue a :exc:`~passlib.exc.PasslibHashWarning` instead.
        These warnings can then be filtered if desired.

    :doc:`bcrypt </lib/passlib.hash.bcrypt>`
        The BCrypt hash now supports the `crypt_blowfish <http://www.openwall.com/crypt/>`_ project's
        ``$2y$`` hash prefix.

        On an unrelated note, Passlib now offers an (experimental) pure-python
        implementation of BCrypt. Unfortunately, it's still *WAY* too slow to be
        suitable for production use; and is disabled by default.
        If you really need it, see the BCrypt :ref:`documentation <bcrypt-backends>`
        for how to enable it.

    :doc:`bsdi_crypt </lib/passlib.hash.bsdi_crypt>`
        BSDi-Crypt will now issue a :exc:`~passlib.exc.PasslibSecurityWarning`
        if an application requests an even number of rounds, due to
        a known weakness in DES. Existing hashes with an even number of rounds will
        now be flagged by :meth:`CryptContext.needs_update() <passlib.context.CryptContext.needs_update>`.

    :doc:`ldap_salted_{digest} </lib/passlib.hash.ldap_std>`
        The LDAP salted digests now support salts of any size
        from 4-16 bytes, though they still default to 4 (:issue:`30`).

    :doc:`md5_crypt </lib/passlib.hash.md5_crypt>`, :doc:`sha256_crypt </lib/passlib.hash.md5_crypt>`, :doc:`sha512_crypt </lib/passlib.hash.md5_crypt>`
        The builtin implementation of these hashes has been
        sped up by about 25%, using an additional pre-computation step.

    :doc:`unix_disabled </lib/passlib.hash.unix_disabled>`
        The :class:`!unix_fallback` handler has been deprecated,
        and will be removed in Passlib 1.8.
        Applications should use the stricter-but-equivalent
        :class:`!unix_disabled` handler instead.

        This most likely only affects internal Passlib code.

.. _crypt-policy-deprecated:

CryptContext
------------

    .. currentmodule:: passlib.context

    The :ref:`CryptContext <context-reference>` class has had a thorough
    internal overhaul. While the primary interface has not changed
    at all, the internals are much stricter about input validation,
    common methods have shorter code-paths,  and the
    construction and introspection of :class:`!CryptContext` objects
    has been greatly simplified.
    Changes include:

    * All new (and hopefully clearer) :ref:`tutorial <context-tutorial>`
      and :ref:`reference <context-reference>` documentation.

    *   The :class:`!CryptPolicy` class and the :attr:`!CryptContext.policy` attribute have been deprecated.

        This was a semi-internal class, which most applications
        were not involved with at all, but to be conservative about
        breaking things, the existing CryptPolicy interface
        will remain in-place and supported until Passlib 1.8.

        All of the functionality of this class has been rolled into
        :class:`!CryptContext` itself, so there's one less class to remember.
        Many of the methods provided by :class:`!CryptPolicy` are now
        :class:`!CryptContext` methods, most with the same name and call syntax.
        Information on migrating existing code can be found in
        the deprecation warnings issued by the class itself,
        and in the :class:`CryptPolicy` documentation.

    * Two new class constructors have been added (:meth:`CryptContext.from_path`
      and :meth:`CryptContext.from_string`) to aid in loading CryptContext objects
      directly from a configuration file.

    * The :ref:`deprecated <context-deprecated-option>` keyword
      can now be set to the special string ``"auto"``; which will
      automatically deprecate all schemes except for the default one.

    * The ``min_verify_time`` keyword
      has been deprecated, will be ignored in release 1.7, and will be removed in release 1.8.
      It was never very useful, and now complicates the internal code needlessly.

    * All string parsing now uses stdlib's :class:`!SafeConfigParser`.

      Previous releases used the original :class:`!ConfigParser` interpolation;
      which was deprecated in Passlib 1.5, and has now been removed.
      This should only affect strings which contained raw ``%`` characters,
      they will now need to be escaped via ``%%``.

Other Modules
-------------

    * The api for the :mod:`passlib.apache` module has been updated
      to add more flexibility, and to fix some ambiguous method
      and keyword names. The old interface is still supported, but deprecated,
      and will be removed in Passlib 1.8.

    * Added the :data:`~passlib.apps.django14_context` preset to the
      the :mod:`!passlib.apps` module. this preconfigured CryptContext
      object should support all the hashes found in a typical Django 1.4
      deployment.

    * **new**: Added :mod:`passlib.ext.django`, a Django plugin which can be used to
      override Django's password hashing framework with a custom Passlib
      policy (an undocumented beta version of this was present in the 1.5 release).

    * **new**: The :func:`passlib.utils.saslprep` function may be useful
      for applications which need to normalize the unicode representation
      of passwords before they are hashed.

Bugfixes
--------
    * Handle platform-specific error strings that may be returned by the
      :func:`!crypt` methods of some OSes.

    * Fixed rare ``'NoneType' object has no attribute 'decode'``
      error that sometimes occurred on platforms with a deviant implementation
      of :func:`!crypt`.

Internal Changes
----------------
    *The following changes should not affect most end users,
    and have been documented just to keep track of them:*

    .. currentmodule:: passlib.utils.handlers

    * Passlib is now source-compatible with Python 2.5+ and Python 3.x.
      It no longer requires the use of the :command:`2to3` command
      to translate it for Python 3.

    * The unittest suite has been rewritten. It handles a number of additional
      border cases, enforcing uniform behavior across all hashes, and
      even features the addition of some simplistic fuzz testing.
      It will take a bit longer to run though. While not perfect,
      statement coverage is at about 95%.
      Additionally, the hash test suite has been enhanced with many more
      test vectors across the board, including 8-bit test vectors.

    * The internal framework used to construct the hash classes (:mod:`passlib.utils.handlers`)
      was rewritten drastically. The new version provides stricter input checking,
      reduction in boilerplate code. *These changes should not affect any
      publically exposed routines*.

        - :class:`~passlib.utils.handlers.GenericHandler`'s
          ``strict`` keyword was removed, ``strict=True`` is now
          the class's default behavior: all values must be specified,
          and be within the correct bounds. The new keywords
          ``use_defaults`` and ``relaxed`` can be used to disable
          these two requirements.

        - Most of the private methods of :class:`~passlib.utils.handlers.GenericHandler`
          were renamed to begin with an underscore, to clarify their status;
          and turned into instance methods, to simplify the internals.
          (for example, :samp:`norm_salt` was renamed to :samp:`_norm_salt`).

        - :class:`~passlib.utils.handlers.StaticHandler` now derives from
          :class:`!GenericHandler`, and requires ``_calc_checksum()`` be
          implemented instead of ``encrypt()``. The old style is supported
          but deprecated, and support will be removed in Passlib 1.8.

        - Calls to :meth:`HasManyBackends.set_backend`
          should now use the string ``"any"`` instead of the value ``None``.
          ``None`` was deprecated in release 1.5, and is no longer supported.

    .. currentmodule:: passlib.utils

    * :mod:`!passlib.utils.h64` has been replaced by an instance of the
      new :class:`~passlib.utils.binary.Base64Engine` class. This  instance is
      imported under the same name, and has (mostly) the same interface;
      but should be faster, more flexible, and better unit-tested.

    * deprecated some unused support functions within :mod:`!passlib.utils`,
      they will be removed in release 1.7.