Instances of the Cipher
class are used to encrypt data. The class can be used in one of two ways:
- As a
stream
that is both readable and writable, where plain unencrypted data is written to produce encrypted data on the readable side, or - Using the
cipher.update()
andcipher.final()
methods to produce the encrypted data.
The createCipheriv method is used to create Cipher
instances. Cipher
objects are not to be created directly using the new
keyword.
Example: Using Cipher
objects as streams:
const {
scrypt,
randomFill,
createCipheriv,
} = await import('node:crypto');
const algorithm = 'aes-192-cbc';
const password = 'Password used to generate key';
// First, we'll generate the key. The key length is dependent on the algorithm.
// In this case for aes192, it is 24 bytes (192 bits).
scrypt(password, 'salt', 24, (err, key) => {
if (err) throw err;
// Then, we'll generate a random initialization vector
randomFill(new Uint8Array(16), (err, iv) => {
if (err) throw err;
// Once we have the key and iv, we can create and use the cipher...
const cipher = createCipheriv(algorithm, key, iv);
let encrypted = '';
cipher.setEncoding('hex');
cipher.on('data', (chunk) => encrypted += chunk);
cipher.on('end', () => console.log(encrypted));
cipher.write('some clear text data');
cipher.end();
});
});
Example: Using Cipher
and piped streams:
import {
createReadStream,
createWriteStream,
} from 'node:fs';
import {
pipeline,
} from 'node:stream';
const {
scrypt,
randomFill,
createCipheriv,
} = await import('node:crypto');
const algorithm = 'aes-192-cbc';
const password = 'Password used to generate key';
// First, we'll generate the key. The key length is dependent on the algorithm.
// In this case for aes192, it is 24 bytes (192 bits).
scrypt(password, 'salt', 24, (err, key) => {
if (err) throw err;
// Then, we'll generate a random initialization vector
randomFill(new Uint8Array(16), (err, iv) => {
if (err) throw err;
const cipher = createCipheriv(algorithm, key, iv);
const input = createReadStream('test.js');
const output = createWriteStream('test.enc');
pipeline(input, cipher, output, (err) => {
if (err) throw err;
});
});
});
Example: Using the cipher.update()
and cipher.final()
methods:
const {
scrypt,
randomFill,
createCipheriv,
} = await import('node:crypto');
const algorithm = 'aes-192-cbc';
const password = 'Password used to generate key';
// First, we'll generate the key. The key length is dependent on the algorithm.
// In this case for aes192, it is 24 bytes (192 bits).
scrypt(password, 'salt', 24, (err, key) => {
if (err) throw err;
// Then, we'll generate a random initialization vector
randomFill(new Uint8Array(16), (err, iv) => {
if (err) throw err;
const cipher = createCipheriv(algorithm, key, iv);
let encrypted = cipher.update('some clear text data', 'utf8', 'hex');
encrypted += cipher.final('hex');
console.log(encrypted);
});
});