rclone / rclone/rclone

Use scrypt for key generation in config file encryption

Open
#618 4 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

configuration enhancement
Dominant language
Go
Stars
59.8k
Forks
5.4k
Avg merge
2d 14h
Merged PRs (30d)
48

Description

Currently the key generation from the user's password is done with sha256 for the config file. It has pre and post strings so isn't vulnerable to rainbow table attack, but using sha isn't best practice any more as it isn't computationally expensive enough.

We should upgrade to using scrypt with salt we store in the encrypted config file (or maybe reuse the IV for the secret box encryption). This can be done transparently to the user. We'll need to continue to read the old format though.

Also document the format

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Locate the config-file encryption entry points and the current password-to-key generation and format handling. Review how encrypted configurations are read and written, then define compatibility for the old format, the new scrypt salt storage, and the requested format documentation; verify both formats with the existing tests if available.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
go
Domain
security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.