EVP_DecryptFinal_ex Error on OpenSSL

Question

I am playing around with OpenSSL EVP routines for decryption using AES 128 cbc mode.

I use the test vectors specified at the NIST site to test my program.

The program seems to fail at EVP_DecryptFinal_ex routine.

Can anybody please tell me what is the problem?

Also how do I do the error checking here to find out why this routine fails?

UPDATED:

Please check the code below. I have added the encrypt and decrypt part. Encrypt works. But during the decryption, although the results of both match, the hexvalue of the cipher seems 80 bytes as opposed to the expected 64 bytes(mentioned in NIST) although the decryption works and the decrypted text matches the plaintext! Can somebody clarify?

The expected ciphertext value should be:

cipher: 0000 76 49 ab ac 81 19 b2 46 ce e9 8e 9b 12 e9 19 7d 
    0010 50 86 cb 9b 50 72 19 ee 95 db 11 3a 91 76 78 b2 
    0020 73 be d6 b8 e3 c1 74 3b 71 16 e6 9e 22 22 95 16 
    0030 3f f1 ca a1 68 1f ac 09 12 0e ca 30 75 86 e1 a7

here is the code:

#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <openssl/evp.h>

int AES_BLOCK_SIZE;

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{

    EVP_CIPHER_CTX en;
    EVP_CIPHER_CTX de;
    EVP_CIPHER_CTX_init(&en);
    EVP_CIPHER_CTX_init(&de);
    const EVP_CIPHER *cipher_type;
    unsigned char *mode;
    unsigned char *passkey, *passiv, *plaintxt;
    int vector_len = 0;
    char *plain;
    char *plaintext;
    unsigned char *ciphertext;
    int olen, len;
    int i =0;

    //NIST VALUES TO CHECK

    unsigned char iv[]  =
    {   0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0x03,
        0x04, 0x05, 0x06, 0x07,
        0x08, 0x09, 0x0a, 0x0b,
        0x0c, 0x0d, 0x0e, 0x0f,  0 };

    unsigned char key[] =
    {   0x2b, 0x7e, 0x15, 0x16,
        0x28, 0xae, 0xd2, 0xa6,
        0xab, 0xf7, 0x15, 0x88,
        0x09, 0xcf, 0x4f, 0x3c , 0 };

    unsigned char input[] =
    {   0x6b, 0xc1, 0xbe, 0xe2,
        0x2e, 0x40, 0x9f, 0x96,
        0xe9, 0x3d, 0x7e, 0x11,
        0x73, 0x93, 0x17, 0x2a,

        0xae, 0x2d, 0x8a, 0x57,
        0x1e, 0x03, 0xac, 0x9c,
        0x9e, 0xb7, 0x6f, 0xac,
        0x45, 0xaf, 0x8e, 0x51,

        0x30, 0xc8, 0x1c, 0x46,
        0xa3, 0x5c, 0xe4, 0x11,
        0xe5, 0xfb, 0xc1, 0x19,
        0x1a, 0x0a, 0x52, 0xef,

        0xf6, 0x9f, 0x24, 0x45,
        0xdf, 0x4f, 0x9b, 0x17,
        0xad, 0x2b, 0x41, 0x7b,
        0xe6, 0x6c, 0x37, 0x10, 0 };

    printf("AES ALGORITHM FOR 128 bit CBC MODE\n");
    cipher_type = EVP_aes_128_cbc();
    AES_BLOCK_SIZE = 128;
    passkey = key;
    passiv = iv;
    plain = input;

    printf("iv=");
    for(i = 0; i < sizeof iv; i++){
        printf("%02x", iv[i]);
    }
    printf("\n");
    printf("key=");
    for(i = 0; i < sizeof key; i++){
        printf("%02x", key[i]);
    }
    printf("\n");

    printf("Initializing AES ALGORITHM FOR CBC MODE..\n");

    EVP_EncryptInit_ex(&en, cipher_type, NULL, passkey, passiv);

    EVP_DecryptInit_ex(&de, cipher_type, NULL, passkey, passiv);

    olen = len = strlen(input)+1;
    printf("len value before aes_encrypt \"%d\"\n", len);

    int c_len = len + AES_BLOCK_SIZE - 1;
    int f_len = 0;
    ciphertext = (unsigned char *)malloc(c_len);

    if(!EVP_EncryptInit_ex(&en, NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL)){
        printf("ERROR in EVP_EncryptInit_ex \n");
        return NULL;
    }

    if(!EVP_EncryptUpdate(&en, ciphertext, &c_len, plain, len)){
        printf("ERROR in EVP_EncryptUpdate \n");
        return NULL;
    }
    printf("strlen value of ciphertext after update \"%d\"\n", strlen(ciphertext));
    if(!EVP_EncryptFinal_ex(&en, ciphertext+c_len, &f_len)){
        printf("ERROR in EVP_EncryptFinal_ex \n");
        return NULL;
    }
    printf("strlen value of ciphertext after final \"%d\"\n", strlen(ciphertext));
    EVP_CIPHER_CTX_cleanup(&en);

    len = c_len + f_len;
    printf("len value after aes_encrypt \"%d\"\n", len);

    len = strlen(ciphertext);

    printf("strlen value of ciphertext after aes_encrypt \"%d\"\n", len);

    int p_len = len;
    f_len = 0;
    plaintext = (unsigned char *)malloc(p_len);
    //memset(plaintext,0,sizeof(plaintext));
    if(!EVP_DecryptInit_ex(&de, NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL)){
        printf("ERROR in EVP_DecryptInit_ex \n");
        return NULL;
    }
    EVP_CIPHER_CTX_set_padding(&de, 0);

    if(!EVP_DecryptUpdate(&de, plaintext, &p_len, ciphertext, len)){
        printf("ERROR in EVP_DecryptUpdate\n");
        return NULL;
    }

    if(!EVP_DecryptFinal_ex(&de, plaintext+p_len, &f_len)){
        printf("ERROR in EVP_DecryptFinal_ex\n");
        return NULL;
    }
    EVP_CIPHER_CTX_cleanup(&de);
    len = p_len + f_len;
    printf("Decrypted value = %s\n", plaintext);

    printf("len value after aes_decrypt \"%d\"\n", len);


    if (strncmp(plaintext, input, olen))
        printf("FAIL: enc/dec failed for \"%s\"\n", input);
    else
        printf("OK: enc/dec ok for \"%s\"\n", plaintext); // \"%s\"\n

    printf("OK: ciphertext is \"%s\"\n", ciphertext); // \"%s\"\n
    printf("\n");

    unsigned char *s3 = ciphertext;
    printf("s3 =\n");
    int nc = 0;
    while(*s3 != '\0'){
        printf("%02x", *s3);
        s3++;
        nc ++;
        if(nc == 16){
            printf("\n");
            nc = 0;
        }

    }
    printf("\n");
    //printf("nc = %d\n", nc);
    free(ciphertext);
    free(plaintext);

    return 0;
}

Answer 1

Just like you need to match the key and IV when you encrypt and decrypt, you also need to match the padding setting. The NIST tests are not padded. Here's an excerpt from the OpenSSL documentation:

EVP_DecryptInit_ex(), EVP_DecryptUpdate() and EVP_DecryptFinal_ex() are the corresponding decryption operations. EVP_DecryptFinal() will return an error code if padding is enabled and the final block is not correctly formatted. The parameters and restrictions are identical to the encryption operations except that if padding is enabled the decrypted data buffer out passed to EVP_DecryptUpdate() should have sufficient room for (inl + cipher_block_size) bytes unless the cipher block size is 1 in which case inl bytes is sufficient.

Searching that same page for "padding", you'll see the function EVP_CIPHER_CTX_set_padding:

EVP_CIPHER_CTX_set_padding() enables or disables padding. By default encryption operations are padded using standard block padding and the padding is checked and removed when decrypting. If the pad parameter is zero then no padding is performed, the total amount of data encrypted or decrypted must then be a multiple of the block size or an error will occur.

So at some point after you call EVP_CIPHER_CTX_init and before you start decrypting, you need to do this:

EVP_CIPHER_CTX_set_padding(&de, 0);

Answer 2

To show the errors after an OpenSSL function fails, you can use:

ERR_print_errors_fp(stderr);