How to implement HMAC-SHA1 algorithm in Qt

Question

I'm trying to implement HMAC-SHA1 algorithm in my C++/Qt application. I have a method for Sha1 algorithm available, I just need to understand the HMAC part of it.

This pseudocode is from wikipedia:

 1 function hmac (key, message)
 2     if (length(key) > blocksize) then
 3         // keys longer than blocksize are shortened
 4         key = hash(key)
 5     end if
 6     if (length(key) < blocksize) then
 7         // keys shorter than blocksize are zero-padded
 8         key = key ∥ zeroes(blocksize - length(key))
 9     end if
10
11     // Where blocksize is that of the underlying hash function
12     o_key_pad = [0x5c * blocksize] ⊕ key
13     i_key_pad = [0x36 * blocksize] ⊕ key // Where ⊕ is exclusive or (XOR)
14     // Where ∥ is concatenation
15     return hash(o_key_pad ∥ hash(i_key_pad ∥ message))
16 end function

What is the blocksize? What does the zeroes-function do on line 8? How do you express lines 12-13 in C++?

Answer 1

1. What is the blocksize ?

Usually, hash algorithm process data by cutting it into chunks of fixed size data (aka. "blocks"). For SHA1, I the usual block size is 64 bytes.

2. What does the zeros function do on line 8 ?

It (as the comment states) adds "zeroes" to the end of key so that its length matches the "block" size.

3. How do you express lines 12-13 in C++ ?

I think you're looking for the XOR operator: ^.

Example:

o_key_pad = (0x5c * blocksize) ^ key; // Actually, it should be 0x5c5c5c... repeated enough so that it matches key size.

Just a quick note: this has nothing special to do with Qt and you will probably want to do it in "raw" C++ so that you can eventually reuse it in a non-Qt project. Qt is great imho, but you clearly don't require it to implement this.

Answer 2

This post has a working implementation:

/**
 * Hashes the given string using the HMAC-SHA1 algorithm.
 *
 * \param key The string to be hashed
 * \param secret The string that contains secret word
 * \return The hashed string
 */
static QString hmac_sha1(const QString &key, const QString &secret) {
   // Length of the text to be hashed
   int text_length;
   // For secret word
   QByteArray K;
   // Length of secret word
   int K_length;

   K_length = secret.size();
   text_length = key.size();

   // Need to do for XOR operation. Transforms QString to
   // unsigned char

   K = secret.toAscii();

   // Inner padding
   QByteArray ipad;
   // Outer padding
   QByteArray opad;

   // If secret key > 64 bytes use this to obtain sha1 key
   if (K_length > 64) {
      QByteArray tempSecret;

      tempSecret.append(secret);

      K = QCryptographicHash::hash(tempSecret, QCryptographicHash::Sha1);
      K_length = 20;
   }

   // Fills ipad and opad with zeros
   ipad.fill(0, 64);
   opad.fill(0, 64);

   // Copies Secret to ipad and opad
   ipad.replace(0, K_length, K);
   opad.replace(0, K_length, K);

   // XOR operation for inner and outer pad
   for (int i = 0; i < 64; i++) {
      ipad[i] = ipad[i] ^ 0x36;
      opad[i] = opad[i] ^ 0x5c;
   }

   // Stores hashed content
   QByteArray context;

   // Appends XOR:ed ipad to context
   context.append(ipad, 64);
   // Appends key to context
   context.append(key);

   //Hashes inner pad
   QByteArray Sha1 = QCryptographicHash::hash(context, QCryptographicHash::Sha1);

   context.clear();
   //Appends opad to context
   context.append(opad, 64);
   //Appends hashed inner pad to context
   context.append(Sha1);

   Sha1.clear();

   // Hashes outerpad
   Sha1 = QCryptographicHash::hash(context, QCryptographicHash::Sha1);

   // String to return hashed stuff in Base64 format
   QByteArray str(Sha1.toBase64());

   return str;
}