Installation¶

Cryptal relies on Composer for its installation. It also uses plugins to provide implementations for the various algorithms.

Cryptal can be installed by itself using the following command:

$ php composer.php require fpoirotte/cryptal

However, the core package only provides a few algorithms using mostly PHP code. Therefore, you will usually want to install additional plugins to get access to more algorithms.

Which plugin to install depends on the algorithms you need to use and whether you’re willing to sacrifice a bit of speed and security to get additionnal algorithms.

Cryptal supports 3 types of implementations:

• Assembly code, which provides maximum speed and is usually secure.
• Compiled code, which can be a tiny bit slower, but is often more secure.
• PHP code, which is slower and less secure, but provides support for some niche algorithms.

$ # Plugin based on the old Mcrypt PHP extension (PHP <= 7.1)
$ php composer.php require fpoirotte/cryptal-mcrypt
$
$ # Plugin based on the OpenSSL PHP extension
$ php composer.php require fpoirotte/cryptal-openssl
$
$ # Plugin based on the LibTomCrypt PHP extension
$ php composer.php require fpoirotte/cryptal-tomcrypt
$
$ # Plugin based on the new LibSodium PHP extension (PHP >= 7.2)
$ php composer.php require fpoirotte/cryptal-sodium
$
$ # Plugin based on the Hash PHP extension
$ php composer.php require fpoirotte/cryptal-hash
$
$ # Plugin based on the PHP-Crypto extension
$ php composer.php require fpoirotte/cryptal-php-crypto