14.2. hmac — Keyed-Hashing for Message Authentication

New in version 2.2.

Source code: Lib/hmac.py

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This module implements the HMAC algorithm as described by RFC 2104.

hmac.new(key[, msg[, digestmod]])

Return a new hmac object. If msg is present, the method call update(msg) is made. digestmod is the digest constructor or module for the HMAC object to use. It defaults to the hashlib.md5 constructor.

An HMAC object has the following methods:

HMAC.update(msg)

Update the hmac object with the string msg. Repeated calls are equivalent to a single call with the concatenation of all the arguments: m.update(a); m.update(b) is equivalent to m.update(a + b).

HMAC.digest()

Return the digest of the strings passed to the update() method so far. This string will be the same length as the digest_size of the digest given to the constructor. It may contain non-ASCII characters, including NUL bytes.

Warning

When comparing the output of digest() to an externally-supplied digest during a verification routine, it is recommended to use the compare_digest() function instead of the == operator to reduce the vulnerability to timing attacks.

HMAC.hexdigest()

Like digest() except the digest is returned as a string twice the length containing only hexadecimal digits. This may be used to exchange the value safely in email or other non-binary environments.

Warning

When comparing the output of hexdigest() to an externally-supplied digest during a verification routine, it is recommended to use the compare_digest() function instead of the == operator to reduce the vulnerability to timing attacks.

HMAC.copy()

Return a copy (“clone”) of the hmac object. This can be used to efficiently compute the digests of strings that share a common initial substring.

This module also provides the following helper function:

hmac.compare_digest(a, b)

Return a == b. This function uses an approach designed to prevent timing analysis by avoiding content-based short circuiting behaviour, making it appropriate for cryptography. a and b must both be of the same type: either unicode or a bytes-like object.

Note

If a and b are of different lengths, or if an error occurs, a timing attack could theoretically reveal information about the types and lengths of a and b—but not their values.

New in version 2.7.7.

See also

Module hashlib

The Python module providing secure hash functions.