WebCrypto Prototype for Node.js

This is a partial and experimental WebCrypto implementation for the Node.js platform.

Asynchonicity

The WebCrypto specification requires almost all operations to be completed asynchronously, however, Node.js implements very few operations asynchronously. Usually, this is not a problem, since most cryptographic functions are incredibly fast compared to the overhead that comes with asynchronicity, and because Node.js implements most cryptographic features through efficient streaming interfaces. WebCrypto has no streaming interfaces but only one-shot APIs. Encrypting, hashing, signing or verifying large amounts of data is thus difficult in WebCrypto without underlying asynchronous APIs.

Development

Structure

The main export of this package is implemented in lib/index.js and represents the Crypto interface as defined in section 10 of the WebCrypto specification. It contains two members:

• The subtle attribute is implemented in lib/subtle.js, including all methods described in section 14.3 of the WebCrypto specification. These methods usually delegate work to one or more cryptographic operations that are listed in section 18.2.2 and implemented in lib/algorithms/.
• The getRandomValues function is implemented in lib/random.js.

Tests

The test directory contains a small number of unit tests. All of these tests are required to pass after each commit. You can run unit tests using npm test.

A coverage report can be generated using the command npm run coverage.

A subset of web-platform-tests can also be used for testing. The test/wpt/wpt submodule must be initialized in order to use them. You can run the WPTs using npm run wpt. Proposed changes do not need to pass all WPTs, but they should not break tests that passed without the changes.

Linting

This repository uses ESLint. Use npm run lint to check the code.