Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Usage
  • Client Registration
  • Session Creation
• References

Introduction

SRP is a key exchange protocol published by Stanford in 1998. It is described well on their website:

SRP is a secure password-based authentication and key-exchange protocol. It solves the problem of authenticating clients to servers securely, in cases where the user of the client software must memorize a small secret (like a password) and carries no other secret information, and where the server carries a verifier for each user, which allows it to authenticate the client but which, if compromised, would not allow the attacker to impersonate the client. In addition, SRP exchanges a cryptographically-strong secret as a byproduct of successful authentication, which enables the two parties to communicate securely.

Usage

There are two discrete processes defined by SRP:

1. Client Registration

• A client is created by generating it's credentials, and transmitting them to the server for storage.

2. Session Creation

• A client and server negotiate a strong session key.

Client Registration

// A client chooses an identifier and passphrase
identifier := []byte("user123@example.com")
passphrase := []byte("Password123!")

// SRP creates a salt and verifier based on the client's identifier and passphrase
s, v, err  := srp.NewClient(identifier, passphrase)

if err != nil {
  panic("Client creation failed!")
}

The client now sends it's identifier, s, and v values to the server for storage.

Session Creation

Client

// The client's identifier and passphrase, registered with the server.
identifier := []byte("user123@example.com")
passphrase := []byte("Password123!")

// The client creates a public key "A" and a private key "a"
A, a, err := srp.InitiateHandshake()

if err != nil {
  panic("Handshake initiation failed!")
}

The client now sends it's identifier and A to the server.

Server

// The server receives a client's "identifier" and "A" value. Assume the
// following variables are populated accordingly.
var identifier []byte
var A []byte

// The server looks up a client's salt and verifier from the provided
// identifier. Assume the following variables are populated accordingly.
var s []byte
var v []byte

// Create a public key to share with the client, and compute the session key.
B, K, err := srp.Handshake(A, v)

if err != nil {
  panic("Handshake failed!")
}

The server should now persist the value of K, and send s and B to the client.

Client

// The client receives its salt "s" along with a public key "B" from the server.
// Assume the following variables are populated accordingly.
var s []byte
var B []byte

// Recall that the client has "A", "a", and "passphrase" variables from the
// first step of session creation.

// Compute the session key!
K, err := srp.CompleteHandshake(A, a, passphrase, s, B)

if err != nil {
  panic("Failed to complete the handshake!")
}

At this point, the client and server will have a shared secret K if the authentication was successful. The shared secret can be verified as follows:

Client

proof := srp.Hash(K)

The client can then send proof to the server for easy verification, and demand proof of its own.

Server

// The server received the client's proof, and assigns it to the variable below:
var clientProof []byte

// Check if the client's proof is acceptable
if subtle.ConstantTimeCompare(clientProof, srp.Hash(K)) != 1 {
  panic("Server does not accept client's proof!")
}

serverProof := srp.Hash(s, K)

Now the server sends serverProof to the client.

Client

// The client received the server's proof, and assigns it to the variable below:
var serverProof []byte

if subtle.ConstantTimeCompare(serverProof, srp.Hash(s, K)) != 1 {
  panic("Client does not accept server's proof!")
}

References

Name	Link	Note
Stanford's SRP Home Page	http://srp.stanford.edu/
RFC 2945	https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2945	Older SRP-3 implementation
RFC 5054	https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5054	Newer SRP-6(a) implementation
node-srp	https://github.com/mozilla/node-srp	A compatible Javascript library
node-srp	https://github.com/voynic/node-srp	A more modern fork of ^