pablotron/hash-speeds

Cryptographic Hash Algorithm Benchmarks

Companion repository to this post on my blog.

Scripts to benchmark the several cryptographic hash functions using the OpenSSL speed command and generate SVGs of the results.

The hash functions are as follows:

• MD5
• SHA-1
• SHA-256
• SHA-512
• BLAKE2s
• BLAKE2b
• SHA3-256
• SHA3-512

Installation

You'll need Bundler and pipenv installed.

1. Download the OpenSSL source code.
2. Compile OpenSSL from source (./Configure && make).
3. Run bundle install --without=dev to install the Ruby dependencies.
4. Run pipenv sync to install the Python dependencies.
5. (Optional) Install minify. sudo apt install minify. Instructions for other platforms are available here.

Example:

# install ruby dependencies
bundle install --without=dev

# install python dependencies
pipenv sync

# install minify (debian)
sudo apt install minify

Usage

1. Set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the OpenSSL source directory.
2. Prepend SSL_DIR/apps to PATH.
3. Verify that you are using the version of OpenSSL compiled in the installation instructions above using the openssl version command.
4. Run bundle exec bin/bench.rb > results.json to run the hash write the JSON-formatted results to ./results.json.
5. Run pipenv run bin/plot.py < ./results.json > results.svg.
6. (Optional) Minify the SVG: minify results.svg > results.min.svg.

Example:

# set LD_LIBRARY_PATH and PATH
SSL_DIR=$HOME/src/openssl-3.0.3
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$SSL_DIR" PATH="$SSL_DIR/apps:$PATH"

# run benchmarks, write results to results.json
bundle exec bin/bench.rb > results.json

# generate SVG
pipenv run bin/plot.py < results.json > results.svg

# write minified SVG to results.min.svg
minify results.svg > results.min.svg

Shorter version:

# set LD_LIBRARY_PATH and PATH
SSL_DIR=$HOME/src/openssl-3.0.3
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$SSL_DIR" PATH="$SSL_DIR/apps:$PATH"

# run benchmarks and write SVG to "results.min.svg"
bundle exec bin/bench.rb | \
  pipenv run bin/plot.py | \
  minify --type svg > results.min.svg

Results

Example results:

Miscellaneous

Repository contents:

• bin/bench.rb: Run benchmarks and write results as JSON to standard output.
• bin/plot.py: Read JSON-formatted benchmark results from standard input and write an unminified SVG to standard output.
• bin/config.yaml: Configuration options for both scripts.
• data/: My benchmark results.