argon2_hasher

A minimal-surface Python extension that exposes an optimised, memory-hard Argon2id password hasher implemented in Rust

Installation

pip install maturin            # one-time
maturin develop                # builds & installs in debug mode

# 1. Build an optimised, CPU-tuned wheel…
RUSTFLAGS="-C target-cpu=native" \
  maturin build --release --strip

# 2. Install it
pip install target/wheels/argon2_hasher-*.whl

Why two commands? maturin develop is great for dev loops but compiles without optimisations. For benchmarks or production you’ll want the --release wheel (20-50 × faster).

Usage

from argon2_hasher import Argon2Hasher

plain_pw = "correct horse battery staple"

# ① Hash ----------------------------------------------------------------
phc = Argon2Hasher.hash(plain_pw)     # '$argon2id$v=19$m=8192,t=2,p=4$…'

# ② Verify --------------------------------------------------------------
assert Argon2Hasher.verify(phc, plain_pw)          # ✅ True
assert not Argon2Hasher.verify(phc, "wrong pass")  # ❌ False

That’s it – no knobs exposed to Python; all tuning happens inside the Rust crate.

API

All errors are raised as ValueError (malformed hash / salt) or RuntimeError (internal hashing error).

Tests

# tests/test_argon2_hasher.py
from argon2_hasher import Argon2Hasher

def test_match():
    pw  = "my_secure_password"
    phc = Argon2Hasher.hash(pw)
    assert Argon2Hasher.verify(phc, pw)

def test_mismatch():
    phc = Argon2Hasher.hash("secret")
    assert not Argon2Hasher.verify(phc, "bad")

def test_speed():
    import time, bcrypt
    pw = "pw"
    t0 = time.perf_counter()
    Argon2Hasher.verify(Argon2Hasher.hash(pw), pw)
    argon_time = time.perf_counter() - t0

    t0 = time.perf_counter()
    bcrypt.checkpw(pw.encode(),
                   bcrypt.hashpw(pw.encode(),
                                 bcrypt.gensalt(rounds=12)))
    bcrypt_time = time.perf_counter() - t0

    print(f"argon2 {argon_time:.3f}s  / bcrypt {bcrypt_time:.3f}s")

License

argon2_hasher is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE for the full text.