openssl/doc/man3/EVP_MD_fetch.pod

=pod

=head1 NAME

EVP_MD_fetch
- Functions to explicitly fetch algorithm implementations

=head1 SYNOPSIS

 #include <openssl/evp.h>

 EVP_MD *EVP_MD_fetch(OPENSSL_CTX *ctx, const char *algorithm,
                      const char *properties);

=head1 DESCRIPTION

The B<EVP_MD> object is used for representing a digest method implementation.

Having obtained a digest implementation as an B<EVP_MD> type it can be used to
calculate the digest of input data using functions such as
L<EVP_DigestInit_ex(3)>, L<EVP_DigestUpdate(3)> and L<EVP_DigestFinal_ex(3)>.

Digest implementations may be obtained in one of three ways, i.e. implicit
fetch, explicit fetch or user defined.

=over 4

=item Implicit Fetch

With implicit fetch an application can use functions such as L<EVP_sha256(3)>,
L<EVP_sha512(3)> or L<EVP_blake2b512(3)> to obtain an B<EVP_MD> object. When
used in a function like L<EVP_DigestInit_ex(3)> the actual implementation to
be used will be fetched implicitly using default search criteria. Typically,
(unless the default search criteria have been changed and/or different providers
have been loaded), this will return an implementation of the appropriate
algorithm from the default provider.

=item Explicit Fetch

With explicit fetch an application uses the EVP_MD_fetch() function to obtain
an algorithm implementation. An implementation with the given name and
satisfying the search criteria specified in the B<properties> parameter
combined with the default search criteria will be looked for within the
available providers and returned.
See L<EVP_set_default_properties(3)> for information on default search criteria
and L<OSSL_PROVIDER(3)> for information about providers.

=item User defined

Using the user defined approach an application constructs its own EVP_MD object.
See L<EVP_MD_meth_new(3)> for details.

=back

The EVP_MD_fetch() function will look for an algorithm within the providers that
have been loaded into the B<OPENSSL_CTX> given in the B<ctx> parameter. This
parameter may be NULL in which case the default B<OPENSSL_CTX> will be used. See
L<OPENSSL_CTX_new(3)> and L<OSSL_PROVIDER_load(3)> for further details.

The B<algorithm> parameter gives the name of the algorithm to be looked up.
Different algorithms can be made available by loading different providers. The
built-in default provider algorithm implementation names are: SHA1, SHA224,
SHA256, SHA384, SHA512, SHA512-224, SHA512-256,SHA3-224, SHA3-256, SHA3-384,
SHA3-512, SHAKE128, SHAKE256, SM3, BLAKE2b512, BLAKE2s256 and MD5-SHA1.

Additional algorithm implementations may be obtained by loading the "legacy"
provider. The names of these algorithms are: RIPEMD160, MD2, MD4, MD5, MDC2 and
whirlpool.

The B<properties> parameter specifies the search criteria that will be used to
look for an algorithm implementation. Properties are given as a comma delimited
string of name value pairs. In order for an implementation to match, all the
properties in the query string must match those defined for that implementation.
Any properties defined by an implementation but not given in the query string
are ignored. All algorithm implementations in the default provider have the
property "default=yes". All algorithm implementations in the legacy provider have
the property "legacy=yes". All algorithm implementations in the FIPS provider
have the property "fips=yes". In the event that more than one implementation
of the given algorithm name matches the specified properties then an unspecified
one of those implementations may be returned. The B<properties> parameter may be
NULL in which case any implementation from the available providers with the
given algorithm name will be returned.

The return value from a call to EVP_MD_fetch() must be freed by the caller using
L<EVP_MD_meth_free(3)>. Note that EVP_MD objects are reference counted. See
L<EVP_MD_upref(3)>.

=head1 NOTES

Where an application that previously used implicit fetch is converted to use
explicit fetch care should be taken with the L<EVP_MD_CTX_md(3)> function.
Specifically, this function returns the EVP_MD object orginally passed to
EVP_DigestInit_ex() (or other similar function). With implicit fetch the
returned EVP_MD object is guaranteed to be available throughout the application
lifetime. However, with explicit fetch EVP_MD objects are reference counted.
EVP_MD_CTX_md does not increment the reference count and so the returned EVP_MD
object may not be accessible beyond the lifetime of the EVP_MD_CTX it is
associated with.

=head1 RETURN VALUES

EVP_MD_fetch() returns a pointer to the algorithm implementation represented by
an EVP_MD object, or NULL on error.

=head1 EXAMPLES

Fetch any available implementation of SHA256 in the default context:

 EVP_MD *md = EVP_MD_fetch(NULL, "SHA256", NULL);

Fetch an implementation of SHA256 from the default provider in the default
context:

 EVP_MD *md = EVP_MD_fetch(NULL, "SHA256", "default=yes");
 ...
 EVP_MD_meth_free(md);

Fetch an implementation of SHA256 that is not from the default provider in the
default context:

 EVP_MD *md = EVP_MD_fetch(NULL, "SHA256", "default=no");
 ...
 EVP_MD_meth_free(md);

Fetch an implementation of SHA256 from the default provider in the specified
context:

 EVP_MD *md = EVP_MD_fetch(ctx, "SHA256", "default=yes");
 ...
 EVP_MD_meth_free(md);

Load the legacy provider into the default context and then fetch an
implementation of whirlpool from it:

 /* This only needs to be done once - usually at application start up */
 OSSL_PROVIDER *legacy = OSSL_PROVIDER_load(NULL, "legacy");

 EVP_MD *md = EVP_MD_fetch(NULL, "whirlpool", "legacy=yes");
 ...
 EVP_MD_meth_free(md);

Note that in the above example the property string "legacy=yes" is optional
since, assuming no other providers have been loaded, the only implmentation of
the "whirlpool" algorithm is in the "legacy" provider. Also note that the
default provider should be explicitly loaded if it is required in addition to
other providers:

 /* This only needs to be done once - usually at application start up */
 OSSL_PROVIDER *legacy = OSSL_PROVIDER_load(NULL, "legacy");
 OSSL_PROVIDER *default = OSSL_PROVIDER_load(NULL, "default");

 EVP_MD *md_whirlpool = EVP_MD_fetch(NULL, "whirlpool", NULL);
 EVP_MD *md_sha256 = EVP_MD_fetch(NULL, "SHA256", NULL);
 ...
 EVP_MD_meth_free(md_whirlpool);
 EVP_MD_meth_free(md_sha256);

=head1 SEE ALSO

L<EVP_DigestInit(3)>, L<EVP_MD_meth_new(3)>, L<EVP_MD_meth_free(3)>,
L<EVP_MD_upref(3)>, L<OSSL_PROVIDER_load(3)>, L<OPENSSL_CTX(3)>,
L<EVP_set_default_properties(3)>

=head1 HISTORY

The functions described here were added in OpenSSL 3.0.

=head1 COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2019 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (the "License").  You may not use
this file except in compliance with the License.  You can obtain a copy
in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at
L<https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.

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