password_hash
password_hash creates a new password hash using a strong one-way hashing algorithm.
The following algorithms are currently supported:
PASSWORD_DEFAULT - Use the bcrypt algorithm (default as of PHP 5.5.0). Note that this constant is designed to change over time as new and stronger algorithms are added to PHP. For that reason, the length of the result from using this identifier can change over time. Therefore, it is recommended to store the result in a database column that can expand beyond 60 characters (255 characters would be a good choice).
PASSWORD_BCRYPT - Use the CRYPT_BLOWFISH algorithm to create the hash. This will produce a standard crypt compatible hash using the "$2y$" identifier. The result will always be a 60 character string, or false on failure.
PASSWORD_ARGON2I - Use the Argon2i hashing algorithm to create the hash. This algorithm is only available if PHP has been compiled with Argon2 support.
PASSWORD_ARGON2ID - Use the Argon2id hashing algorithm to create the hash. This algorithm is only available if PHP has been compiled with Argon2 support.
Supported options for PASSWORD_BCRYPT:
salt (string) - to manually provide a salt to use when hashing the password. Note that this will override and prevent a salt from being automatically generated.
If omitted, a random salt will be generated by password_hash for each password hashed. This is the intended mode of operation.
Warning:
The salt option is deprecated. It is now preferred to simply use the salt that is generated by default. As of PHP 8.0.0, an explicitly given salt is ignored.
cost (int) - which denotes the algorithmic cost that should be used. Examples of these values can be found on the crypt page.
If omitted, a default value of 10 will be used. This is a good baseline cost, but you may want to consider increasing it depending on your hardware.
Supported options for PASSWORD_ARGON2I and PASSWORD_ARGON2ID:
memory_cost (int) - Maximum memory (in kibibytes) that may be used to compute the Argon2 hash. Defaults to PASSWORD_ARGON2_DEFAULT_MEMORY_COST.
time_cost (int) - Maximum amount of time it may take to compute the Argon2 hash. Defaults to PASSWORD_ARGON2_DEFAULT_TIME_COST.
threads (int) - Number of threads to use for computing the Argon2 hash. Defaults to PASSWORD_ARGON2_DEFAULT_THREADS.
Warning:
Only available when PHP uses libargon2, not with libsodium implementation.
Parameters
- password
-
The user's password.
Caution:
Using the PASSWORD_BCRYPT as the algorithm, will result in the password parameter being truncated to a maximum length of 72 bytes.
- algo
-
A password algorithm constant denoting the algorithm to use when hashing the password.
- options
-
An associative array containing options. See the password algorithm constants for documentation on the supported options for each algorithm.
If omitted, a random salt will be created and the default cost will be used.
Return Values
Returns the hashed password.
The used algorithm, cost and salt are returned as part of the hash. Therefore, all information that's needed to verify the hash is included in it. This allows the password_verify function to verify the hash without needing separate storage for the salt or algorithm information.
Notes
Caution:
It is strongly recommended that you do not generate your own salt for this function. It will create a secure salt automatically for you if you do not specify one.
As noted above, providing the salt option in PHP 7.0 will generate a deprecation warning. Support for providing a salt manually may be removed in a future PHP release.
Note:
It is recommended that you test this function on your servers, and adjust the cost parameter so that execution of the function takes less than 100 milliseconds on interactive systems. The script in the above example will help you choose a good cost value for your hardware.
Note:
Updates to supported algorithms by this function (or changes to the default one) must follow the following rules:
Any new algorithm must be in core for at least 1 full release of PHP prior to becoming default. So if, for example, a new algorithm is added in 7.5.5, it would not be eligible for default until 7.7 (since 7.6 would be the first full release). But if a different algorithm was added in 7.6.0, it would also be eligible for default at 7.7.0.
The default should only change in a full release (7.3.0, 8.0.0, etc) and not in a revision release. The only exception to this is in an emergency when a critical security flaw is found in the current default.
Changelog
| Version | Description |
| 8.0.0 | password_hash no longer returns false on failure. |
| 8.0.0 | The algo parameter is nullable now. |
| 7.4.0 | The algo parameter expects a string now, but still accepts ints for backward compatibility. |
| 7.4.0 | The sodium extension provides an alternative implementation for Argon2 passwords. |
| 7.3.0 | Support for Argon2id passwords using PASSWORD_ARGON2ID was added. |
| 7.2.0 | Support for Argon2i passwords using PASSWORD_ARGON2I was added. |