Question 1

Is Lua Lockbox safe to use in production applications?

Accepted Answer

It implements both secure and insecure primitives with warnings, but due to its pure Lua nature and focus on readability over performance, it's best suited for testing or legacy systems. For production, consider more optimized and audited libraries like those with C bindings.

Question 2

How does Lua Lockbox compare to luacrypto for Lua?

Accepted Answer

Lua Lockbox is pure Lua and highly portable, while luacrypto uses C bindings for better performance but less portability. Lockbox is better for education and cross-platform needs, whereas luacrypto is preferable for speed-critical applications.

Question 3

How to encrypt a string with AES using Lua Lockbox?

Accepted Answer

Use the builder pattern: initialize the AES cipher with lockbox.cipher.aes256, update with a byte stream from your string, and finish. Refer to the test case files in the repository for specific code examples on handling data with Array and Stream structures.

Question 4

What Lua versions are supported by Lua Lockbox?

Accepted Answer

Since it's pure Lua, it should work with standard Lua 5.x versions, but performance may vary. Compatibility with LuaJIT isn't explicitly stated, but pure Lua code generally runs, albeit without JIT optimizations for cryptography.

Question 5

Are there any known security vulnerabilities in Lua Lockbox?

Accepted Answer

The library marks weak algorithms as insecure and requires manual override, but as a reference implementation, it hasn't undergone rigorous security audits. Use with caution in security-critical contexts, and avoid the marked insecure primitives.

Question 6

How to install Lua Lockbox in a LuaRocks-based project?

Accepted Answer

It's not listed on LuaRocks, so you need to manually download the source and integrate it by modifying the module search path in Lockbox.lua, which can be more complex than using standard package managers.

lua-lockbox

What is lua-lockbox?

Overview

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Frequently Asked Questions