How to store passwords in the database

May 22, 2020

Never store raw passwords in your database, store a hash instead. Learn how to hash and verify passwords in Node.js with bcrypt using hash() and compare().

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You don’t. You don’t store passwords in the database. You store the password hash, a string generated from the password, but from which no one can go back to the original password value.

The password itself still needs to be strong before you hash it — I built a free password generator that creates random passwords and passphrases with entropy estimates.

Using Node, install bcrypt:

npm install bcrypt

Require it, and define the salt rounds value, we’ll use it later:

const bcrypt = require('bcrypt')

const saltRounds = 10

Create a password hash

Create a password hash using:

const hash = await bcrypt.hash('PASSWORD', saltRounds)

where PASSWORD is the actual password string.

If you prefer callbacks:

bcrypt.hash('PASSWORD', saltRounds, (err, hash) => {
  
})

Then you can store the hash value in the database.

Verify the password hash

To verify the password, compare it with the hash stored in the database using bcrypt.compare():

const result = await bcrypt.compare('PASSWORD', hash) 
//result is true or false

Using callbacks:

bcrypt.compare('somePassword', hash, (err, result) => {
  //result is true or false
})

Tagged: Database · All topics

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