# Is there any implementation of scrypt that allows a specific limit on memory?

The answerer has commented that scrypt's memory use is "only a function of r". $\:$ However, he has
not addressed my argument that it also depends on N, in one of my comments from over 5 days ago.

I had somehow gotten the impression that scrypt offered a separate memory-factor in addition
to its main work-factor. $\:$ However, the (original?) scrypt paper does not have such a parameter.

Do any implementations of scrypt offer a way to limit
its memory usage without that limiting its runtime?

Looking at that paper, I see that there would be an obvious way to do so: in the definition of
ROMix (on page 6), add an input M and replace the instances of N in steps 2 and 7 with M.
Alternatively, one could replace those two Ns with max(M,N) and replace
the N in step 6 with max(N,(2*N)-M), or with something similar to that.

-

If you're using node, node scrypt does this much nicer than your standard Nrp parameters:

scrypt.params(maxtime, maxmem, maxmemfrac, function(err, scryptParameters) {
// scryptParameters contains the standard Nrp generated based on your inputs
});


This way you can control your parameters in a much more understandable way, putting limits on how much cpu time to use, how much memory to use, and the maximum percentage of your available memory to use.

-

Deﬁnition 4: The key derivation function scrypt is deﬁned as scrypt(P, S, N, r, p, dkLen) = MFcryptHMAC SHA256,SMixr(P, S, N, p, dkLen)

The limits on the size of p and dkLen exist as a result of a corresponding limit on the length of key produced by PBKDF.

Users of scrypt can tune the parameters N, r, and p according to the amount of memory and computing power available, the latency-bandwidth product of the memory subsystem, and the amount of parallelism desired; at the current time, taking r = 8 and p = 1 appears to yield good results, but as memory latency and CPU parallelism increase it is likely that the optimum values for both r and p will increase. Note also that since the computations of SMix are independent, a large value of p can be used to increase the computational cost of scrypt without increasing the memory usage; so we can expect scrypt to remain useful even if the growth rates of CPU power and memory capacity diverge.

This SO answer elaborates on the factors more clearly.

$N$: General work factor, iteration count.
$r$: blocksize in use for underlying hash; fine-tunes the relative memory-cost.
$p$: parallelization factor; fine-tunes the relative cpu-cost.

If you want to increase memory hardness, raise r. This will also raise execution time, so you might want to lower N at the same time.

-
Wait a minute here. $\:$ It looks to me as if runtime and memory usage are both proportional to $\:N\hspace{-0.03 in}\cdot\hspace{-0.04 in}r\:$, $\hspace{.63 in}$ via ROMix and its hash H. $\:$ If that's correct, then those parameters don't actually let $\hspace{1.44 in}$ one limit memory usage independently of runtime. $\;\;\;$ –  Ricky Demer Aug 22 '13 at 22:49
@RickyDemer Do you really believe you can increase memory usage without increasing runtime without decreasing the runtime of something non-memory related? Be honest with yourself here. –  orlp Aug 23 '13 at 12:14
@RickyDemer Nope. Memory usage is only a function of $r$. nightcracker, I'm not sure what your point is. –  Nick ODell Aug 23 '13 at 17:26
What am I missing in the following argument? $\:$ "scrypt calls MFcrypt, MFcrypt calls SMix$_r$ (p times in parallel), SMix$_r$ calls ROMix, ROMix makes a table of N values of its hash (which is BlockMix$_{Salsa20/8,r}$), $\;\;$ all of which must be stored simultaneously. $\:$ Thus memory usage scales linearly with N." $\hspace{.98 in}$ –  Ricky Demer Aug 23 '13 at 17:47
@nightcracker : $\;\;\;$ No, but I do believe that I can decrease memory usage without significantly $\hspace{.37 in}$ changing the runtime. $\:$ In fact, I believe the last sentence in my post gives a way to do that. $\hspace{.82 in}$ –  Ricky Demer Aug 23 '13 at 18:02