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I am learning/exploring the openssl library for encrypting and decrypting data while encryption goes through fine I see standalone decryption not working as I expected.

The test vector I am using is

# Key 2b7e151628aed2a6abf7158809cf4f3c
# IV 000102030405060708090a0b0c0d0e0f
# Block #1
# Plaintext 6bc1bee22e409f96e93d7e117393172a
# Input Block 6bc0bce12a459991e134741a7f9e1925
# Output Block 7649abac8119b246cee98e9b12e9197d
# Ciphertext 7649abac8119b246cee98e9b12e9197d

I basically want to take the hexstring for CT and derive the hex string for PT, im aware that i need to convert the hex string to bytes thats not an issue.

Now while encrypting data I found that there are 16 bytes being added for padding, so i started looking into disabling padding and came across EVP_CIPHER_CTX_set_padding() but when calling this function after EVP_EncryptInit_ex() my code segfaults.

I am basically modifying the sample testapp to try and get this to work. Evp-symmetric-encrypt.c

int encrypt(unsigned char *plaintext, int plaintext_len, unsigned char *key,
            unsigned char *iv, unsigned char *ciphertext)
{
    EVP_CIPHER_CTX *ctx;
    int len;
    int ciphertext_len;

    if(!(ctx = EVP_CIPHER_CTX_new()))
        handleErrors();

    if(1 != EVP_EncryptInit_ex(ctx, EVP_aes_128_cbc(), NULL, key, iv))
        handleErrors();

    #if 0
    // adding this segfaults
    printf("[%s::%d] disabling padding ... \n",__func__, __LINE__);
    if(1 != EVP_CIPHER_CTX_set_padding(ctx, 0))
        handleErrors();
    #endif

    if(1 != EVP_EncryptUpdate(ctx, ciphertext, &len, plaintext, plaintext_len))
        handleErrors();
    ciphertext_len = len;

    if(1 != EVP_EncryptFinal_ex(ctx, ciphertext + len, &len))
        handleErrors();
    ciphertext_len += len;

    EVP_CIPHER_CTX_free(ctx);

    return ciphertext_len;
}

My goal is to be able to encrypt and decrypt nist test vectors for cbc/ctr/gcm/xts without the additional padded data got from encryption.

Is this possible ?

If not is it possible to generate the padded block ??

Ciphertext is:
************
[ 0->] p :: 0x76
[ 1->] p :: 0x49
[ 2->] p :: 0xab
[ 3->] p :: 0xac
[ 4->] p :: 0x81
[ 5->] p :: 0x19
[ 6->] p :: 0xb2
[ 7->] p :: 0x46
[ 8->] p :: 0xce
[ 9->] p :: 0xe9
[10->] p :: 0x8e
[11->] p :: 0x9b
[12->] p :: 0x12
[13->] p :: 0xe9
[14->] p :: 0x19
[15->] p :: 0x7d
-------------------
// Can this below part be generated before decryption ?
[16->] p :: 0x89
[17->] p :: 0x64
[18->] p :: 0xe0
[19->] p :: 0xb1
[20->] p :: 0x49
[21->] p :: 0xc1
[22->] p :: 0xb
[23->] p :: 0x7b
[24->] p :: 0x68
[25->] p :: 0x2e
[26->] p :: 0x6e
[27->] p :: 0x39
[28->] p :: 0xaa
[29->] p :: 0xeb
[30->] p :: 0x73
[31->] p :: 0x1c
************

Did I miss anything while calling EVP_CIPHER_CTX_set_padding() ?

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  • $\begingroup$ I am seeing this padding for AES-CBC in particular, is there some reference for different padding used for various algorithms like CBC, GCM and XTS ? $\endgroup$
    – Eddy
    Oct 2, 2022 at 9:50
  • $\begingroup$ CTR and GCM do not pad data *1 and XTS uses ciphertext stealing, using the previous ciphertext as "padding". Most modern / streaming modes don't require padding, which surprises most devs that have grown up with ECB / CBC and standard libraries. *1, well GMAC can be thought of to pad data, but that's an internal operation which should be invisible from the outside, especially from EVP higher level functions. $\endgroup$
    – Maarten Bodewes
    Oct 2, 2022 at 20:21
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the info. $\endgroup$
    – Eddy
    Oct 4, 2022 at 5:34

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