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Trying to understand PBKDF2 in detail. It is clear that the password and the salt is given to the PRF (which is HMAC-SHA-1 in the specification). But what is the role of the INT_32_BE(i)? What does it call? Is it ORed (||) with the salt? And what is the value of INT_32_BE(i) any way? Is it 1? Can anyone clear this out?

U1 = PRF(Password, Salt || INT_32_BE(i))
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The article you linked to explains everyting

Salt concatenated with i encoded as a big-endian 32-bit integer

So, || is concatenation, INT_32_BE is a function that encodes the 32 bit integer i as big endian. On a big endian system, INT_32_BE would do nothing. On a little endian architecture, it would do the encoding.

i goes from 1 to dklen/hlen. dklen/hlen is the number of hash function outputs needed to construct a key of the right length.

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    $\begingroup$ huh??? ... say what..? $\endgroup$
    – Giliweed
    Sep 29, 2014 at 15:32
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    $\begingroup$ @Giliweed, what is not clear? Endianess? $\endgroup$
    – mikeazo
    Sep 29, 2014 at 15:33
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    $\begingroup$ I'm not clear about what is "big endian" $\endgroup$
    – Giliweed
    Sep 29, 2014 at 15:35
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    $\begingroup$ I suppose it bears mentioning that the purpose is to make each block of the output different. $\endgroup$
    – otus
    Sep 29, 2014 at 21:00

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