Key Property

The secret key for the symmetric algorithm.

Syntax

 idea.getKey([callback])
 idea.setKey( key_Buffer, [callback])

Default Value

Callback

The 'callback' parameter specifies a function which will be called when the operation completes (or an error is encountered). If the 'callback' parameter is not specified, then the method will block and will not return until the operation completes (or an error is encountered).

The callback for the getKey([callback]) method is defined as:

function(err, buffer){ }

'err' is the error that occurred. If there was no error, then 'err' is 'null'.

'buffer' is the value returned by the method.

The callback for the setKey([callback]) method is defined as:

function(err){ }

'err' is the error that occurred. If there was no error, then 'err' is 'null'.

'err' has 2 properties which hold detailed information:

err.code
err.message

Remarks

This secret key is used both for encryption and decryption. The secret key should be known only to the sender and the receiver. The legal key size varies depending on the algorithm.

If this property is left empty and KeyPassword is specified, a Key value will be generated by the class as necessary.

Legal Key and Block Sizes (in bits)


	AES	Rijndael	CAST	DES	IDEA	RC2	RC4	TripleDES	Blowfish	Twofish	TEA
Minimum Key Size	128	128	112	64	128	112	112	128	112	128	128
Maximum Key Size	256	256	128	64	128	128	2048	192	448	256	128
Key Size Step	64	64	8	0	0	8	8	64	1	8	0
Block Size	128	128/192/256	64	64	64	64	N/A	64	64	128	64*

Note: When using TEA if Algorithm is set to XXTEA valid block sizes are 64 + n * 32. Where n is any positive integer.

The default KeySize is the Maximum Key Size.

Data Type