tiny-AES-c/README.md

Tiny AES in C

This is a small and portable implementation of the AES ECB and CBC encryption algorithms written in C.

You can override the default 128bit key with a 192 or 256bit by defining the symbols AES192 or AES256 in aes.h.

The API is very simple and looks like this (I am using C99 <stdint.h>-style annotated types):

void AES_ECB_encrypt(uint8_t* input, const uint8_t* key, uint8_t* output);
void AES_ECB_decrypt(uint8_t* input, const uint8_t* key, uint8_t* output);
void AES_CBC_encrypt_buffer(uint8_t* output, uint8_t* input, uint32_t length, const uint8_t* key, const uint8_t* iv);
void AES_CBC_decrypt_buffer(uint8_t* output, uint8_t* input, uint32_t length, const uint8_t* key, const uint8_t* iv);

You can choose to use one or both of the modes-of-operation, by defining the symbols CBC and ECB. See the header file for clarification.

There is no built-in error checking or protection from out-of-bounds memory access errors as a result of malicious input. The two functions AES_ECB_xxcrypt() do most of the work, and they expect inputs of 128 bit length (or 192/256).

The module uses around 200 bytes of RAM and 2.5K ROM when compiled for ARM (~2K for Thumb but YMMV).

It is one of the smallest implementation in C I've seen yet, but do contact me if you know of something smaller (or have improvements to the code here).

I've successfully used the code on 64bit x86, 32bit ARM and 8 bit AVR platforms. A heartfelt thank-you to all the nice people out there who have contributed to this project.

GCC size output when ECB mode is compiled for ARM:

$ arm-none-eabi-gcc -Os -c aes.c -DCBC=0
$ size aes.o
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
   2316       0     184    2500     9cb aes.o

.. and when compiling for the THUMB instruction set, we end up around 2K in code size.

$ arm-none-eabi-gcc -mthumb -Os -c aes.c -DCBC=0
$ size aes.o
   text    data     bss     dec     hex filename
   1796       0     184    1980     7a7 aes.o

I am using the Free Software Foundation, ARM GCC compiler:

$ arm-none-eabi-gcc --version
arm-none-eabi-gcc (4.8.4-1+11-1) 4.8.4 20141219 (release)
Copyright (C) 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

This implementation is verified against the data in:

National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-38A 2001 ED Appendix F: Example Vectors for Modes of Operation of the AES.

All material in this repository is in the public domain.