Checksums

In Volaris, hashing mode uses BLAKE3 for verification due to its speed, security, and regular updates, making it ideal for this use case.

Checksums in Volaris are not used for anything security-related; they are provided for your peace of mind.

The encrypted file is hashed (after encryption and before/during decryption) to ensure that it wasn't tampered with between these stages. If the hash doesn't match, it indicates a serious issue.

Since v8.5.0, checksums are calculated after the main process. This approach helps keep our encryption/decryption functions cleaner and more focused, maintaining the core functionality effectively.

Standalone Hashing Mode

You can use standalone hashing mode by running volaris-cli hash test.enc. This can be done on any file—encrypted or not.

You can even hash multiple files at once with a command like volaris-cli hash test1.enc test2.enc.

Performance

Performance tests were conducted on a system with a Ryzen 5 3600x and 16GB of 3200MHz RAM, running Fedora Linux. The test file was 3.5GiB and stored on a Crucial MX500 SSD.

Version 6 removed JSON entirely and dropped base64 encoding, significantly improving performance.

These tests were conducted using AES-256-GCM.

Time was measured using /usr/bin/time -f "%e".

Times