Question

I’ve some clear text which I want to encrypt using RSA_PKCS_V21 (using PolarSSL library). The problem is that I need to know size of cipher text before executing the algorithm (for dynamic memory allocation purpose).
I know RSA key size & clear text length.
I also want to know the limitation on input clear text length.
Any idea?

Answer 1

Just check the RSA PKCS#1 v2.1 standard, chapter 7.2:

RSAES-PKCS1-V1_5-ENCRYPT ((n, e), M)

Input:

• (n, e) recipient’s RSA public key (k denotes the length in octets
  of the modulus n)
• M message to be encrypted, an octet string of length mLen,
  where mLen <= k – 11

So the input depends on the key size. k is that key size but in octets. So for a 1024 bit key you have 1024 / 8 – 11 = 117 bytes as maximum plain text.

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Note that above is the maximum size for RSA with PKCS#1 v1.5 padding. For the newer OAEP padding the following can be found in chapter 7.1:

RSAES-OAEP-ENCRYPT ((n, e), M, L)

…

Input:

• (n, e) recipient’s RSA public key (k denotes the length in octets
  of the RSA modulus n)
• M message to be encrypted, an octet string of length mLen,
  where mLen <= k – 2hLen – 2
• L optional label to be associated with the message; the
  default value for L, if L is not provided, is the empty
  string

Where hLen is the output size of the hash function used for the mask generation function. If the default SHA-1 hash function is used then the maximum size of the message is k – 42 (as the output size of SHA-1 is 20 bytes, and 2 * 20 + 2 = 42).

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Normally a randomly generated secret key is encrypted instead of the message. Then the message is encrypted with that secret key. This allows almost infinitely long messages, and symmetric crypto – such as AES in CBC mode – is much faster than asymmetric crypto. This combination is called hybrid encryption.

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The output size for RSA encryption or signature generation with any padding is identical to the size of the modulus in bytes (rounded upwards, of course), so for a 1024 bit key you would expect 1024 / 8 = 128 octets / bytes.

Note that the output array of the calculated size may contain leading bytes set to zero; this should be considered normal.