Testing

Using the utilities, you can validate the implementation either by providing an arbitrary set of inputs of your choice (see Manual testing) or by using the test vectors provided by various AES validation programs.

You can also test that file encryption works (at least to some extent).

Manual testing

You can validate the implementation manually using the block encryption/decryption utilities encrypt_block and decrypt_block. Pass the --help flag to an utility to examine its detailed usage information.

> encrypt_block -a aes128 -m ecb -- 000102030405060708090a0b0c0d0e0f 00112233445566778899aabbccddeeff
69c4e0d86a7b0430d8cdb78070b4c55a

> decrypt_block -a aes192 -m cbc -- 8e73b0f7da0e6452c810f32b809079e562f8ead2522c6b7b 000102030405060708090a0b0c0d0e0f 4f021db243bc633d7178183a9fa071e8 b4d9ada9ad7dedf4e5e738763f69145a 571b242012fb7ae07fa9baac3df102e0 08b0e27988598881d920a9e64f5615cd
6bc1bee22e409f96e93d7e117393172a
ae2d8a571e03ac9c9eb76fac45af8e51
30c81c46a35ce411e5fbc1191a0a52ef
f69f2445df4f9b17ad2b417be66c3710

Validation programs

A number of test vectors have been collected from various AES validation programs/reference implementations.

The test scripts are written in Python 3 and are used in similar fashion:

they accept the path to the directory with the block encryption/decryption utilities,
they produce log files with short summaries at the end.

In general, each of the scripts counts the number of tests that have failed, succeeded, ended with an error, and were skipped. You must therefore make sure that

no errors occured while running the script,
all the tests succeeded except for those that were skipped,
and the skipped tests were skipped for a good reason.

To pass the path of the directory with the required utilities, use the --path parameter. To allow the utilities to run on older CPUs, pass the --sde flag. Pass the --help flag to a script to examine its detailed usage information.

Prerequisites

To run the test scripts, Python 3.4 or higher is required. CPython 3.5.1 has been verified to work properly.

NIST Special Publication 800-38A

To validate the implementation using the inputs from NIST SP 800-38A, use nist.py:

> nist.py -p C:\workspace\personal\build\aes-tools\utils\Debug

Cryptographic Algorithm Validation Program

To validate the implementation using the inputs from CAVP, use cavp.py.

> cavp.py -p C:\workspace\personal\build\aes-tools\utils\Debug

The AES Known Answer Test (KAT) Vectors are used and read from "KAT_AES.zip".

File encryption

You can also test file encryption using file.py. Its interface and behaviour are similar to those of the validation programs test scripts. The expected ciphertexts (for encryption) and plaintexts (for decryption), along with the keys and initialization vectors, are stored in the files under a separate directory ("file/" by default).