Check the password of a user

Question

I want to keep a check if the user has a particular password, so I have been trying it with wp_check_password but the account for which it is checked gets logged out and can't login again till there is a call of wp_check_password in the code.

Digging into the code, I found out that it sets the password by using the new hash. and moreover if I am using wp_check_password( 'hello', md5('hello'), 1 );, it doesn't even check what is inside the database and returns true. Isn't that a bug?

Any ideas how can I check the user's password?

Answer 1

Your example works correctly. You are checking if password hello matches hashed hello - which it naturally does.

Hadn't thought it through. Your example causes following issue:

1. You check if hello matches md5 of hello (instead of hash from user's profile).
2. It does and then WP thinks this is correct, but outdated md5 hash - that must be updated.
3. It re-hashes hello and updates user with it, locking him out (since his password is now hello instead of whatever it was before).

See wp_authenticate_username_password() function for extensive example, but basic idea is:

$userdata = get_user_by('login', $username);
$result = wp_check_password($password, $userdata->user_pass, $userdata->ID);

Answer 2

You can grab their hashed password from the database, and compare it to the entry you want to check using wp_hash_password().

To check if the current user's password matches "hello", try this:

if ( $current_user->user_pass == wp_hash_password( 'hello' ) )