Encrypt & Decrypt using PyCrypto AES 256

Question

I'm trying to build two functions using PyCrypto that accept two parameters: the message and the key, and then encrypt/decrypt the message.

I found several links on the web to help me out, but each one of them has flaws:

This one at codekoala uses os.urandom, which is discouraged by PyCrypto.

Moreover, the key I give to the function is not guaranteed to have the exact length expected. What can I do to make that happen ?

Also, there are several modes, which one is recommended? I don't know what to use :/

Finally, what exactly is the IV? Can I provide a different IV for encrypting and decrypting, or will this return in a different result?

Edit: Removed the code part since it was not secure.

Answer 1

Here is my implementation and works for me with some fixes and enhances the alignment of the key and secret phrase with 32 bytes and iv to 16 bytes:

import base64
import hashlib
from Crypto import Random
from Crypto.Cipher import AES

class AESCipher(object):

    def __init__(self, key): 
        self.bs = AES.block_size
        self.key = hashlib.sha256(key.encode()).digest()

    def encrypt(self, raw):
        raw = self._pad(raw)
        iv = Random.new().read(AES.block_size)
        cipher = AES.new(self.key, AES.MODE_CBC, iv)
        return base64.b64encode(iv + cipher.encrypt(raw.encode()))

    def decrypt(self, enc):
        enc = base64.b64decode(enc)
        iv = enc[:AES.block_size]
        cipher = AES.new(self.key, AES.MODE_CBC, iv)
        return self._unpad(cipher.decrypt(enc[AES.block_size:])).decode('utf-8')

    def _pad(self, s):
        return s + (self.bs - len(s) % self.bs) * chr(self.bs - len(s) % self.bs)

    @staticmethod
    def _unpad(s):
        return s[:-ord(s[len(s)-1:])]