Does not work with React Native Expo SDK 42+ Please Remove Isomorphic-Webcrypto

[charlestbell]

Currently building a React Native app and just finished porting it over from Firebase to CosmosDB.

Everything looked great, but when I went build it for deployment, I get this error on eas build:
❌ ld: 12 duplicate symbols for architecture arm64

Turns out, I am by no means the first. Others in the community narrowed down the problem to a package called @unimodules/core, which is a dependency of isomorphic-webcrypto, which is a dependency of @azure/cosmos.

The issue has been open on the isomorphic-webcrypto package for some time kevlened/isomorphic-webcrypto#65

But that package has only one maintainer, and hasn't been updated in over a year.

Because there is no movement on the isomorphic-webcrypto package, I am asking that the Azure Team please remove isomorphic-webcrypto as a dependency, so that react-native Expo devs can use an up-to-date version of Expo.

Thank you so much!

[azure-sdk]

Label prediction was below confidence level 0.6 for Model:ServiceLabels: 'Azure.Core:0.40485868,Storage:0.09189288,Cosmos:0.0918496'

[xirzec]

@jeremymeng can you look into this and make a recommendation for how to best resolve?

[jeremymeng]

cosmos uses isomorphic-webcrypto for sha-256 digest and hmac computation when targeting React Native. We could change to not explicitly require this package, and instead rely on customers to provide necessary crypto polyfill.

azure-sdk-for-js/sdk/cosmosdb/cosmos/src/utils/globalCrypto.native.ts

Line 7 in bdf740c

const globalCrypto = require("isomorphic-webcrypto"); // eslint-disable-line import/no-extraneous-dependencies, @typescript-eslint/no-require-imports

In app config we use computerSha256Hash and computerSha256Hmac from @azure/core-util. On React Native, it falls back to the browser version, which requires the importKey, sign, and digest from crypto.subtle API.

Our current sample provides the polyfill using isomorphic-webcrypto though as it is the only one that I know of and tested on Android Emulator.

azure-sdk-for-js/samples/frameworks/react-native-expo/ts/appconfigBasic/shims.ts

Lines 5 to 6 in bdf740c

	import * as crypto from "isomorphic-webcrypto";
	global.crypto = crypto;

If isomorphic-webcrypto doesn't work on iOS then we need another polyfill.

Another approach is to provide digest/hmac functionality using RN-native packages. But I haven't found any "blessed" packages for this.

[charlestbell]

Update: I found a temporary workaround, which is to use Expo's classic build service, instead of their newer EAS build service. Unfortunately, the classic build service is deprecated and goes offline in about 160 days. So I'm reaching out to them and see if they can get EAS build to work like classic in this regard, or hold off on deprecating classic.

Thanks @jeremymeng and @xirzec for looking into it. I wish you luck finding another polyfill.

[charlestbell]

https://github.com/expo/eas-build/issues/121#issue-1309922843

[xirzec]

Update: I found a temporary workaround, which is to use Expo's classic build service, instead of their newer EAS build service. Unfortunately, the classic build service is deprecated and goes offline in about 160 days. So I'm reaching out to them and see if they can get EAS build to work like classic in this regard, or hold off on deprecating classic.

Glad you found a workaround for now. If they have any recommendations for replacing isomorphic-webcrypto or if you stumble into such in your travels, let us know, we'll keep working on the problem for our side.

[charlestbell]

Update: can confirm that this issue is affecting android builds on Expo EAS, not just ios.

Any progress on removing isomorphic-webcrypto?

[jeremymeng]

@charlestbell I opened a draft PR #23156. Please give try the package produced by the CI automation. If I understand correctly, removing the dependency would hopefully fix the build errors, but you would get runtime error when using cosmos, unless you provide crypto polyfills.

Edited: remove link to old artifact

[jeremymeng]

PR #23156 doesn't work in my testing. I will spend some more time on this then get back to you.

[jeremymeng]

@charlestbell here's an updated version that I was able to use to run some cosmos test in Android Emulator (with polyfills). Please give it a try

[charlestbell]

Thank you, I'll take a look. This will be my first time using a non-npm package, you'll have to bear with me.

[charlestbell]

I pasted the updated package slice inside my node modules folder in @azure/cosmos, but I'm still fuzzy on how to polyfill crypto.
I did some digging and came up with rn-nodify.js but that option is looking scary.
What did you use @jeremymeng?

[jeremymeng]

@charlestbell I was able to use isomorphic-webcrypto on Android Emulator. Here's my shim.js which I import at the beginning of app.js before importing Azure SDK packages.

import "react-native-url-polyfill/auto";
import "react-native-get-random-values";
import "text-encoding-polyfill";
const getRandomValues = global.crypto.getRandomValues;
import * as crypto from "isomorphic-webcrypto";
global.crypto = crypto;
global.crypto.getRandomValues = getRandomValues;

[charlestbell]

Pardon my ignorance, but if this is still using isomorphic-webcrypto. Then how does it help me with my problem?

[charlestbell]

I don't have an issue with Android Emulator, I have an issue with Expo Application Services' build process, using the eas-cli.

[jeremymeng]

Pardon my ignorance, but if this is still using isomorphic-webcrypto. Then how does it help me with my problem?

@charlestbell My PR removes cosmos' hard-coded require dependency on isomorphic-webcrypto so expo will not load it during build time, and customers have an opportunity to provide their own crypto polyfill. At this point I don't know about other crypto polyfill that would satisfy EAS build. Maybe expo team has more insights on this?

[charlestbell]

Understood. Thank you.

I don't know where to find a polyfill either, so I'm in the same boat.

Thanks for doing what you've done though. If anyone knows of another polyfill, I'll give it a try with the version you provided.

[MaxJadav]

Getting issue without expo
#26574

kevlened/isomorphic-webcrypto#78

[faisalaltell12]

Can isomorphic-webcrypto be replaced with expo-crypto? Getting the same issue as well.

[faisalaltell12]

Can isomorphic-webcrypto be replaced with expo-crypto? Getting the same issue as well.

The problem is @azure/cosmos has a dependency on isomorphic-webcrypto:
https://www.npmjs.com/package/isomorphic-webcrypto?activeTab=dependencies

isomorphic-webcrypto has a dependency on @unimodules/core - @unimodules/core is deprecated.

Maybe we could update isomorphic-webcrypto to not have a dependency on @unimodules/core?

[oreHGA]

At this point I don't know about other crypto polyfill that would satisfy EAS build. Maybe expo team has more insights on this?

@jeremymeng I think you can probably use the react-native-webview-crypto package and create a polyfill that supports web.crpyto calls. There's an example that works in the github link

https://github.com/webview-crypto/react-native-webview-crypto

Just used it for a private project where I couldn't use isomorphic-webcrypto

[nelsona]

There is a fork here that removes the @unimodules/core dependency and uses expo-crypto:
https://github.com/earonesty/isomorphic-webcrypto

For this to work with eas build I think you would need to add the following to the the package.json for this fork:

  "react-native": {
    "./src/main.js": "./src/react-native.js",
    "./src/index.mjs": "./src/react-native.js"
  },

[github-actions]

Hi @charlestbell, we deeply appreciate your input into this project. Regrettably, this issue has remained unresolved for over 2 years and inactive for 30 days, leading us to the decision to close it. We've implemented this policy to maintain the relevance of our issue queue and facilitate easier navigation for new contributors. If you still believe this topic requires attention, please feel free to create a new issue, referencing this one. Thank you for your understanding and ongoing support.