Is the salt contained in a phpass hash or do you need to salt its input?

Question

phpass is a widely used hashing 'framework'.
Is it good practice to salt the plain password before giving it to PasswordHash (v0.2), like so?:

$dynamicSalt   = $record['salt'];
$staticSalt    = 'i5ininsfj5lt4hbfduk54fjbhoxc80sdf';
$plainPassword = $_POST['password'];
$password      = $plainPassword . $dynamicSalt . $staticSalt;

$passwordHash = new PasswordHash(8, false);
$storedPassword = $passwordHash->HashPassword($password);  

---

For reference the phpsalt class:

# Portable PHP password hashing framework.
#
# Version 0.2 / genuine.
#
# Written by Solar Designer <solar at openwall.com> in 2004-2006 and placed in
# the public domain.
#
#
#
class PasswordHash {
    var $itoa64;
    var $iteration_count_log2;
    var $portable_hashes;
    var $random_state;

    function PasswordHash($iteration_count_log2, $portable_hashes)
    {
        $this->itoa64 = './0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz';

        if ($iteration_count_log2 < 4 || $iteration_count_log2 > 31)
            $iteration_count_log2 = 8;
        $this->iteration_count_log2 = $iteration_count_log2;

        $this->portable_hashes = $portable_hashes;

        $this->random_state = microtime() . getmypid();
    }

    function get_random_bytes($count)
    {
        $output = '';
        if (is_readable('/dev/urandom') &&
            ($fh = @fopen('/dev/urandom', 'rb'))) {
            $output = fread($fh, $count);
            fclose($fh);
        }

        if (strlen($output) < $count) {
            $output = '';
            for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i += 16) {
                $this->random_state =
                    md5(microtime() . $this->random_state);
                $output .=
                    pack('H*', md5($this->random_state));
            }
            $output = substr($output, 0, $count);
        }

        return $output;
    }

    function encode64($input, $count)
    {
        $output = '';
        $i = 0;
        do {
            $value = ord($input[$i++]);
            $output .= $this->itoa64[$value & 0x3f];
            if ($i < $count)
                $value |= ord($input[$i]) << 8;
            $output .= $this->itoa64[($value >> 6) & 0x3f];
            if ($i++ >= $count)
                break;
            if ($i < $count)
                $value |= ord($input[$i]) << 16;
            $output .= $this->itoa64[($value >> 12) & 0x3f];
            if ($i++ >= $count)
                break;
            $output .= $this->itoa64[($value >> 18) & 0x3f];
        } while ($i < $count);

        return $output;
    }

    function gensalt_private($input)
    {
        $output = '$P$';
        $output .= $this->itoa64[min($this->iteration_count_log2 +
            ((PHP_VERSION >= '5') ? 5 : 3), 30)];
        $output .= $this->encode64($input, 6);

        return $output;
    }

    function crypt_private($password, $setting)
    {
        $output = '*0';
        if (substr($setting, 0, 2) == $output)
            $output = '*1';

        if (substr($setting, 0, 3) != '$P$')
            return $output;

        $count_log2 = strpos($this->itoa64, $setting[3]);
        if ($count_log2 < 7 || $count_log2 > 30)
            return $output;

        $count = 1 << $count_log2;

        $salt = substr($setting, 4, 8);
        if (strlen($salt) != 8)
            return $output;

        # We're kind of forced to use MD5 here since it's the only
        # cryptographic primitive available in all versions of PHP
        # currently in use.  To implement our own low-level crypto
        # in PHP would result in much worse performance and
        # consequently in lower iteration counts and hashes that are
        # quicker to crack (by non-PHP code).
        if (PHP_VERSION >= '5') {
            $hash = md5($salt . $password, TRUE);
            do {
                $hash = md5($hash . $password, TRUE);
            } while (--$count);
        } else {
            $hash = pack('H*', md5($salt . $password));
            do {
                $hash = pack('H*', md5($hash . $password));
            } while (--$count);
        }

        $output = substr($setting, 0, 12);
        $output .= $this->encode64($hash, 16);

        return $output;
    }

    function gensalt_extended($input)
    {
        $count_log2 = min($this->iteration_count_log2 + 8, 24);
        # This should be odd to not reveal weak DES keys, and the
        # maximum valid value is (2**24 - 1) which is odd anyway.
        $count = (1 << $count_log2) - 1;

        $output = '_';
        $output .= $this->itoa64[$count & 0x3f];
        $output .= $this->itoa64[($count >> 6) & 0x3f];
        $output .= $this->itoa64[($count >> 12) & 0x3f];
        $output .= $this->itoa64[($count >> 18) & 0x3f];

        $output .= $this->encode64($input, 3);

        return $output;
    }

    function gensalt_blowfish($input)
    {
        # This one needs to use a different order of characters and a
        # different encoding scheme from the one in encode64() above.
        # We care because the last character in our encoded string will
        # only represent 2 bits.  While two known implementations of
        # bcrypt will happily accept and correct a salt string which
        # has the 4 unused bits set to non-zero, we do not want to take
        # chances and we also do not want to waste an additional byte
        # of entropy.
        $itoa64 = './ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789';

        $output = '$2a$';
        $output .= chr(ord('0') + $this->iteration_count_log2 / 10);
        $output .= chr(ord('0') + $this->iteration_count_log2 % 10);
        $output .= '$';

        $i = 0;
        do {
            $c1 = ord($input[$i++]);
            $output .= $itoa64[$c1 >> 2];
            $c1 = ($c1 & 0x03) << 4;
            if ($i >= 16) {
                $output .= $itoa64[$c1];
                break;
            }

            $c2 = ord($input[$i++]);
            $c1 |= $c2 >> 4;
            $output .= $itoa64[$c1];
            $c1 = ($c2 & 0x0f) << 2;

            $c2 = ord($input[$i++]);
            $c1 |= $c2 >> 6;
            $output .= $itoa64[$c1];
            $output .= $itoa64[$c2 & 0x3f];
        } while (1);

        return $output;
    }

    function HashPassword($password)
    {
        $random = '';

        if (CRYPT_BLOWFISH == 1 && !$this->portable_hashes) {
            $random = $this->get_random_bytes(16);
            $hash =
                crypt($password, $this->gensalt_blowfish($random));
            if (strlen($hash) == 60)
                return $hash;
        }

        if (CRYPT_EXT_DES == 1 && !$this->portable_hashes) {
            if (strlen($random) < 3)
                $random = $this->get_random_bytes(3);
            $hash =
                crypt($password, $this->gensalt_extended($random));
            if (strlen($hash) == 20)
                return $hash;
        }

        if (strlen($random) < 6)
            $random = $this->get_random_bytes(6);
        $hash =
            $this->crypt_private($password,
            $this->gensalt_private($random));
        if (strlen($hash) == 34)
            return $hash;

        # Returning '*' on error is safe here, but would _not_ be safe
        # in a crypt(3)-like function used _both_ for generating new
        # hashes and for validating passwords against existing hashes.
        return '*';
    }

    function CheckPassword($password, $stored_hash)
    {
        $hash = $this->crypt_private($password, $stored_hash);
        if ($hash[0] == '*')
            $hash = crypt($password, $stored_hash);

        return $hash == $stored_hash;
    }
}

Answer 1

You don't really need two salts (i.e. the static salt is redundant; the dynamic salt is plenty) - the main purpose of a salt is to prevent rainbow-table attacks if the hashes are ever acquired by a malicious party, and the reason for dynamic salts is to further prevent special-case rainbow table generation from breaking all passwords simultaneously.

Aside from that though, it can't hurt to salt regardless of whether or not the library has salting built in (though unless you're passing it more info than just the item to be hashed, it doesn't really have anything to use as a dynamic salt, so chances are it doesn't salt for you if it's not already obvious that it does).

Answer 2

This is an answer from the original author himself:

Besides the actual hashing, phpass transparently generates random salts when a new password or passphrase is hashed, and it encodes the hash type, the salt, and the password stretching iteration count into the "hash encoding string" that it returns. When phpass authenticates a password or passphrase against a stored hash, it similarly transparently extracts and uses the hash type identifier, the salt, and the iteration count out of the "hash encoding string". Thus, you do not need to bother with salting and stretching on your own - phpass takes care of these for you.

Bottom line: it doesn't make sense to salt your password before "phpassing".