How does AES-GCM handle large blocks with a 128 bit key?

Question

I would like to apply AES-128 byte encryption on GCM mode. I know the logic to apply AES_GCM using 128 bit data. But I have a larger data to encrypt (Not necessarily multiple of 16 bytes). As the AES-GCM is encryption is performed by XORing that key stream with the data to encrypt.

Is it possible to merge encrypted blocks in the order to get the final encrypted data?

As XOR is performing on bit wise there is no padding is requred if total data size is not a multiple of 16 bytes?

How to generate authentication tag in AES-GCM mode?

I could not find any information regarding this. Please help me.

Answer 1

AES-GCM, like all versions of AES, has a block-size of 128 bits, or 16 bytes. Generally speaking, you shouldn't have to worry about the "merging encrypted blocks" as the implementation should handle encryption of data larger than a single block for you, and simply provide you with the full ciphertext that is the end result.

Likewise, you don't have to worry about generating the authentication tag. The implementation generates the authentication tag for you. and you simply need to retrieve it once encryption is complete.

More Technically:

AES-GCM is a combination of AES-CTR and a authentication tag computed using Galois field multiplication. The fact that it is based on counter (CTR) mode which is a streaming mode means that the ciphertext is of variable length. The output can be the same length as the plaintext input, and does not need to be padded to make a full 16 byte final block as block modes such as ECB or CBC would require. The authentication function is a keyed hash function computed over both the ciphertext, and an additional authentication (but not encrypted) data which will always include (at minimum) the nonce.