The prefix "$2a$" or "$2b$" (or "$2y$") in a hash string in a shadow password file indicates that hash string is a bcrypt hash in modular crypt format.[9]The rest of the hash string includes the cost parameter, a 128-bit salt (Radix-64 encoded as 22 characters), and 184 bits of the resulting hash value (Radix-64 encoded as 31 characters)[10]. The Radix-64 encoding uses the unix/crypt alphabet, and is not 'standard' Base-64[11][12]. The cost parameter specifies a key expansion iteration count as a power of two, which is an input to the crypt algorithm.
For example, the shadow password record