Can I generate an identical address on main net as in test net?

Question

I mistakenly sent a small amount of ETH from an online exchange to my local wallet address on Ropsten testnet. Obviously main net to test net will not work. Thus my ETHs are lost.

I think of a way of recovering my ETHs. I use Parity as my wallet software. Since Parity generated the test net address in the beginning, if I can generate the same address on the main net, I can get my ETHs back.

To generate an address, there should be an algorithm and a private key. Since Parity generated the test net address, the private key is probably stored somewhere in my machine. I guess the private key is probably some sort of encoding of my password.

If I look through the source code, I should be able to find what is the algorithm and where is the private key (or how my password should be encoded)

Is this thinking right? If there are mistakes in my thinking, I might not as well go for it. It might cost a lot of time.

Answer 1

Since Parity generated the test net address, the private key is probably stored somewhere in my machine.

Yes, you can find them in:

• On Windows: C:\Users\You\AppData\Roaming\Parity\Ethereum\

• On MacOS: /Users/you/Library/Application Support/io.parity.ethereum/keys

• On Linux: /home/you/.local/share/io.parity.ethereum/keys

Check for a subdirectory called keys/test or keys/ropsten depending on which version of Parity you are using.

Copy these UTC--* files to keys/ethereum or import them via the Parity Wallet UI. (Accounts > Create > Import).

Answer 2

Did you create your Parity testnet address with a normal account management command? If so it should be stored in your parity directories, and you should simply be able to copy the key over from the testnet keys directory to the mainnet keys directory. My Parity keys live under ~/.local/share/io.parity.ethereum/keys/. (I haven't tried this with Parity, but I've confirmed it works with Geth, and the keys seem to be of the same format.)