Need help signing a raw transaction with "ethereumjs-tx"

Question

Here's a NodeJS script where I'm trying to send a raw transaction. I've tried changing params in a lot of different ways and always get the same error. What am I missing? I'm following an example from here.

Script:

const Web3 = require('web3');
const Tx = require('ethereumjs-tx');
const config = require('./config');

const web3 = new Web3(new Web3.providers.HttpProvider(config.provider));
web3.eth.defaultAccount = "0x15568faf1cd21041acbb9f99d94dbe40e7f1a479";

const rawTx = {
  nonce: '0x00',                                     // 0
  gasPrice: '0x6FC23AC00',                           //30 GWei | 30 000 000 000 wei
  gasLimit: '0xF4240',                               //1 000 000
  to: '0x203D17B4a1725E001426b7Ab3193E6657b0dBcc6',
  value: '0x00',                                     // 0
  data: '0x00',                                      // 0
  chainId: '0x03'                                    // Ropsten
}

const tx = new Tx(rawTx);
const privateKey = Buffer.from("f7ef8432857eb502f9406282b6cb86219ea4973f5f9bb0605099cfc2c63a516a", 'hex');
tx.sign(privateKey);

const serializedTx = tx.serialize();
console.log(serializedTx.toString('hex')); //f865808506fc23ac00830f424094203d17b4a1725e001426b7ab3193e6657b0dbcc680002aa070f37febb101867fe6b5abb4b4a0bf6daadba43736164a08cd0413c4b29d4e05a0204248c3e9a826cac72e7be29a8cacce924e33b36a0a7e7096f6a86684884f18

web3.eth.sendRawTransaction(serializedTx.toString('hex'), function(err, hash) {
    console.log('Error:', err);
    console.log('Hash:', hash);
});

Error:

Error: Error: Invalid params
    at Object.InvalidResponse (/home/manid/Рабочий стол/test/Ethereum/send-raw-transaction/node_modules/web3/lib/web3/errors.js:35:16)
    at /home/manid/Рабочий стол/test/Ethereum/send-raw-transaction/node_modules/web3/lib/web3/requestmanager.js:86:36
    at XMLHttpRequest.request.onreadystatechange (/home/manid/Рабочий стол/test/Ethereum/send-raw-transaction/node_modules/web3/lib/web3/httpprovider.js:118:13)
    at XMLHttpRequestEventTarget.dispatchEvent (/home/manid/Рабочий стол/test/Ethereum/send-raw-transaction/node_modules/xhr2/lib/xhr2.js:64:18)
    at XMLHttpRequest._setReadyState (/home/manid/Рабочий стол/test/Ethereum/send-raw-transaction/node_modules/xhr2/lib/xhr2.js:354:12)
    at XMLHttpRequest._onHttpResponseEnd (/home/manid/Рабочий стол/test/Ethereum/send-raw-transaction/node_modules/xhr2/lib/xhr2.js:509:12)
    at IncomingMessage.<anonymous> (/home/manid/Рабочий стол/test/Ethereum/send-raw-transaction/node_modules/xhr2/lib/xhr2.js:469:24)
    at emitNone (events.js:91:20)
    at IncomingMessage.emit (events.js:185:7)
    at endReadableNT (_stream_readable.js:974:12)

When I try to broadcast this transaction using etherscan.io/pushTx I get the following error

Error! Unable to broadcast Tx : {"jsonrpc":"2.0","error":{"code":-32010,"message":"Invalid network id.","data":null},"id":1}.

Is it possible that the problem might be in that I use a private key generated for mainnet and specify ropsten as the chainId? I used keythereum to generate keys. Is there a difference in key pair generation for mainnet and ropsten?

When I change chainId field to "0x01" I get an error:

Error! Unable to broadcast Tx : {"jsonrpc":"2.0","error":{"code":-32010,"message":"Insufficient funds. The account you tried to send transaction from does not have enough funds. Required 30000000000000000 and got: 0.","data":null},"id":1}

This error makes sense, because this address has balance only on ropsten.

Answer 1

a few quick observations:

• nonce is hard-coded

  • it should be calculated:
    let nonce = web3.eth.getTransactionCount(fromAccount)
    • where fromAccount is the address derived from the publicKey that is paired to the privateKey that is used to sign the raw transaction
  • on testnet, the starting nonce value is: 1048576
    so you would need to increment by this offset:
    if (rawTx.chainId && Number(rawTx.chainId) > 1) nonce += 1048576
  • then, converted to a hex-encoded string with '0x' prefix:
    nonce = web3.toHex(nonce)

• your chainId is: 0x03.. which is testnet

  • you're submitting your raw transaction to a web service that transmits to mainnet
  • you should be using the alternate web service that transmits to testnet

• web3.eth.defaultAccount shouldn't matter.. your privateKey determines the "from" address of sender

• only indirectly related, but you also might want to check out another similar library: ethereumjs-tx-sign

update

corrected links for testnets:

• ropsten
• kovan
• rinkeby

chainId values:

• list
• 0x03 is ropsten

Answer 2

You are trying to send Ropsten transaction through the node that synchronizes with Mainnet.

In Mainnet your "from" address 0x15568faf1cd21041acbb9f99d94dbe40e7f1a479 does not have any ether, that's why changing chainId does not help much.

You probably need to use another node, or restart this node with --testnet command-line option.d