web3.js doesn't return all accounts

Question

I'm trying to put together a simple application using Truffle, Metamask and ASP.NET.

I've created a bunch of test accounts in Metamask, I then start testrpc explicitly specifying a couple of those accounts and their initial balance, like so:

testrpc --account="0xa3........18, 1000000000000000000000" --account="0x80.......08, 1000000000000000000000"

In the testrpc log I can see these are started correctly:

Available Accounts
==================
(0) 0x27.....d5
(1) 0x1b.....24

I then deploy my contract, log in to Metamask and then spin up my web application.

In my js I can see that it's retrieving the web3 instance from metamask:

            if (typeof web3 !== 'undefined') { // This evaluates to true
                App.web3Provider = web3.currentProvider;
                web3 = new Web3(web3.currentProvider);
                console.log("Already have a web3 instance");
            } else {

I try to get the list of accounts like this:

            App.contracts.JmTest.deployed().then(function(instance) {

                web3.eth.getAccounts(function (error, accounts) {
                    if (error) {
                        console.log(error);
                    }

                    console.dir(accounts);

However it only shows one of the two accounts that I started testrpc with...

Array(1)
0: "0x27.....d5"

It turns out that this is the currently selected account in Metamask. If I start testrpc without specifying any accounts and restart Chrome, the same thing happens - again I only get the the currently selected account in Metamask.

What am I missing?

Answer 1

Ok, so it looks like it's a case of RTFM....

When a user selects an account in MetaMask, that account silently becomes the web3.eth.accounts[0] in your JS context, the only member of the web3.eth.accounts array.