I am trying to fully grasp the concepts of the ethereum network. Therefore I want to setup a simple website which can manage ethereum wallets. I'm using the geth client with the following configuration:
geth --light --rpc --rpcapi personal,web3,net,eth --rpccorsdomain "*"
I've read a lot of documentation, but still not all the concepts are clear to me.
- Do I need to have a node to create a wallet for a user and manage the private keys?
- How does the geth --light mode work? When I create a new account, how can I know the account is created on the global ethereum network? etherscan.io shows an amount of 0, but that might be the default behaviour of a non-existing address number?
Also for existing addresses, when using the
eth_gethBalance
rpc method, it always returns 0, while etherscan.io shows another amount. - What is the difference with a local account and a public address?
- What does 'unlocking' an account actually do? Can I send transactions to a non-unlocked account?