Deploying contract with web3 returning all zeros transaction hash

Question

I am running the following code in web3 the backend is a node running parity --testnet -j -w --jsonrpc-interface all.

My web3 code

  // data.contracts.TestContract is the results of 
  // solc test-contract.sol --json-combine abi,asm, etc...  
  var abi = data.contracts.TestContract.abi;
  var TestContract = eth.contract(JSON.parse(abi));
  var myTest = TestContract.new({
    data: "0x" + data.contracts.TestContract.bin, // binary data for contract
    gas: 300000,
    from: someAddressWithEther,
  }, function (err, myContract) {
    // from offical docs at https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/JavaScript-API#web3ethcontract
    if(!err) {
      // e.g. check tx hash on the first call (transaction send)
      if(!myContract.address) {
        console.info("transactionHash", myContract.transactionHash) // The hash of the transaction, which deploys the contract
        // check address on the second call (contract deployed)
      } else {
        console.info("theAddress", myContract.address) // the contract address
      }
    }
  }

The results

The console.info with the transaction hash returns

transactionHash 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Which doesn't seem like a valid transactionHash. The theAddress line never seems to run.

My questions

I am not sure why I would get the 0x0...0 hash? Is there some error in this code that i am not seeing? How long should i wait for the address?

Also wouldn't mind comment pointing to a full description, ideally with full source examples on how to properly deploy from the web3?

Answer 1

In order to publish you need to unlock the account to send the gas. Use

parity --testnet -j -w \
   --jsonrpc-interface 127.0.0.1 \
   --unlock 0x123... --password password-file.txt