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How to Access the Files to Back Up
Using Mist - Backup Accounts
Go to the top bar and select ACCOUNTS -> BACKUP -> ACCOUNTS.
This will open a folder. Inside this folder there are keystrore files that have long names starting with UTC--2016-04-14....... Each of these files represent an account. Back up these up.
Using Mist - Backup Wallet Contracts
Go to ...
31
In Parity 1.6 : Have a look at
OSX : ~/Library/Application\ Support/io.parity.ethereum/keys/
Linux : ~/.local/share/io.parity.ethereum/keys/
Windows: %APPDATA%\Parity\Ethereum\keys
In Parity 1.5 : Have a look at ~/.parity/keys. You'll find what you're looking for.
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You can use MyEtherWallet or MyCrypto(fork of MyEtherWallet) offline only wallet "view wallet details" function to extract private key from wallet json file. Feel free to use its offline version on an air gapped computer to secure your private key.
Edit: MyCrypto only provides this function in the offline version of the wallet now for obvious security ...
18
The private key is encrypted and, if you are confident in your password's strength, does not need to be encrypted again. The key is encrypted with 128-bit AES by default if you're using geth, and all of the parameters are in the JSON file. The encrypted private key is in the ciphertext attribute.
I would recommend keeping the entire file,
Theoretically, ...
16
An attacker cannot spend your ETH without knowing your password. It is a smart design on the part of Ethereum. You cannot even access the private key using conventional means. Everything you see in the keystore is already encrypted using your password. Spending ETH requires both parts of the puzzle, the keystore and the password. Everything in the keystore ...
13
Simply use geth as indicated in the github wiki:
Account update
$ geth account update a94f5374fce5edbc8e2a8697c15331677e6ebf0b
Unlocking account a94f5374fce5edbc8e2a8697c15331677e6ebf0b | Attempt 1/3
Passphrase:
0xa94f5374fce5edbc8e2a8697c15331677e6ebf0b
Account 'a94f5374fce5edbc8e2a8697c15331677e6ebf0b' unlocked.
Please give a new password. Do not ...
12
If you have node.js, you can do this in node
var keyth=require('keythereum')
//install keythereum by runing "npm install keythereum"
var keyobj=keyth.importFromFile('0x...your..ether..address..','./Appdata/roaming/ethereum')
'./Appdata/roaming/ethereum' is the folder contains 'keystore'. importFile looks for 'keystore' in that folder.
var privateKey=...
12
geth-compatible keystore file can be created in Node using ethereumjs-wallet library:
> var Wallet = require('ethereumjs-wallet');
> var key = Buffer.from('efca4cdd31923b50f4214af5d2ae10e7ac45a5019e9431cc195482d707485378', 'hex');
> var wallet = Wallet.fromPrivateKey(key);
> wallet.toV3String('password');
'{"version":3,"id":"467233bf-45ec-423b-...
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When you run parity -h you can see the default keystore. It is listed as the default where the -d --base-path option is explained, under Operating Options.
On Linux: ~/.local/share/io.parity.ethereum/keys/
On Mac OS: ~/Library/Application\ Support/io.parity.ethereum/keys/
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Yes it is.
Basic Formula:
Install an Ethereum client to a computer that is freshly formatted (preferable), or at least one that is disconnected from the Internet.
Generate your key(s) using an Ethereum client.
Copy the Ethereum address generated and send 1 Ether to that address using another computer/device.
Check an Ethereum blockchain explorer to make ...
9
If you use the latest version of the Mist wallet 0.3.9, then you can
backup your wallet with saving the AppData. You can do that by clicking
on Backup in the Menu bar and click "Backup App Data" which points you
to the installation directory where your wallet is saved. In my case it is
located here "C:\Users\Andreas\AppData\Roaming" on Windows 10 - 64 Bit....
7
I'm assuming your mist client runs a geth node in background.
Export of unencrypted key is not supported on purpose after deliberating the risk to end users. #1054
Unfortunately it seems not to be possible to extract the unencrypted private key.
If you got the key file under keystore then that is your private key encrypted with a password (plus other ...
7
Backup
To backup your accounts from Ethereum Wallet, see How to backup mist wallets?.
The files that you need to backup will have names like the following:
user@Kumquat:~/.ethereum/keystore$ ls
UTC--2016-04-17T01-23-45.279405976Z--aaaaab3ad17cd9aca6fd5343a53a513685c7aaaa
UTC--2016-04-17T02-34-56.029466208Z--bbbb8622d70f62f212aef64e7e26e4746dc8bbbb
UTC--...
answered Apr 26 '16 at 2:55
The Officious BokkyPooBah
35.6k10 gold badges101 silver badges175 bronze badges
7
The key is encrypted with 128-bit AES in Counter (CTR) mode.
7
You should definitely not give away your keystore file as it contains your encrypted private key. The only thing that can decrypt your private key is your password. However, one could perform a brute force algorithm on your keystore file in an attempt to crack your password and gain access to all your funds.
If you create a new wallet on myetherwallet.com ...
6
Parity stores keys in ~/.local/share/io.parity.ethereum/ for linux. Whereas for Windows, it stored them under C:\Users\{CurrentUser}\.parity\keys. `
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The way to do this is risky but it is doable. It involves showing your private key on screen which is generally a REALLY bad thing to do.
ethkey listbare
462352b14-0121-0454-5a4f-15f791233f1a
So let's say that this is your json key file. Then you would do:
./ethkey inspectbare --show-me-the-secret 462352b14-0121-0454-5a4f-15f791233f1a
And ethkey should ...
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It's possible but not recommended and therefore a not documented feature.
Get the UUID of the account:
~ $ ethkey listbare
8766c082-432f-5548-608c-6eec600757f9
Display the private key:
~ $ ethkey inspectbare --show-me-the-secret 8766c082-432f-5548-608c-6eec600757f9
Enter passphrase for key 8766c082-432f-5548-608c-6eec600757f9:
Key 8766c082-432f-5548-...
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As the audience reading the answer to this question may have less background with cryptocurrencies, here are additional key points to consider:
humans are not good at creating secure passwords consistently
loss of cryptocurrency, such as ETH, is irreversible
most common loss of cryptocurrency is probably forgotten passwords, so write them down
There is no "...
5
Is it safe to send the keystore file unencrypted over the internet?
It is not recommended, no. Even though the important stuff in that keystore file is encrypted, if someone were to obtain it, they could bruteforce all day and night until they discovered the password that you used.
Whether or not you decide to send it over the internet is obviously up to ...
5
Accounts are stored in the keystore subdirectory. You can use --datadir to set that main directory, but the subdirectories are still going to be intact.
In order to change the keystore directory you need to use --keystore
From CLI Options:
--datadir "/home/youruser/.ethereum" - Data directory for the databases and keystore
--keystore - Directory ...
5
The json files that eth uses are not the same as the keystore (json) files that geth uses. In order to successfully switch between clients, you must re-import the accounts via the unencrypted private key.
1. Make a backup...just in case
The first step is to make a backup of your eth JSON files, just in case anything goes wrong. These should already be ...
5
I will try to provide an alternative solution that is more "hands-on" than using a particular application, or JavaScript. It seems to me lacking "hands-on" details might be one of the reasons why similar questions keep spawning up (and ultimately get voted close and redirected to here -- see the list of linked questions).
The steps here are heavily ...
5
You cannot recreate the private key file. The password is used to decrypt the key file, and then an address is generated from the private key in a non-reversible way. The private key is really the most important piece and should be backed up.
4
When I switched from geth to parity, I noticed that parity imported my accounts from the .ethereum/keystore/* directory into parity somehow.
0 ✓ user@host ~ $ ll ~/.ethereum/keystore/
total 48K
4.0K drwxr-xr-x 2 user users 4.0K May 13 10:36 .
4.0K drwx------ 9 user users 4.0K Jun 17 10:17 ..
4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 user users 58 May 13 10:36 contract-...
4
According to the documentation for Parity's ethstore key management API:
secret store directory: It may be either parity, parity-test, geth,
geth-test or a path. default: parity
(Also of note is the ethkey key generator API and associated commands.)
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Basically, --datadir option must be spcified with most commands if you're using custom datadir.
account, attach, export/import, removedb ...
I recommend you to make a short script like below
geth --datadir "<Your datadir>" $@
save this like geth.sh
and then execute any command like
geth.sh attach way.
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this is the password you got asked to enter twice when you created your account with geth account new
see the documentation, you entered this password twice :
$ geth account new
Your new account is locked with a password. Please give a password. Do not forget this password.
Passphrase:
Repeat Passphrase:
Address: {168bc315a2ee09042d83d7c5811b533620531f67}
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all i had to do is copy the Ethereum folder contents from the old OS into the the hidden .ethereum folder on Linux. Everything will sync up automatically after you use the geth updatedb command
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Is it bad security to use the same private keys and/or keyfiles across production, testnet, and dev?
It's not recommended to use production keys on non-production networks. Some basic reasons are it's similar to why you shouldn't reuse passwords, or that you wouldn't put $1 in the same wallet as you would put $1000. There is always a tradeoff between security and convenience: whatever is easy to get to is usually less secure. Conversely, if your ...
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