Topic: [PULL] private key and wallet export/import - page 4. (Read 39577 times)
Thanks for the update Gavin. I'm not sure what you're referring to with "sweep private key", but the functionality I would like to see is (1) merge wallets, and (2) import private key. Merge wallets is pretty self-explanatory. Importing private keys is needed to be able to "redeem" bitcoins from offline storage such as paper wallets or physical bitcoins. Rescanning the block chain and/or waiting for the rest of the block chain to download is slow, but it's inevitable. Have a progress bar with a note saying it may take a while, and let the user interact with the rest of the application while it's working.
No issues with export wallets/private keys. I share gmaxwell's concerns about making it easy to shoot yourself in the foot, but most of us are grown-ups and if you're talking using the RPC interface there are already plenty of ways to shoot your feet.
Remove private key I had issues with, because if you're using the 'accounts' feature then removing keypairs from a wallet (and their associated transactions) does unpredictable things to account balances. At the very least, I think it should tell you what effects it had. Maybe a JSON result that tells you how account balances changed, e.g. { "" : 1, "John's Wallet" : 6.2, etc.}. That way, if it had an unexpected effects you would know to restore the wallet from backup.
And it seems like 'sweep private key' and 'merge wallets' is really the functionality most people want, not import private key/wallet keys. The only issue I have with them is they are slow because of the rescanning of the block chain, and they may not work or may not be secure if you don't happen to have the whole block chain downloaded.
Remove private key I had issues with, because if you're using the 'accounts' feature then removing keypairs from a wallet (and their associated transactions) does unpredictable things to account balances. At the very least, I think it should tell you what effects it had. Maybe a JSON result that tells you how account balances changed, e.g. { "" : 1, "John's Wallet" : 6.2, etc.}. That way, if it had an unexpected effects you would know to restore the wallet from backup.
And it seems like 'sweep private key' and 'merge wallets' is really the functionality most people want, not import private key/wallet keys. The only issue I have with them is they are slow because of the rescanning of the block chain, and they may not work or may not be secure if you don't happen to have the whole block chain downloaded.
Any news on getting private key import into the main client?
Testing is currently the bottleneck for getting new features...
IMHO, making absolutely sure that new patches are safe is of utmost importance.Hurrying a patch through might, at best, give us a feature one month ahead of time in the main client. At worst it might introduce an exploit into the main client that would crush any existing trust in Bitcoin. Security is so vital when it comes to a program like the main Bitcoin client. If we expect people to at some point start using Bitcoin as a currency, I can see no higher priority than security.
One security hole can potentially rob people of the equivalent of thousands of dollars. One extra feature lacking for a month is a very tiny advantage compared to this.
No[w] please, for the love of peace, pull this patch to the main client, and make it official.
Testing is currently the bottleneck for getting new features...
... maybe we should test and post our results in the comments on github: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/220
No[w] please, for the love of peace, pull this patch to the main client, and make it official.
+1
the paper wallets and casascius's real bitcoin or bitbillswhich would be great for promotion of bitcoin, could use something like this.
This is a bit ridiculous...
The idea is obviously useful enough that dozens of people are shown their support, and only a single few expressed their discontempt with reasons like "it's not safe for stupid users".
Right, I agree that it's not safe for stupid users, and I agree that sometimes you have to protect them. But creating this artificial entry barrier just to deter developers who are not familiar with compiling and patching C code is just plain evil, and bordering stupidity.
It's obviously a needed and wanted feature, you don't want people having this feature turned on by mistake, right? how about:
With this small flag, -advanced, users will be able to actively activate the feature, and only those who think that they know what they're doing will be able to harm themselves.
Now please, for the love of peace, pull this patch to the main client, and make it official. I'll write the documentation if needed.
The idea is obviously useful enough that dozens of people are shown their support, and only a single few expressed their discontempt with reasons like "it's not safe for stupid users".
Right, I agree that it's not safe for stupid users, and I agree that sometimes you have to protect them. But creating this artificial entry barrier just to deter developers who are not familiar with compiling and patching C code is just plain evil, and bordering stupidity.
It's obviously a needed and wanted feature, you don't want people having this feature turned on by mistake, right? how about:
Code:
$ bitcoind -server -rpcuser=... -rpcpassword=... [b]-advanced[/b]
With this small flag, -advanced, users will be able to actively activate the feature, and only those who think that they know what they're doing will be able to harm themselves.
Now please, for the love of peace, pull this patch to the main client, and make it official. I'll write the documentation if needed.
I have tested it, and it works for me (aside from, I have encountered the aforementioned wallet dump glitch which is said to be a typo and now fixed).
I'd like to report a minor problem.
If I send coins to a specific address, and then import the private key for that address, the UI updates and reports the transaction as "Payment to yourself." However, the total coin balance doesn't seem to update until after bitcoin is restarted.
If I send coins to a specific address, and then import the private key for that address, the UI updates and reports the transaction as "Payment to yourself." However, the total coin balance doesn't seem to update until after bitcoin is restarted.
What is the status/eta of this pull request? Unless integration is eminent we'd be willing to offer a bounty to help accelerate it's release. We really need this feature, our current workaround involving multiple bitcoind instances, and relaunch rescan per user session is catastrophically cumbersome.
It will get pulled/released faster if you help test it. Pull the patch, compile a custom bitcoind, then run it and report any bugs. If you don't find any bugs, add a short note either here or in the PULL request.
Testing is currently the bottleneck for getting new features...
I have been running bitcoind, in the recent past master/HEAD with patches mentioned by sipa on bitcoin's github and more recently sipa's own showwallet branch. Other than the one bug it had with the construction of the privkey for printing on dump (a typo, already fixed) and the fact that the import of each key takes multiple minutes (it scans all blocks for transactions, so that's expected, I would like to see a batch import in the future so a single sweep could verify multiple addresses) I can tell you it is working very well.
I'm using it quite heavily these days to organize offline wallets with a set amount kept on each address and then keeping the addresses and priv keys on paper in a safe.
My workflow only touches dumpprivkey and importprivkey. There is a glitch with the address balance listing after importing but it's a known bug and doesn't affect the global wallet balance consistency.
I would LOVE to see this pulled into bitcoin proper, and if you need any specific unittest written (there's a framework now, right?) I can try to find an hour to give it a shot soon.
What is the status/eta of this pull request? Unless integration is eminent we'd be willing to offer a bounty to help accelerate it's release. We really need this feature, our current workaround involving multiple bitcoind instances, and relaunch rescan per user session is catastrophically cumbersome.
Maybe one bitcoind handling multiple (separately encrypted) wallets would even better suit your needs? I'd chip in on that too.
Any word on how realistic that would be?
I get an error with removeprivkey on encrypted wallets. Works fine on non-encrypted.
Quote
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind getnewaddress
mgVu7WXEdbCHnKiQW8q1g7ND5e6jR97NGX
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind dumpprivkey mgVu7WXEdbCHnKiQW8q1g7ND5e6jR97NGX
93AywmB22cb5H59m6vttmPUFCPf98sB7NEwj48q9RvbaMGQHzbd
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind removeprivkey 93AywmB22cb5H59m6vttmPUFCPf98sB7NEwj48q9RvbaMGQHzbd
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind importprivkey 93AywmB22cb5H59m6vttmPUFCPf98sB7NEwj48q9RvbaMGQHzbd
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind encryptwallet password
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind walletpassphrase password 1000
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind getnewaddress
msKK1iq6LYLxz8iUvovWMqh37T3U9fha4M
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind dumpprivkey msKK1iq6LYLxz8iUvovWMqh37T3U9fha4M
92isYRmvbjH7TcYnqKU3YZUmQvUatRCmYSPYsAoEku6Xv8s7qhy
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind removeprivkey 92isYRmvbjH7TcYnqKU3YZUmQvUatRCmYSPYsAoEku6Xv8s7qhy
error: {"code":-1,"message":"GetAllReserveKeyHashes() : unknown key in key pool"}
mgVu7WXEdbCHnKiQW8q1g7ND5e6jR97NGX
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind dumpprivkey mgVu7WXEdbCHnKiQW8q1g7ND5e6jR97NGX
93AywmB22cb5H59m6vttmPUFCPf98sB7NEwj48q9RvbaMGQHzbd
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind removeprivkey 93AywmB22cb5H59m6vttmPUFCPf98sB7NEwj48q9RvbaMGQHzbd
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind importprivkey 93AywmB22cb5H59m6vttmPUFCPf98sB7NEwj48q9RvbaMGQHzbd
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind encryptwallet password
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind walletpassphrase password 1000
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind getnewaddress
msKK1iq6LYLxz8iUvovWMqh37T3U9fha4M
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind dumpprivkey msKK1iq6LYLxz8iUvovWMqh37T3U9fha4M
92isYRmvbjH7TcYnqKU3YZUmQvUatRCmYSPYsAoEku6Xv8s7qhy
foo@bar:~/work/bitcoin/src$ ./bitcoind removeprivkey 92isYRmvbjH7TcYnqKU3YZUmQvUatRCmYSPYsAoEku6Xv8s7qhy
error: {"code":-1,"message":"GetAllReserveKeyHashes() : unknown key in key pool"}
It will get pulled/released faster if you help test it.
Not sure how competent we are at that, but we'll give it a shot.
If anyone else reading this thread wants to help with testing, we will gladly throw you some bitcoins to make it worth you while.
What is the status/eta of this pull request? Unless integration is eminent we'd be willing to offer a bounty to help accelerate it's release. We really need this feature, our current workaround involving multiple bitcoind instances, and relaunch rescan per user session is catastrophically cumbersome.
It will get pulled/released faster if you help test it. Pull the patch, compile a custom bitcoind, then run it and report any bugs. If you don't find any bugs, add a short note either here or in the PULL request.
Testing is currently the bottleneck for getting new features...
What is the status/eta of this pull request? Unless integration is eminent we'd be willing to offer a bounty to help accelerate it's release. We really need this feature, our current workaround involving multiple bitcoind instances, and relaunch rescan per user session is catastrophically cumbersome.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Which one?
The first?
The first?
Yes, it looks like the first one.
Thanks for the report, I'll investigate
Well, anyway, thanks to pywallet.py, whatever branch, I've got a wallet that isn't broken with 0/unconfirmed transactions that refuse to be processed by the bitcoin network, Yay! And now I will run bitcoin more often, and backup my wallet more often too.
And now I will run bitcoin more often, and backup my wallet more often too.
Which one?
The first?
The first?
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