How & When to Backup Your Wallet

ninja · July 21, 2014, 02:10:59 AM

@BM

Correct me if I was wrong. I am using the Windows package. When I was tried to move the wallet from one PC to another PC. I go to roaming folder and copy the wallet folder inside the BitShares X folder along. I saw that it works fine. Is it a good way to move/backup/restore the wallet?

I see that we have the backup option to export the .json file. I think it is used for backup at this point of time. The import function doesnt work yet?

Riverhead · July 21, 2014, 12:51:36 AM

How deterministic are we talking here? I created two wallets on two machines (one to use and one delegate server) with the same pass phrase (strong). Are these two machines effectively running the same wallet?

alt · July 20, 2014, 11:54:41 PM

Quote from: bytemaster on July 20, 2014, 08:22:02 PM
Quote from: xeroc on July 20, 2014, 08:20:48 PM
Whats the wallet root key .. do you mean account root key?

All account keys are child of the wallet root key.

maybe not include the key import from other wallet?

bytemaster · July 20, 2014, 10:49:04 PM

Quote from: liondani on July 20, 2014, 10:02:28 PM
is it safe to change the password from the win gui console from time to time ?

Should be safe. Your backup will still use the old password.

liondani · July 20, 2014, 10:02:28 PM

is it safe to change the password from the win gui console from time to time ?

xeroc · July 20, 2014, 08:26:00 PM

Kk .. thx

bytemaster · July 20, 2014, 08:24:46 PM

Quote from: xeroc on July 20, 2014, 08:23:05 PM
Can I export that key somehow?

It is in the .json file that is exported with the wallet. We don't have a way of dumping that key in unencrypted form at the moment.

xeroc · July 20, 2014, 08:23:05 PM

Can I export that key somehow?

bytemaster · July 20, 2014, 08:22:02 PM

Quote from: xeroc on July 20, 2014, 08:20:48 PM
Whats the wallet root key .. do you mean account root key?

All account keys are child of the wallet root key.

xeroc · July 20, 2014, 08:20:48 PM

Whats the wallet root key .. do you mean account root key?

xeroc · July 20, 2014, 08:18:21 PM

+5% .. need to add this to the wiki .. best practice ..

bytemaster · July 20, 2014, 07:26:13 PM

We will create a more formal instruction set for this, but for now here is what you need to know:

1) The wallet can regenerate all private keys from the wallet root key. So as long as you backup your wallet after you create it your balance is safe (in theory).
2) You should backup the PUBLIC KEY of all unregistered accounts otherwise you will have to scan all transactions with all keys which could take a VERY LONG TIME when the network transaction volume picks up (or if you had a lot of transactions).

For this reason I recommend registering all accounts on the blockchain *or* backing up all public keys for the unregistered accounts you do create.

You can backup by going to File -> Export Wallet which will save a .json file with your wallet contents. The private keys are encrypted with your password. Save this file on a separate disk. If your password is not very strong then do not store it where anyone else can get to it.

Strong wallet passwords are recommended.