dcrwallet

README

dcrwallet

dcrwallet is a daemon handling decred wallet functionality for a single user. It acts as both an RPC client to dcrd and an RPC server for wallet clients and legacy RPC applications.

Public and private keys are derived using the hierarchical deterministic format described by BIP0032. Unencrypted private keys are not supported and are never written to disk. dcrwallet uses the m/44'/<coin type>'/<account>'/<branch>/<address index> HD path for all derived addresses, as described by BIP0044.

Due to the sensitive nature of public data in a BIP0032 wallet, dcrwallet provides the option of encrypting not just private keys, but public data as well. This is intended to thwart privacy risks where a wallet file is compromised without exposing all current and future addresses (public keys) managed by the wallet. While access to this information would not allow an attacker to spend or steal coins, it does mean they could track all transactions involving your addresses and therefore know your exact balance. In a future release, public data encryption will extend to transactions as well.

dcrwallet is not an SPV client and requires connecting to a local or remote dcrd instance for asynchronous blockchain queries and notifications over websockets. Full dcrd installation instructions can be found here. An alternative SPV mode that is compatible with dcrd is planned for a future release.

Wallet clients can use one of two RPC servers:

1. A legacy JSON-RPC server mostly compatible with Bitcoin Core

   The JSON-RPC server exists to ease the migration of wallet applications from Core, but complete compatibility is not guaranteed. Some portions of the API (and especially accounts) have to work differently due to other design decisions (mostly due to BIP0044). However, if you find a compatibility issue and feel that it could be reasonably supported, please report an issue. This server is enabled by default.

2. An experimental gRPC server

   The gRPC server uses a new API built for dcrwallet, but the API is not stabilized and the server is feature gated behind a config option (--experimentalrpclisten). If you don't mind applications breaking due to API changes, don't want to deal with issues of the legacy API, or need notifications for changes to the wallet, this is the RPC server to use. The gRPC server is documented here.

Installation and updating

Windows - MSIs Available

Install the latest MSIs available here:

https://github.com/decred/decred-release/releases

Windows/Linux/BSD/POSIX - Build from source

Building or updating from source requires the following build dependencies:

• Go 1.6 or 1.7

  Installation instructions can be found here: http://golang.org/doc/install. It is recommended to add $GOPATH/bin to your PATH at this point.

• Glide

  Glide is used to manage project dependencies and provide reproducible builds. It is recommended to use the latest Glide release, unless a bug prevents doing so. The latest releases (for both binary and source) can be found here.

Unfortunately, the use of glide prevents a handy tool such as go get from automatically downloading, building, and installing the source in a single command. Instead, the latest project and dependency sources must be first obtained manually with git and glide, and then go is used to build and install the project.

Getting the source:

For a first time installation, the project and dependency sources can be obtained manually with git and glide (create directories as needed):

git clone https://github.com/decred/dcrwallet $GOPATH/src/github.com/decred/dcrwallet
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/decred/dcrwallet
glide install

To update an existing source tree, pull the latest changes and install the matching dependencies:

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/decred/dcrwallet
git pull
glide install

Building/Installing:

The go tool is used to build or install (to GOPATH) the project. Some example build instructions are provided below (all must run from the dcrwallet project directory).

To build and install dcrwallet and all helper commands (in the cmd directory) to $GOPATH/bin/, as well as installing all compiled packages to $GOPATH/pkg/ (use this if you are unsure which command to run):

go install . ./cmd/...

To build a dcrwallet executable and install it to $GOPATH/bin/:

go install

To build a dcrwallet executable and place it in the current directory:

go build

Getting Started

The following instructions detail how to get started with dcrwallet connecting to a localhost dcrd. Commands should be run in cmd.exe or PowerShell on Windows, or any terminal emulator on *nix.

• Run the following command to start dcrd:

dcrd -u rpcuser -P rpcpass

• Run the following command to create a wallet:

dcrwallet -u rpcuser -P rpcpass --create

• Run the following command to start dcrwallet:

dcrwallet -u rpcuser -P rpcpass

If everything appears to be working, it is recommended at this point to copy the sample dcrd and dcrwallet configurations and update with your RPC username and password.

PowerShell (Installed from MSI):

PS> cp "$env:ProgramFiles\Decred\Dcrd\sample-dcrd.conf" $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrd\dcrd.conf
PS> cp "$env:ProgramFiles\Decred\Dcrwallet\sample-dcrwallet.conf" $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrwallet\dcrwallet.conf
PS> $editor $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrd\dcrd.conf
PS> $editor $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrwallet\dcrwallet.conf

PowerShell (Installed from source):

PS> cp $env:GOPATH\src\github.com\decred\dcrd\sample-dcrd.conf $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrd\dcrd.conf
PS> cp $env:GOPATH\src\github.com\decred\dcrwallet\sample-dcrwallet.conf $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrwallet\dcrwallet.conf
PS> $editor $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrd\dcrd.conf
PS> $editor $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrwallet\dcrwallet.conf

Linux/BSD/POSIX (Installed from source):

$ cp $GOPATH/src/github.com/decred/dcrd/sample-dcrd.conf ~/.dcrd/dcrd.conf
$ cp $GOPATH/src/github.com/decred/dcrwallet/sample-dcrwallet.conf ~/.dcrwallet/dcrwallet.conf
$ $EDITOR ~/.dcrd/dcrd.conf
$ $EDITOR ~/.dcrwallet/dcrwallet.conf

Issue Tracker

The integrated github issue tracker is used for this project.

License

dcrwallet is licensed under the liberal ISC License.