btcwallet

[] (https://travis-ci.org/conformal/btcwallet)

btcwallet is a daemon handling bitcoin wallet functionality for a single user. It acts as both an RPC client to btcd and an RPC server for wallet frontends and legacy RPC applications.

The wallet file format is based on Armory and provides a deterministic wallet where all future generated private keys can be recovered from a previous wallet backup. Unencrypted wallets are unsupported and are never written to disk. This design decision has the consequence of generating new wallets on the fly impossible: a frontend is required to provide a wallet encryption passphrase.

btcwallet is not an SPV client and requires connecting to a local or remote btcd instance for asynchronous blockchain queries and notifications over websockets. Full btcd installation instructions can be found here.

As a daemon, btcwallet provides no user interface and an additional graphical or command line client is required for normal, personal wallet usage. Conformal has written btcgui as a graphical frontend to btcwallet.

This project is currently under active development is not production ready yet. Support for creating and using wallets the main Bitcoin network is currently disabled by default.

Installation

Windows - MSI Available

Install the btcd suite MSI here:

https://opensource.conformal.com/packages/windows/btcdsuite/

Linux/BSD/POSIX - Build from Source

• Install Go according to the installation instructions here: http://golang.org/doc/install

• Run the following commands to obtain and install btcwallet and all dependencies:

$ go get -u -v github.com/conformal/btcd/...
$ go get -u -v github.com/conformal/btcwallet/...

• btcd and btcwallet will now be installed in either $GOROOT/bin or $GOPATH/bin depending on your configuration. If you did not already add to your system path during the installation, we recommend you do so now.

Updating

Windows

Install a newer btcd suite MSI here:

https://opensource.conformal.com/packages/windows/btcdsuite/

Linux/BSD/POSIX - Build from Source

• Run the following commands to update btcwallet, all dependencies, and install it:

$ go get -u -v github.com/conformal/btcd/...
$ go get -u -v github.com/conformal/btcwallet/...

Getting Started

The follow instructions detail how to get started with btcwallet connecting to a localhost btcd.

Windows (Installed from MSI)

Open Btcd Suite from the Btcd Suite menu in the Start Menu. This will also open btcgui, which can be closed if you only want btcd and btcwallet running.

Linux/BSD/POSIX/Source

• Run the following command to start btcd:

$ btcd --testnet -u rpcuser -P rpcpass

• Run the following command to start btcwallet:

$ btcwallet -u rpcuser -P rpcpass

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

$ cp $GOPATH/src/github.com/conformal/btcd/sample-btcd.conf ~/.btcd/btcd.conf
$ cp $GOPATH/src/github.com/conformal/btcwallet/sample-btcwallet.conf ~/.btcwallet/btcwallet.conf
$ $EDITOR ~/.btcd/btcd.conf
$ $EDITOR ~/.btcwallet/btcwallet.conf

Frontend Usage

Frontends wishing to use btcwallet must connect to the path /frontend over a websocket connection. Messages sent to btcwallet over this websocket are expected to follow the standard Bitcoin JSON API (partially documented here). Websocket connections also enable additional API extensions and JSON-RPC notifications (currently undocumented). The btcd packages btcjson and btcws provide types and functions for creating and JSON (un)marshaling these requests and notifications.

TODO

• Full RPC compatibility with bitcoind, including mining support
• RPC documentation (both bitcoind commands and btcwallet extensions available for websocket connections)
• P2SH and multisig functionality
• Improved test coverage

GPG Verification Key

All official release tags are signed by Conformal so users can ensure the code has not been tampered with and is coming from Conformal. To verify the signature perform the following:

• Download the public key from the Conformal website at https://opensource.conformal.com/GIT-GPG-KEY-conformal.txt

• Import the public key into your GPG keyring:

  gpg --import GIT-GPG-KEY-conformal.txt
  

• Verify the release tag with the following command where TAG_NAME is a placeholder for the specific tag:

  git tag -v TAG_NAME
  

License

btcwallet is licensed under the liberal ISC License.