2.3 KiB
Generate and configure a node key
By default a node will generate a new, random key pair each time it boots,
resulting in a different public libp2p multiaddrs after each restart.
To maintain consistent addressing across restarts, there are different options:
Using a previously generated key
It is possible to configure the node with a previously generated private key using the --nodekey.
wakunode2 --nodekey=<64_char_hex>
This option takes a Secp256k1 private key in 64 char hexstring format.
To generate such a key on Linux systems,
use the openssl rand command to generate a pseudo-random 32 byte hexstring.
openssl rand -hex 32
Example output:
$ openssl rand -hex 32
6a29e767c96a2a380bb66b9a6ffcd6eb54049e14d796a1d866307b8beb7aee58
where the key 6a29e767c96a2a380bb66b9a6ffcd6eb54049e14d796a1d866307b8beb7aee58 can be used as nodekey.
To create a reusable keyfile on Linux using openssl,
use the ecparam command coupled with some standard utilities
whenever you want to extract the 32 byte private key in hex format.
# Generate keyfile
openssl ecparam -genkey -name secp256k1 -out my_private_key.pem
# Extract 32 byte private key
openssl ec -in my_private_key.pem -outform DER | tail -c +8 | head -c 32| xxd -p -c 32
Example output:
read EC key
writing EC key
0c687bb8a7984c770b566eae08520c67f53d302f24b8d4e5e47cc479a1e1ce23
where the key 0c687bb8a7984c770b566eae08520c67f53d302f24b8d4e5e47cc479a1e1ce23 can be used as nodekey.
waku --nodekey=0c687bb8a7984c770b566eae08520c67f53d302f24b8d4e5e47cc479a1e1ce23
generating a keyfile
go-waku can generate an encrypted keyfile containing a random private key:
waku --generate-key
This will create a private key file at path specified in --key-file with the password defined by --key-password. By default the path is ./nodekey, and the password for the keyfile is secret. This command will not overwrite an existing key file. For that, the --overwrite flag can be used.
using a keyfile
go-waku will attempt to read any file existing at the path specified in the --key-file flag. If such file exists, go-waku will attempt to decrypt it using the --key-password, and read the private key.