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Title: Question about how bitcoin wallets and backups work Post by: cdog on November 19, 2013, 08:28:57 AM So I have a wallet installed on one machine, I encrypt it with a password, and then backup the wallet.dat to a USB stick
Now I take that USB stick to a new machine, install bitcoin-qt and drag the wallet.dat from the USB stick and replace the default wallet NOW I change the password on this new machine. So now the same wallet has 2 passwords which can access it? Title: Re: Question about how bitcoin wallets and backups work Post by: DeathAndTaxes on November 19, 2013, 08:31:17 AM The copy on the 2nd computer is now encrypted with the NEW password.
The copy of the USB drive is still encrypted with the OLD password. Each copy can only be unlocked by the singular, correct password for that copy. Changing one copy doesn't change any other copies. Title: Re: Question about how bitcoin wallets and backups work Post by: cdog on November 19, 2013, 08:38:36 AM Thanks D&T, so you can have two passwords for the same wallet. Interesting.
Title: Re: Question about how bitcoin wallets and backups work Post by: DannyHamilton on November 25, 2013, 07:53:07 PM Thanks D&T, so you can have two passwords for the same wallet. Interesting. Except they aren't the "same" wallet. It's two completely separate wallets that just happen to share some of the same private keys. Title: Re: Question about how bitcoin wallets and backups work Post by: deepceleron on November 25, 2013, 10:13:51 PM I like doing this:
So: 1. You had a bitcoin wallet.dat running on windows with password #1, 2. you copy the Bitcoin wallet to an Ubuntu machine, 3. on the Ubuntu machine you change the password to password #2, 4. you are surprised that when you boot back into Windows and the password is still #1? It is not a good idea to use the same wallet.dat on multiple computers, they will go out-of-sync after many transactions or as soon as you start adding labels. A good way to lose money, as eventually one wallet won't have addresses that are in the other. Deepceleron's razor #17: If something is worth saying to a noob, deepceleron has probably already said it. |