Transferfing balance from Satoshi Client to Blockchain.info/wallet questions

[Daily Anarchist]

I've recently got a new computer and am running Fedora on it, which basically makes it impossible for me to run the Satoshi client until the devs go out of their way to build an rpm.

My old computer was/is running Ubuntu. I've had to do a clean install in the hopes of fixing some major issues it has. It crashes a lot and when it does that it screws up Bitcoin's ability to load the block index. So, I'll spend a bunch of time trying to load the entire blockchain so that I can access my full balance, but before the entire blockchain finishes downloading, my computer crashes again, thus screwing up the block index, meaning I need to reinstall the Satoshi Client all over again. So, I'm done with that. I'm ready to toss my old computer into the garbage bin.

Actually, I'm thinking about installing Windows XP on there. My first question is can I put a wallet.dat file that I had from Ubuntu into my Windows Bitcoin wallet and get my balance? If so, then at least I can transfer my balance into a blockchain.info/wallet.

My next question has to do with the safety of the blockchain.info/wallets.

I'm able to backup an encrypted wallet and send it to my email. That's nice. The website claims that it, or Multibit can import the wallet. What about Mt. Gox? For example, if I can't get Multibit running on my Fedora, and if for any reason blockchain.info goes down permanently, how else can I get my balance back?

My last and most important question is about the security of the blockchain.info wallet. Right now when I decrypt my blockchain.info/wallet I do it through a browser. Blockchain.info uses GoDaddy as their certificate authority, which means they have access to every password that gets used to decrypt wallets. Not only do I not trust GoDaddy, I don't trust the entire Certificate Authority system at all, since I don't trust any corporate entity, period. Can somebody address these concerns? Am I missing something? Does GoDaddy really not have access to the passwords to our wallets?

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[Raoul Duke]

What's this? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=102650.0

And yes, you can move your wallet.dat to another computer with some other OS and it will work.
YOu'll just need to Detach databases at shutdown(mark it on the Options screen), replace the wallet.dat(if you had another wallet.dat in there) and run Bitcoin with the -rescan flag so it can fetch all the transactions for the addresses on your wallet.

[Daily Anarchist]

What's this? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=102650.0

And yes, you can move your wallet.dat to another computer with some other OS and it will work.
YOu'll just need to Detach databases at shutdown(mark it on the Options screen), replace the wallet.dat(if you had another wallet.dat in there) and run Bitcoin with the -rescan flag so it can fetch all the transactions for the addresses on your wallet.

Did you finished the thread? You'll see how I'm F'ed and not able to install Bitcoin Satoshi Client on Fedora.

[Richy_T]

I've recently got a new computer and am running Fedora on it, which basically makes it impossible for me to run the Satoshi client until the devs go out of their way to build an rpm.

My old computer was/is running Ubuntu. I've had to do a clean install in the hopes of fixing some major issues it has. It crashes a lot and when it does that it screws up Bitcoin's ability to load the block index. So, I'll spend a bunch of time trying to load the entire blockchain so that I can access my full balance, but before the entire blockchain finishes downloading, my computer crashes again, thus screwing up the block index, meaning I need to reinstall the Satoshi Client all over again. So, I'm done with that. I'm ready to toss my old computer into the garbage bin.

Actually, I'm thinking about installing Windows XP on there. My first question is can I put a wallet.dat file that I had from Ubuntu into my Windows Bitcoin wallet and get my balance? If so, then at least I can transfer my balance into a blockchain.info/wallet.

My next question has to do with the safety of the blockchain.info/wallets.

I'm able to backup an encrypted wallet and send it to my email. That's nice. The website claims that it, or Multibit can import the wallet. What about Mt. Gox? For example, if I can't get Multibit running on my Fedora, and if for any reason blockchain.info goes down permanently, how else can I get my balance back?

My last and most important question is about the security of the blockchain.info wallet. Right now when I decrypt my blockchain.info/wallet I do it through a browser. Blockchain.info uses GoDaddy as their certificate authority, which means they have access to every password that gets used to decrypt wallets. Not only do I not trust GoDaddy, I don't trust the entire Certificate Authority system at all, since I don't trust any corporate entity, period. Can somebody address these concerns? Am I missing something? Does GoDaddy really not have access to the passwords to our wallets?

All GoDaddy does is sign the certificates that the web server presents to you. It's all about a chain of trust and they never see your passwords or have any interaction with the server at all. It's a process worth understanding as from what I understand, similar principles are used in bitcoin itself.  

[Richy_T]

Also, there's no reason you couldn't install bitcoin wallet on Fedora. Not everything has to be in a RPM

[Daily Anarchist]

I've recently got a new computer and am running Fedora on it, which basically makes it impossible for me to run the Satoshi client until the devs go out of their way to build an rpm.

My old computer was/is running Ubuntu. I've had to do a clean install in the hopes of fixing some major issues it has. It crashes a lot and when it does that it screws up Bitcoin's ability to load the block index. So, I'll spend a bunch of time trying to load the entire blockchain so that I can access my full balance, but before the entire blockchain finishes downloading, my computer crashes again, thus screwing up the block index, meaning I need to reinstall the Satoshi Client all over again. So, I'm done with that. I'm ready to toss my old computer into the garbage bin.

Actually, I'm thinking about installing Windows XP on there. My first question is can I put a wallet.dat file that I had from Ubuntu into my Windows Bitcoin wallet and get my balance? If so, then at least I can transfer my balance into a blockchain.info/wallet.

My next question has to do with the safety of the blockchain.info/wallets.

I'm able to backup an encrypted wallet and send it to my email. That's nice. The website claims that it, or Multibit can import the wallet. What about Mt. Gox? For example, if I can't get Multibit running on my Fedora, and if for any reason blockchain.info goes down permanently, how else can I get my balance back?

My last and most important question is about the security of the blockchain.info wallet. Right now when I decrypt my blockchain.info/wallet I do it through a browser. Blockchain.info uses GoDaddy as their certificate authority, which means they have access to every password that gets used to decrypt wallets. Not only do I not trust GoDaddy, I don't trust the entire Certificate Authority system at all, since I don't trust any corporate entity, period. Can somebody address these concerns? Am I missing something? Does GoDaddy really not have access to the passwords to our wallets?

All GoDaddy does is sign the certificates that the web server presents to you. It's all about a chain of trust and they never see your passwords or have any interaction with the server at all. It's a process worth understanding as from what I understand, similar principles are used in bitcoin itself.  

Interesting. So the Certificate is actually issued by blockchain.info but signed for trust by GoDaddy? I was under the (false?) impression that corporations like GoDaddy actually issued the certificates.

[Raoul Duke]

What's this? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=102650.0

And yes, you can move your wallet.dat to another computer with some other OS and it will work.
YOu'll just need to Detach databases at shutdown(mark it on the Options screen), replace the wallet.dat(if you had another wallet.dat in there) and run Bitcoin with the -rescan flag so it can fetch all the transactions for the addresses on your wallet.

Did you finished the thread? You'll see how I'm F'ed and not able to install Bitcoin Satoshi Client on Fedora.

I re-read it again and don't see where you say you tried to use the rpm at the thread I linked you and the install failed. All I see is that you use Fedora and there is no rpm, which isn't true.
You can't install Bitcoin-Qt 0.7 but 0.6.3 is there.
Ofcourse if you're using 0.7 already on Ubuntu I'm not sure if the wallet.dat file will be compatible with 0.6.3

[Daily Anarchist]

Also, there's no reason you couldn't install bitcoin wallet on Fedora. Not everything has to be in a RPM

That's what many people have claimed. But not by actual Fedora users. I'd like to see an actual Fedora user explain how they got the Satoshi Client working.

[Raoul Duke]

Also, there's no reason you couldn't install bitcoin wallet on Fedora. Not everything has to be in a RPM

That's what many people have claimed. But not by actual Fedora users. I'd like to see an actual Fedora user explain how they got the Satoshi Client working.

http://linux.ringingliberty.com/bitcoin/ <--- Try the instructions here

[gusti]

Running bitcoin from GUI is not mandatory, you can also run bitcoind from Fedora terminal.
Command line is easy once you'd made a few transactions, I run it from Debian, and it's not hard at all.

[Daily Anarchist]

Need writable directory, but '/var/spool/abrt/ccpp-2012-10-17-20:30:25-4079' is not writable. Move it to '/home/seth/.cache/abrt/spool' and operate on the moved data?

After following the directions and attempting to open the GUI this is the error I get.

[Richy_T]

Also, there's no reason you couldn't install bitcoin wallet on Fedora. Not everything has to be in a RPM

That's what many people have claimed. But not by actual Fedora users. I'd like to see an actual Fedora user explain how they got the Satoshi Client working.

As a Slackware user, make config;make;make install usually works for most stuff for me I believe the project is open source so it should be possible to compile from scratch if nothing else.

Alien might be the answer for Fedora I've only used it once though and that was about 8 years ago and was going rpm->deb.

[Deafboy]

You can install the outdated rpm package to satisfy all dependencies (or just dissect the package and install them manually) and then use the latest version from bitcoin.org

[Raoul Duke]

Need writable directory, but '/var/spool/abrt/ccpp-2012-10-17-20:30:25-4079' is not writable. Move it to '/home/seth/.cache/abrt/spool' and operate on the moved data?

After following the directions and attempting to open the GUI this is the error I get.

Did you click Yes on that error prompt? You should.
It still doesn't open after you click Yes? You may need to start Bitcoin-Qt again after clicking yes.
That's the error reporting tool if I'm not mistaken.

Also, there's no reason you couldn't install bitcoin wallet on Fedora. Not everything has to be in a RPM

That's what many people have claimed. But not by actual Fedora users. I'd like to see an actual Fedora user explain how they got the Satoshi Client working.

As a Slackware user, make config;make;make install usually works for most stuff for me I believe the project is open source so it should be possible to compile from scratch if nothing else.

Alien might be the answer for Fedora I've only used it once though and that was about 8 years ago and was going rpm->deb.

If he tries to compile it, it will not be easy. Bitcoin needs OpenSSL binaries that are a little different than the ones that ship with Fedora/CentOS.

[Richy_T]

Interesting. So the Certificate is actually issued by blockchain.info but signed for trust by GoDaddy? I was under the (false?) impression that corporations like GoDaddy actually issued the certificates.

Well, I'm sure I'm going to say something wrong here since it's been a while since I got into the nitty gritty but this is the gist: blockchain.info generates a certificate request which contains the domain they want the certificate for. There's some cryptography involved which involves signing the request in some way I think. They send this request off to GoDaddy. GoDaddy then signs the request and hands it back to blockchain.info who install it in their server. When you go to blockchain.info, your browser gets given the certificate. Either GoDaddy has a key in the browser or what they used to sign the certificate was signed by someone who has. Your browser checks the signing chain and if all is hunky dory, gives you a little key or green padlock or somesuch and you go about your business knowing everything is completely secure (assuming someone isn't storing your wallet.dat in the root directory of the web server).

There are actually quite a few valid objections to the chain-of-trust model but it's what we have.

[Daily Anarchist]

Need writable directory, but '/var/spool/abrt/ccpp-2012-10-17-20:30:25-4079' is not writable. Move it to '/home/seth/.cache/abrt/spool' and operate on the moved data?

After following the directions and attempting to open the GUI this is the error I get.

Did you click Yes on that error prompt? You should.
It still doesn't open after you click Yes? You may need to start Bitcoin-Qt again after clicking yes.
That's the error reporting tool if I'm not mistaken.

Also, there's no reason you couldn't install bitcoin wallet on Fedora. Not everything has to be in a RPM

That's what many people have claimed. But not by actual Fedora users. I'd like to see an actual Fedora user explain how they got the Satoshi Client working.

As a Slackware user, make config;make;make install usually works for most stuff for me I believe the project is open source so it should be possible to compile from scratch if nothing else.

Alien might be the answer for Fedora I've only used it once though and that was about 8 years ago and was going rpm->deb.

If he tries to compile it, it will not be easy. Bitcoin needs OpenSSL binaries that are a little different than the ones that ship with Fedora/CentOS.

I clicked yes and it took about 30 minutes for it to install a bunch of packages or whatever. When it was done I tried to open Bitcoin again and still got the same error. So, I restarted my computer, clicked Bitcoin. Now I just get nothing.

Now, back to another question, is there another way for me to transfer my wallet.dat balance to blockchain.info/wallet without having to use the Satoshi client?

[Rotsor]

Daily Anarchist,

It does not matter at all how the certificate was issued. Your password and your private keys are never being sent even to blockchain.info itself, never mind the certificate issuer.

This can be verified by studying the javascript source code of the blockchain.info wallet application, which is open-source. You can further protect yourself from someone changing the application by installing a wallet javascript verifier browser extension.

[Raoul Duke]

Now, back to another question, is there another way for me to transfer my wallet.dat balance to blockchain.info/wallet without having to use the Satoshi client?

Install pywallet, dump all your wallet private keys and import them to the blockchain.info/wallet
Instructions and link to source code: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34028.0

[Daily Anarchist]

Now, back to another question, is there another way for me to transfer my wallet.dat balance to blockchain.info/wallet without having to use the Satoshi client?

Install pywallet, dump all your wallet private keys and import them to the blockchain.info/wallet
Instructions and link to source code: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34028.0

Ugg. I can't even figure out how to install pywallet. The furthest I could get was downloading the python-2.7.2.msi file. 

[Raoul Duke]

Now, back to another question, is there another way for me to transfer my wallet.dat balance to blockchain.info/wallet without having to use the Satoshi client?

Install pywallet, dump all your wallet private keys and import them to the blockchain.info/wallet
Instructions and link to source code: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34028.0

Ugg. I can't even figure out how to install pywallet. The furthest I could get was downloading the python-2.7.2.msi file. 

MSI? aren't you using Fedora? Linux install instructions are on the readme, on GitHub. MSI is a windows file

[Daily Anarchist]

Now, back to another question, is there another way for me to transfer my wallet.dat balance to blockchain.info/wallet without having to use the Satoshi client?

Install pywallet, dump all your wallet private keys and import them to the blockchain.info/wallet
Instructions and link to source code: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34028.0

Ugg. I can't even figure out how to install pywallet. The furthest I could get was downloading the python-2.7.2.msi file. 

MSI? aren't you using Fedora? Linux install instructions are on the readme, on GitHub. MSI is a windows file

I'm failing to see where the instructions are for Fedora. Here is the entire READ.ME file:

Code:

[code]Requirements: Python 2.x, with bsddb and twisted packages

Usage: pywallet.py [options]

Options:
  --version show program's version number and exit
  -h, --help show this help message and exit
  --dumpwallet dump wallet in json format
  --importprivkey=KEY import private key from vanitygen
  --importhex KEY is in hexadecimal format
  --datadir=DATADIR wallet directory (defaults to bitcoin default)
  --wallet=WALLETFILE wallet filename (defaults to wallet.dat)
  --label=LABEL label shown in the adress book (defaults to '')
  --testnet use testnet subdirectory and address type
  --namecoin use namecoin address type
  --otherversion=OTHERVERSION
                        use other network address type, whose version is
                        OTHERVERSION
  --info display pubkey, privkey (both depending on the
                        network) and hexkey
  --reserve import as a reserve key, i.e. it won't show in the
                        adress book
  --balance=KEY_BALANCE
                        prints balance of KEY_BALANCE
  --web run pywallet web interface
  --port=PORT port of web interface (defaults to 8989)







Dependencies:

Debian-based Linux:
 aptitude install build-essential python-dev python-twisted python-bsddb3

Mac OS X:
 1. Install MacPorts from http://www.macports.org/
 2. sudo port install python27 py27-twisted py27-pip py-bsddb python_select
 3. sudo port select --set python python27
 4. sudo easy_install ecdsa

Windows:
 1. Install Python 2.7
 2. Install Twisted 11.0.0 for Py2.7, then Zope.Interface (a .egg file) for Py2.7: http://twistedmatrix.com/trac/wiki/Downloads

 3. Untested, proposed by TeaRex: install Zope.Interface from http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs

 If this doesn't work, you will have to install the egg file:

 3(32bit). http://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools#downloads to install setuptools
 3(64bit). http://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools#windows to download, then run ez_setup.py

 4. Go to C:\Python27\Scripts
 5. Run easy_install.exe zope.interface-3.6.4-py2.7-win-amd64.egg

[/code]

[Raoul Duke]

there should be equivalent packages for fedora as the ones it lists for debian

To install on Fedora do

Code:

yum install make automake gcc gcc-c++ kernel-devel python-devel python-twisted python-bsddb3

[Daily Anarchist]

there should be equivalent packages for fedora as the ones it lists for debian

seth@LockBox:~$ sudo yum install build-essential
Loaded plugins: langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit
No package build-essential available.
Error: Nothing to do
seth@LockBox:~$

Starting to have second thoughts about Fedora. 

It's too bad too because I like Fedora more than Ubuntu. But Ubuntu is definitely more popular, so it gets the devs' attention.

[Raoul Duke]

there should be equivalent packages for fedora as the ones it lists for debian

seth@LockBox:~$ sudo yum install build-essential
Loaded plugins: langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit
No package build-essential available.
Error: Nothing to do
seth@LockBox:~$

Starting to have second thoughts about Fedora. 

It's too bad too because I like Fedora more than Ubuntu. But Ubuntu is definitely more popular, so it gets the devs' attention.

I edited my post above. Check it and try

[Daily Anarchist]

How did you know which packages to install?

And more importantly, what the heck do I do now? I have no idea how to use pywallet.

[Raoul Duke]

How did you know which packages to install?

And more importantly, what the heck do I do now? I have no idea how to use pywallet.

I use Ubuntu on my laptop but all my webservers run CentOS, which also uses yum. Not the first time I had to search for yum packages using the debian names.

First you'll need to prepare a couple things.
On your home user dir make 1 folder named pywallet and 1 folder named bitcoin

Inside the folder named bitcoin, insert a copy of your wallet.dat

Download pywallet from Github.
Extract the pywallet.py file to the pywallet folder you created previously. Check that you have the pywallet.py inside the folder and not on a sub-folder.

Now on a terminal do

Code:

cd pywallet

next

Code:

python pywallet.py --datadir=~/bitcoin --dumpwallet >> wallet.json.txt 

It should output a json with all your private keys, labels, etc.
You just need to import it on blockchain.info. It's a text file, you can open it and copy the contents to import. Not sure how the import procedure on blockchain.info works.

Tell me if you get any problem. Wrote this from memory. Maybe I forgot something.
Just remember to always work with a wallet.dat copy, not with the original one.

[Daily Anarchist]

Okay, I've got pywallet to work. Thank you very much!

Now I'm stuck again. In the blockchain wallet I cannot import more than 400 private keys. I have no idea what to do now. I'm really not hung up on keeping all of the transaction details and addresses. I just want my balance restored. Any idea?

[Raoul Duke]

delete all empty addresses from the wallet?

[Daily Anarchist]

delete all empty addresses from the wallet?

Easier said than done. I have no idea what I'm looking at in that text.

[Raoul Duke]

delete all empty addresses from the wallet?

Easier said than done. I have no idea what I'm looking at in that text.

I was saying delete them on blockchain.info, to be able to import more.
You'd also need to remove the ones imported previously from the json file, as not to import them again.

[Daily Anarchist]

delete all empty addresses from the wallet?

Easier said than done. I have no idea what I'm looking at in that text.

I was saying delete them on blockchain.info, to be able to import more.
You'd also need to remove the ones imported previously from the json file, as not to import them again.

I don't think that's going to work. I don't fully understand everything I'm looking at in the json file, but every time there is a value: there is actually a non-zero value in there. So, I think all of my private keys have some btc in them. Oh well. I'm just going to use another machine to install the Satoshi client on and then transfer them to blockchain. Thanks for all the help, though. It's been educational.

[Raoul Duke]

delete all empty addresses from the wallet?

Easier said than done. I have no idea what I'm looking at in that text.

I was saying delete them on blockchain.info, to be able to import more.
You'd also need to remove the ones imported previously from the json file, as not to import them again.

I don't think that's going to work. I don't fully understand everything I'm looking at in the json file, but every time there is a value: there is actually a non-zero value in there. So, I think all of my private keys have some btc in them. Oh well. I'm just going to use another machine to install the Satoshi client on and then transfer them to blockchain. Thanks for all the help, though. It's been educational.

The wallet dump provided by pywallet doesn't give you the address balances, at least not on the part where it lists the pub and priv keys.
But the blockchain.info wallet gives you each address balance. You can simply archive the ones with no balance and delete them after archiving them, giving you leeway to import more addresses.
You'll just need to remove the previously imported addresses from the json file, as not to import them again.

For example, if you managed to import 399 addresses, giving that each address takes 6 lines on the json file you can easily calculate the beginning line and ending line of the addresses that were imported and delete all in between those lines, leaving only addresses which weren't imported the first time. Rinse and repeat until no more addresses left.

You must also take into account that the walletdump contains all transactions ever made from and to your addresses and your address book, and that part can safely be deleted before trying to import the private keys as it is not needed and only makes the json file bigger and more complicated for you to read.

Ofcourse all this may be a little over your head, and if it is, you better not mess much with it lol

[Raoul Duke]

Hey, have you tried this RPM here: http://www.openmamba.org/distribution/distromatic.html?tag=devel&pkg=bitcoin.i586 ?
It even has links to all the dependencies RPM's, so you should be safe it runs, even if you have to install every dependency seperately.

[Daily Anarchist]

Hey, have you tried this RPM here: http://www.openmamba.org/distribution/distromatic.html?tag=devel&pkg=bitcoin.i586 ?
It even has links to all the dependencies RPM's, so you should be safe it runs, even if you have to install every dependency seperately.

I started the process but it got halted because I needed a bunch of dependencies. Then I started to install the first dependency, and THAT needed a bunch of dependencies. Ha!

Thanks, but no thanks. I'll wait until the RPM gets put up on bitcoin.org's site. I've already transferred all of my coins to a blockchain wallet. So, I'm set for now. Thanks a bunch, though!