Core wallet and private keys

[nrgBitmagic]

Yes, this is very basic.

[nrgBitmagic]

Oops.
How does one obtain the private keys in the core wallet?

[HCP]

using either the Console in GUI, or the bitcoin-cli... You can use the dumpwallet or dumpprivkey commands (If you have a passphrase for the wallet, you'll probably need to unlock the wallet first)

Code:

walletpassphrase "passphrase" timeout
dumpwallet "filename"
dumpprivkey "address"

"Passphrase" is pretty obvious
The timeout is the number of seconds to unlock the wallet for (ie. 600 = 10 minutes)
"filename" is the filename to dump the ENTIRE wallet to
"Address" is the specific bitcoin address you want to dump the private key for

examples:

Code:

walletpassphrase Th1s1sMy5uper5ecretPassPhrase 600
dumpwallet c:\dumped_wallet.txt
walletlock

Code:

walletpassphrase Th1s1sMy5uper5ecretPassPhrase 600
dumpprivkey 1BvBMSEYstWetqTFn5Au4m4GFg7xJaNVN2
walletlock

[nrgBitmagic]

In Core, is it thought to be important to have an unencrypted backup of the private keys?

[HCP]

personally, I believe having unencrypted copies of your private keys laying around is pretty dangerous... how/where would you store these keys?

As long as you have a backup of your wallet.dat file and you created this wallet.dat using a version of Core from v0.13+ then you should have an HD wallet and will be able to regenerate all your keys by restoring from this backup file.

If your wallet was created BEFORE v0.13 then I believe regular backups of wallet.dat are required to prevent "losing" newer private keys once the default keypool is exhausted.

All the usual warnings about having unencrypted private keys on an online computer apply here... having your keys exposed increases the risk of losing your coins.

[ranochigo]

personally, I believe having unencrypted copies of your private keys laying around is pretty dangerous... how/where would you store these keys?

I guess a safe is a decent choice, just in case you forget the password.

As long as you have a backup of your wallet.dat file and you created this wallet.dat using a version of Core from v0.13+ then you should have an HD wallet and will be able to regenerate all your keys by restoring from this backup file.

You also need to backup the wallet.dat again if you encrypt the wallet file or change its password. The HD string will be changed when you do either of that.