dcrwallet is a daemon handling decred wallet functionality for a single user. It acts as both an RPC client to dcrd and an RPC server for wallet clients and legacy RPC applications.
Public and private keys are derived using the hierarchical
deterministic format described by
BIP0032.
Unencrypted private keys are not supported and are never written to
disk. dcrwallet uses the
m/44'/<coin type>'/<account>'/<branch>/<address index>
HD path for all derived addresses, as described by
BIP0044.
Due to the sensitive nature of public data in a BIP0032 wallet, dcrwallet provides the option of encrypting not just private keys, but public data as well. This is intended to thwart privacy risks where a wallet file is compromised without exposing all current and future addresses (public keys) managed by the wallet. While access to this information would not allow an attacker to spend or steal coins, it does mean they could track all transactions involving your addresses and therefore know your exact balance. In a future release, public data encryption will extend to transactions as well.
dcrwallet is not an SPV client and requires connecting to a local or remote dcrd instance for asynchronous blockchain queries and notifications over websockets. Full dcrd installation instructions can be found here. An alternative SPV mode that is compatible with dcrd is planned for a future release.
Wallet clients can use one of two RPC servers:
-
A legacy JSON-RPC server inspired by the Bitcoin Core rpc server
The JSON-RPC server exists to ease the migration of wallet applications from Core, but complete compatibility is not guaranteed. Some portions of the API (and especially accounts) have to work differently due to other design decisions (mostly due to BIP0044). However, if you find a compatibility issue and feel that it could be reasonably supported, please report an issue. This server is enabled by default as long as a username and password are provided.
-
A gRPC server
The gRPC server uses a new API built for dcrwallet, but the API is not stabilized. This server is enabled by default and may be disabled with the config option
--nogrpc
. If you don't mind applications breaking due to API changes, don't want to deal with issues of the legacy API, or need notifications for changes to the wallet, this is the RPC server to use. The gRPC server is documented here.
Install the latest MSIs available here:
https://github.com/decred/decred-release/releases
Building or updating from source requires the following build dependencies:
-
Go 1.8 or 1.9
Installation instructions can be found here: http://golang.org/doc/install. It is recommended to add
$GOPATH/bin
to yourPATH
at this point. -
Dep
Dep is used to manage project dependencies and provide reproducible builds. It is recommended to use the latest Dep release, unless a bug prevents doing so. The latest releases (for both binary and source) can be found here.
Unfortunately, the use of dep
prevents a handy tool such as go get
from
automatically downloading, building, and installing the source in a single
command. Instead, the latest project and dependency sources must be first
obtained manually with git
and dep
, and then go
is used to build and
install the project.
Getting the source:
For a first time installation, the project and dependency sources can be
obtained manually with git
and dep
(create directories as needed):
git clone https://github.com/decred/dcrwallet $GOPATH/src/github.com/decred/dcrwallet
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/decred/dcrwallet
dep ensure
To update an existing source tree, pull the latest changes and install the matching dependencies:
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/decred/dcrwallet
git pull
dep ensure
Building/Installing:
The go
tool is used to build or install (to GOPATH
) the project. Some
example build instructions are provided below (all must run from the dcrwallet
project directory).
To build and install dcrwallet
and all helper commands (in the cmd
directory) to $GOPATH/bin/
, as well as installing all compiled packages to
$GOPATH/pkg/
(use this if you are unsure which command to run):
go install . ./cmd/...
To build a dcrwallet
executable and install it to $GOPATH/bin/
:
go install
To build a dcrwallet
executable and place it in the current directory:
go build
All tests and linters may be run in a docker container using the script run_tests.sh
. This script defaults to using the current supported version of go. You can run it with the major version of go you would like to use as the only arguement to test a previous on a previous version of go (generally decred supports the current version of go and the previous one).
./run_tests.sh 1.8
To run the tests locally without docker:
./run_tests.sh local
The following instructions detail how to get started with dcrwallet connecting
to a localhost dcrd. Commands should be run in cmd.exe
or PowerShell on
Windows, or any terminal emulator on *nix.
- Run the following command to start dcrd:
dcrd -u rpcuser -P rpcpass
- Run the following command to create a wallet:
dcrwallet -u rpcuser -P rpcpass --create
- Run the following command to start dcrwallet:
dcrwallet -u rpcuser -P rpcpass
If everything appears to be working, it is recommended at this point to copy the sample dcrd and dcrwallet configurations and update with your RPC username and password.
PowerShell (Installed from MSI):
PS> cp "$env:ProgramFiles\Decred\Dcrd\sample-dcrd.conf" $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrd\dcrd.conf
PS> cp "$env:ProgramFiles\Decred\Dcrwallet\sample-dcrwallet.conf" $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrwallet\dcrwallet.conf
PS> $editor $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrd\dcrd.conf
PS> $editor $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrwallet\dcrwallet.conf
PowerShell (Installed from source):
PS> cp $env:GOPATH\src\github.com\decred\dcrd\sample-dcrd.conf $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrd\dcrd.conf
PS> cp $env:GOPATH\src\github.com\decred\dcrwallet\sample-dcrwallet.conf $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrwallet\dcrwallet.conf
PS> $editor $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrd\dcrd.conf
PS> $editor $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Dcrwallet\dcrwallet.conf
Linux/BSD/POSIX (Installed from source):
$ cp $GOPATH/src/github.com/decred/dcrd/sample-dcrd.conf ~/.dcrd/dcrd.conf
$ cp $GOPATH/src/github.com/decred/dcrwallet/sample-dcrwallet.conf ~/.dcrwallet/dcrwallet.conf
$ $EDITOR ~/.dcrd/dcrd.conf
$ $EDITOR ~/.dcrwallet/dcrwallet.conf
The integrated github issue tracker is used for this project.
dcrwallet is licensed under the liberal ISC License.