lighthouse/account_manager
realbigsean b69c63d486 Validator dir creation (#1746)
## Issue Addressed

Resolves #1744

## Proposed Changes

- Add `directory::ensure_dir_exists` to the `ValidatorDefinition::open_or_create` method 
- As @pawanjay176 suggested, making the `--validator-dir` non-global so users are forced to include the flag after the `validator` subcommand. Current behavior seems to be ignoring the flag if it comes after something like `validator import`

## Additional Info
N/A
2020-10-08 21:01:32 +00:00
..
src Validator dir creation (#1746) 2020-10-08 21:01:32 +00:00
Cargo.toml Update external deps (#1711) 2020-10-05 08:22:19 +00:00
README.md Added deterministic keypair generation. 2019-04-08 15:02:11 +10:00

Lighthouse Account Manager

The account manager (AM) is a stand-alone binary which allows users to generate and manage the cryptographic keys necessary to interact with Ethereum Serenity.

Roles

The AM is responsible for the following tasks:

  • Generation of cryptographic key pairs
    • Must acquire sufficient entropy to ensure keys are generated securely (TBD)
  • Secure storage of private keys
    • Keys must be encrypted while at rest on the disk (TBD)
    • The format is compatible with the validator client
  • Produces messages and transactions necessary to initiate staking on Ethereum 1.x (TPD)

Implementation

The AM is not a service, and does not run continuously, nor does it interact with any running services. It is intended to be executed separately from other Lighthouse binaries and produce files which can be consumed by them.&

Usage

Simply run ./account_manager generate to generate a new random private key, which will be automatically saved to the correct directory.

If you prefer to use our "deterministic" keys for testing purposes, simply run ./accounts_manager generate_deterministic -i <index>, where index is the validator index for the key. This will reliably produce the same key each time and save it to the directory.