Key

Key examples

Generating a key

To allow generating private keys, you can use the aptos key generate command. You can generate either x25519 or ed25519 keys.

$ aptos key generate --key-type ed25519 --output-file output.key
{
  "Result": {
    "PrivateKey Path": "output.key",
    "PublicKey Path": "output.key.pub"
  }
}

Generating a vanity prefix key

If you are generating an ed25519 key, you can optionally supply a vanity prefix for the corresponding account address:

$ aptos key generate --output-file starts_with_ace.key --vanity-prefix 0xace
{
  "Result": {
    "PrivateKey Path": "starts_with_ace.key",
    "PublicKey Path": "starts_with_ace.key.pub",
    "Account Address:": "0xaceffa015e51dcd32c34794c143e19185b3f1be5464dd6184239a37e57e72ea3"
  }
}

This works for multisig accounts too:

% aptos key generate --output-file starts_with_bee.key --vanity-prefix 0xbee --vanity-multisig
{
  "Result": {
    "PrivateKey Path": "starts_with_bee.key",
    "PublicKey Path": "starts_with_bee.key.pub",
    "Account Address:": "0x384cf987aab625f9727684d4dda8de668abedc18aa8dceabd7651a1cfb69196f",
    "Multisig Account Address:": "0xbee0797c577428249125f6ed7f4a2a5939ddc34389294bd9f5d1627508832f56"
  }
}

Note the vanity flag documentation from the aptos key generate help:

--vanity-multisig
    Use this flag when vanity prefix is for a multisig account. This mines a private key for
    a single signer account that can, as its first transaction, create a multisig account
    with the given vanity prefix

--vanity-prefix <VANITY_PREFIX>
    Vanity prefix that resultant account address should start with, e.g. 0xaceface or d00d.
    Each additional character multiplies by a factor of 16 the computational difficulty
    associated with generating an address, so try out shorter prefixes first and be prepared
    to wait for longer ones

tip

If you want even faster vanity address generation for long prefixes, try out the parallelism-optimized optivanity tool from Econia Labs

Generating a peer config

To allow others to connect to your node, you need to generate a peer configuration. Below command shows how you can use the aptos CLI to generate a peer configuration and write it into a file named peer_config.yaml.

$ aptos key extract-peer --output-file peer_config.yaml

The above command will generate the following output on the terminal:

{
  "Result": {
    "8cfb85603080b13013b57e2e80887c695cfecd7ad8217d1cac22fa6f3b0b5752": {
      "addresses": [],
      "keys": [
        "0x8cfb85603080b13013b57e2e80887c695cfecd7ad8217d1cac22fa6f3b0b5752"
      ],
      "role": "Upstream"
    }
  }
}

The peer_config.yaml file will be created in your current working directory, with the contents as shown in the below example:

---
8cfb85603080b13013b57e2e80887c695cfecd7ad8217d1cac22fa6f3b0b5752:
  addresses: []
  keys:
    - "0x8cfb85603080b13013b57e2e80887c695cfecd7ad8217d1cac22fa6f3b0b5752"
  role: Upstream

Note: In the addresses key, you should fill in your address.