3.0 KiB
description: Pantheon private and public key used to identify node
Node Keys
Each node has a node key pair consisting of a node private key and node public key.
Node Private Key
If a key
file does not exist in the data directory and the --node-private-key-file
option is not specified when Pantheon is started, a node private key is generated and written to the key
file.
If Pantheon is stopped and restarted without deleting the key
file, the same private key is used when Pantheon is restarted.
If a key
file exists in the data directory when Pantheon is started, the node is started with the private key in the key
file.
!!!info The private key is not encrypted.
Node Public Key
The node public key is displayed in the log after starting Pantheon. Use the public-key
subcommand to export the public key to a file.
The node public key is also referred to as the node ID. The node ID forms part of the enode URL for a node.
Enode URL
Nodes are identified by their enode URL. For example, the --bootnodes
option and perm_addNodesToWhitelist
method specify nodes by the enode URL.
The enode URL is enode://<id>@<host:port>
where:
<id>
is the node public key excluding the initial 0x.<host:port>
is the host and port the bootnode is listening on for P2P peer discovery. Specified by the--p2p-host
and--p2p-port
options (default host is127.0.0.1
and port is30303
).
!!! example
If the --p2p-host
or --p2p-port
options are not specified and the node public key is 0xc35c3ec90a8a51fd5703594c6303382f3ae6b2ecb9589bab2c04b3794f2bc3fc2631dabb0c08af795787a6c004d8f532230ae6e9925cbbefb0b28b79295d615f
The enode URL is:
`enode://c35c3ec90a8a51fd5703594c6303382f3ae6b2ecb9589bab2c04b3794f2bc3fc2631dabb0c08af795787a6c004d8f532230ae6e9925cbbefb0b28b79295d615f@127.0.0.1:30303`
The enode is displayed when starting a Pantheon node and can be obtained using the net_enode
JSON-RPC API method.
Specifying a Custom Node Private Key File
Use the --node-private-key-file
option to specify a custom key
file in any location.
If the key
file exists, the node is started with the private key in the custom key
file. If the custom key
file does not exist,
a node private key is generated and written to the custom key
file.
For example, the following command either reads the node private key from the privatekeyfile
or writes the generated private key to the privatekeyfile
:
!!! example
bash pantheon --node-private-key-file="/Users/username/privatekeyfile"