User Guide

Recovery

Use the process described here to recover your organization's private keys, independently of Fordefi.

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To recover its private keys, an organization must possess the following:

  • An encrypted copy of the organization’s private keys. This file should be in your email inbox.
  • Depending on the backup method you have used, either the recovery phrase of each designated admin or the private key that corresponds to the public key that you uploaded at backup time.

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Recommendation

Recovering private keys should be performed on an external, offline device.

Recover private keys

  1. Download the backup .zip file, and extract it.

  2. Download the recovery tool (MacOS Intel, MacOS Apple silicon, Linux, Windows).

  3. Open a terminal and navigate to the directory where you have downloaded the recovery tool.

  4. Depending on the backup method you have used, run one of the two following commands:

    Recovery Phrases:

    recovery-tool.exe key-share-recover -p '\path\to\backup.json' -o output_file.csv

    ./recovery-tool key-share-recover -p ‘/path/to/backup.json' -o output_file.csv

    When prompted, enter each of your two recovery phrases as follows:

    Enter mnemonic #1: afraid pole typical never dad symbol present stable adult garbage climb riot
Enter mnemonic #2: hybrid puppy section doll mention next deal eight agree erase lunch observe

    Public Key Upload:

    recovery-tool.exe public-key-recover -p '\path\to\backup.json' -k my_file/private_key.pem -o output.csv

    ./recovery-tool public-key-recover -p '/path/to/backup.json' -k my_file/private_key.pem -o output.csv

    Options

    Here is the full list of options for the recovery tool:

    • -p specifies the path to the .json file that was generated during the backup process. Here, it is backup.json.
    • -b can be used instead of -p. It lets you input the contents of the .json file through stdin.
    • -o (optional) specifies the output file. In the example,output_file.csv contains the recovered private keys. If this option is not used, the output will be displayed in stdout.
    • -k
      -- When using the "public key upload" method, this option specifies the path to a file that lets you provide the private key in PEM format.
      -- When using the "recovery phrases" method, this options lets you provide the admins' recovery phrases. If this option is not used, you can enter the recovery phrases later, when prompted.
    • --export-electrum-dir (optional) A directory. If provided, Fordefi exports into this directory private keys that can be easily imported into an Electrum Bitcoin wallet. Fordefi creates one file per vault with all the vault's keys in both legacy and SegWit formats.

Use the recovery output file

For vaults of most types, the output consists of private keys for each of the vaults created in your Fordefi workspace. For example:

EVM vaults

You will need to import the private key represented as a hex value for each vault, separately, into MetaMask.

Cosmos vaults

You will need to import or recover an existing wallet.

Aptos, Solana, Sui, and Starknet vaults

For Aptos, Solana, Sui and Starknet vaults, there is an additional procedure to perform. Once you have recovered the private keys using the procedures provided above, transfer funds to another wallet using the steps in:

Bitcoin vaults

Updated 4 days ago