Recover Private Keys

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

Before you start

To recover its private keys, you must must possess the following:

• The encrypted backup snapshot.
• The recovery phrase of each dedicated admin (when using the Recovery Phrases backup method), or the private key matching the public key used for backup (when using the Public Key Upload backup method).

Together, they allow you to reconstruct the private keys independently of Fordefi.

Procedure

1. Download the Fordefi recovery tool.

2. Extract the recovery tool .zip file.
3. Extract the backup snapshot .zip file.
4. Put the recovery tool and the backup snapshot in the same directory, and then open a terminal and navigate to this directory.
5. Depending on the backup method you have used, run one of the following two commands:

Recovery phrases

   recovery-tool.exe 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

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

The output consists of private keys (in hexadecimal format) for each of the vaults created in your Fordefi workspace. For example:

You can now use the recovered private keys to access your funds.