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Securing Your Stake Pool Using a Hardware Wallet
You can secure your pool pledge account and pool reward account using a Trezor or Ledger Nano S/X hardware wallet. Credits to angelstakepool for documenting the procedure.
Critical Reminder: After adding a 2nd pool owner using a hardware wallet, you must wait 2 epochs before you transfer pledge funds from your CLI Method or Mnemonic Method wallet to hardware wallet. Do not transfer any funds earlier because your pool pledge will not be met.
First, delegate your 2nd pool owner to your stake pool with Daedalus or Yoroi or Adalite.io
local PC or block producer node
# Hardware Wallet works with Trezor and Ledger Nano S/X
# Reference https://github.com/vacuumlabs/cardano-hw-cli/blob/develop/docs/installation.md
cd $NODE_HOME
wget https://github.com/vacuumlabs/cardano-hw-cli/releases/download/v1.13.0/cardano-hw-cli_1.13.0-1.deb
sudo dpkg --install ./cardano-hw-cli_1.13.0-1.deb
Connect and unlock your hardware wallet on your local PC or block producer node.
To generate the verification key and hardware wallet signing file, type:
local PC or block producer node
cardano-hw-cli address key-gen \
--path 1852H/1815H/0H/2/0 \
--verification-key-file hw-stake.vkey \
--hw-signing-file hw-stake.hwsfile
As needed, you can edit the value of the
--path option to specify the derivation path to the key with which you want to sign. hw-stake.vkey is not sensitive and may be shared publicly. hw-stake.hwsfile does NOT contain the raw private key.Copy hw-stake.vkey to your cold environment.
Update stake pool registration certificate to add your new hardware wallet owner, which will secure both your pool pledge account and pool reward account.
Tailor the below registration-certificate transaction with your pool's settings.
air-gapped offline machine
cardano-cli stake-pool registration-certificate \
--cold-verification-key-file $HOME/cold-keys/node.vkey \
--vrf-verification-key-file vrf.vkey \
--pool-pledge 1000000000 \
--pool-cost 345000000 \
--pool-margin 0.10 \
--pool-reward-account-verification-key-file hw-stake.vkey \
--pool-owner-stake-verification-key-file stake.vkey \
--pool-owner-stake-verification-key-file hw-stake.vkey \
--mainnet \
--single-host-pool-relay <dns based relay, example ~ relaynode1.myadapoolnamerocks.com> \
--pool-relay-port 6000 \
--metadata-url <url where you uploaded poolMetaData.json> \
--metadata-hash $(cat poolMetaDataHash.txt) \
--out-file pool.cert
Notice the pool-reward-account and additional pool-ownerstake-verification-key-file lines point to hw-stake.vkey.
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Example above is pledging 1000 ADA with a fixed pool cost of 345 ADA and a pool margin of 10%.
Copy pool.cert to your hot environment.
You need to find the tip of the blockchain to set the invalid-hereafter parameter properly.
block producer node
currentSlot=$(cardano-cli query tip --mainnet | jq -r '.slot')
echo Current Slot: $currentSlot
Find your balance and UTXOs.
block producer node
cardano-cli query utxo \
--address $(cat payment.addr) \
--mainnet > fullUtxo.out
tail -n +3 fullUtxo.out | sort -k3 -nr > balance.out
cat balance.out
tx_in=""
total_balance=0
while read -r utxo; do
type=$(awk '{ print $6 }' <<< "${utxo}")
if [[ ${type} == 'TxOutDatumNone' ]]
then
in_addr=$(awk '{ print $1 }' <<< "${utxo}")
idx=$(awk '{ print $2 }' <<< "${utxo}")
utxo_balance=$(awk '{ print $3 }' <<< "${utxo}")
total_balance=$((${total_balance}+${utxo_balance}))
echo TxHash: ${in_addr}#${idx}
echo ADA: ${utxo_balance}
tx_in="${tx_in} --tx-in ${in_addr}#${idx}"
fi
done < balance.out
txcnt=$(cat balance.out | wc -l)
echo Total available ADA balance: ${total_balance}
echo Number of UTXOs: ${txcnt}
Run the build-raw transaction command.
block producer node
cardano-cli transaction build-raw \
${tx_in} \
--mary-era \
--tx-out $(cat payment.addr)+${total_balance} \
--invalid-hereafter $(( ${currentSlot} + 10000)) \
--fee 0 \
--certificate-file pool.cert \
--out-file tx.tmp
Calculate the minimum fee:
block producer node
fee=$(cardano-cli transaction calculate-min-fee \
--tx-body-file tx.tmp \
--tx-in-count ${txcnt} \
--tx-out-count 1 \
--mainnet \
--witness-count 4 \
--byron-witness-count 0 \
--protocol-params-file params.json | awk '{ print $1 }')
echo fee: $fee
Calculate your change output.
block producer node
txOut=$((${total_balance}-${fee}))
echo txOut: ${txOut}
Build the transaction.
block producer node
cardano-cli transaction build-raw \
${tx_in} \
--mary-era \
--tx-out $(cat payment.addr)+${txOut} \
--invalid-hereafter $(( ${currentSlot} + 10000)) \
--fee ${fee} \
--certificate-file pool.cert \
--out-file tx-pool.raw
Copy tx-pool.raw to your cold environment.
This multi signature transaction will be signed using witnesses.
You need the following 4 witnesses.
- node.skey
- hw-stake.hwsfile
- stake.skey
- payment.skey
Create a witness using node.skey,
air-gapped offline machine
cardano-cli transaction witness \
--tx-body-file tx-pool.raw \
--signing-key-file $HOME/cold-keys/node.skey \
--mainnet \
--out-file node.witness
Create a witness using stake.skey,
air-gapped offline machine
cardano-cli transaction witness \
--tx-body-file tx-pool.raw \
--signing-key-file stake.skey \
--mainnet \
--out-file stake.witness
Create a witness using payment.skey,
air-gapped offline machine
cardano-cli transaction witness \
--tx-body-file tx-pool.raw \
--signing-key-file payment.skey \
--mainnet \
--out-file payment.witness
Copy tx-pool.raw to local PC or block producer node, which is where your hardware wallet device is connected. Ensure your hardware wallet is unlocked and ready.
Create a witness using hw-stake.hwsfile
local PC or block producer node
cardano-hw-cli transaction witness \
--tx-file tx-pool.raw \
--hw-signing-file hw-stake.hwsfile \
--mainnet \
--out-file hw-stake.witness
Copy hw-stake.witness to your cold environment.
air-gapped offline machine
cardano-cli transaction assemble \
--tx-body-file tx-pool.raw \
--witness-file node.witness \
--witness-file stake.witness \
--witness-file payment.witness \
--witness-file hw-stake.witness \
--out-file tx-pool.multisign
Copy tx-pool.multisign to your hot environment.
Send the transaction.
block producer node
cardano-cli transaction submit \
--tx-file tx-pool.multisign \
--mainnet
Check your updated pool information on adapools.org which should now show your hardware wallet as a pool owner.
Important Reminder These changes take effect in two epochs. Do NOT transfer pledge funds to your hardware wallet until at least two epochs later.
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After two epoch snapshots have passed, you can safely transfer pledge funds from your CLI Method or Mnemonic Method wallet to your new hardware wallet owner account.
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