What is the correct encoding for geth keystore files?

Question

I'm attempting to import a transcribed geth UTC--... format keyfile into geth on ubuntu, using this guidance, and am getting the following error:

Fatal: Failed to load the private key: encoding/hex: invalid byte: U+007 B '{'

There are a few other similar questions but none ask why this error occurs.

• Importing paper wallet using geth gives encoding error
• Import private key into ethereum wallet
• How to import an icebox encrypted wallet into Geth
• Export Parity private key

I'm guessing the file must be in UTF-8 encoding. On using file -i on a terminal it returns:

UTC--etc_file_name text/plain; charset=us-ascii

I think us-ascii is a subset of UTF-8, so it should work....

Why is this error occuring?

What is the correct encoding for geth keystore files?

Answer 1

I do not know why this error is occuring, but:

• I'm on ubuntu, and file -i keyfile gives the same result as for you. As I have no problem with my key, it is probably not an encoding problem in your side.

• The '{' character is used to format the keyfile. My file format is: {"address":x,"crypto":{"cipher":"aes-128-ctr","ciphertext":x,"cipherparams":{"iv":x},"kdf":"scrypt","kdfparams":{"dklen":x,"n":x,"p":x,"r":x,"salt":x},"mac":x},"id":x,"version":x} so it should be something like that in your file.

• You should verify that your '{' and your quotes (") are all balanced, because it seems to me that it comes from such a mistake. However, if you did not modify the file, it should not have occured. Note that some fields have quotes in their value (e.g. hex fields) while others have not.

Answer 2

This stemmed from a mistake:

I needed to save the file to /.ethereum/keystore

I had it saved in /.ethereum

I was also not completely clear on how geth interprets private-key, encryted private key and keystore info:

encryted private-key: stored in "ciphertext" field of JSON keystore file, encryted with settings in that file.

private key un-encryted version of above (this is what most of the linked questions refer to) - I was attempting to import the whole JSON file, not just the key! Hence the error with invalid { char.

JSON keystore file this is what I was attempting to import, but saved to incorrect directory then jumped to "oh maybe there's an import procedure..." search and went up a blind alley..