Import a Base58 private key into Solana cli

Question

I have the following example private key:

4YFq9y5f5hi77Bq8kDCE6VgqoAqKGSQN87yW9YeGybpNfqKUG4WxnwhboHGUeXjY7g8262mhL1kCCM9yy8uGvdj7

It's paired with the address:

B7EZQq7AV8FnEEvEZUiFDPbfUWNE12XZv6wvn9ubFUJV

How do I import this key into Solana cli without having to install a bunch of other libraries or tools?

Answer 1

If you are using the Solana CLI, it is possible to pass a keypair in from stdin without writing it to a file first.

This can be demonstrated using any keypair file and doing:

$ cat my-keypair.json | solana --keypair stdin:// address
<your-address-will-appear-here>

As you can see, it just expects a byte-array, one that is identical to the contents of a typical keypair file, not a Base58 string.

Now, if I understand you correctly, you have some program that calls the Solana CLI as a subprocess, and you want to pass in the private key. As per the above, you can convert your Base58 representation of your private key into a JSON string of a byte array (e.g. [234, 10, 56, 42 ...], and then you can pass that string into stdin of your subprocess.

Answer 2

Are you comfortable with command line, node, and npm? If so, the snippet below will output the file that you can use for Solana CLI.

May sound like a lot, but I just went through this with a non-dev friend and they succeeded.

STEPS:

1. In your command line, type node -v does this say something like v16.17.0 ? If not, you can install node.

2. Then, create a new directory with a JS file... named convert.js for example and copy the code below into it. Don't forget to update the privatekeyexportedfromphantom value.

3. You can then type npm i bs58 from the command-line in that directory. (installs bs58)

4. Finally, type node convert.js and it will create a file named mykey.json

CODE:

const bs58 = require('bs58');
const fs = require('fs');
b = bs58.decode('privatekeyexportedfromphantom');
j = new Uint8Array(b.buffer, b.byteOffset, b.byteLength / Uint8Array.BYTES_PER_ELEMENT);
fs.writeFileSync('mykey.json', `[${j}]`);

Answer 3

I wrote a small Python script that converts private key into byte array. It is fairly simple and it has come in handy many times.

 python3 -m pip install base58

If you are using python3, first install base58 using the command above. You need pip to install this package.

import base58
byte_array = base58.b58decode('4YFq9y5f5hi77Bq8kDCE6VgqoAqKGSQN87yW9YeGybpNfqKUG4WxnwhboHGUeXjY7g8262mhL1kCCM9yy8uGvdj7')

json_string = "[" + ",".join(map(lambda b: str(b), byte_array)) + "]"
print(json_string)

Answer 4

As per my comment and your follow up question:

• Many of the commands to the solana CLI take a keypair file as an argument
• The keypair file is an array of bytes written out as a json array.
• Decode the string from base58 into an array then use a json writer to put to a file.

Answer 5

Steps

1. Initialize a new Node.js project (if you don't have one already):

   mkdir solana-key-import
   cd solana-key-import
   npm init -y
   

2. Install required packages:

   npm install @solana/web3.js bs58
   

3. Create a script to import the private key:

   Create a file named importKey.js and add the following code:

   const bs58 = require('bs58');
   const { Keypair } = require('@solana/web3.js');
   
   const privateKey = '4YFq9y5f5hi77Bq8kDCE6VgqoAqKGSQN87yW9YeGybpNfqKUG4WxnwhboHGUeXjY7g8262mhL1kCCM9yy8uGvdj7';
   
   const keypairData = Keypair.fromSeed(Uint8Array.from(bs58.default.decode(privateKey).slice(0, 32)));
   
   console.log('Public Key:', keypairData.publicKey.toString());
   console.log('Secret Key:', keypairData.secretKey.toString());
   

4. Run the script:

   node importKey.js
   

5. Export the private key for use with Solana CLI:

   The Solana CLI expects the private key in a JSON file. You can generate this file by modifying your script slightly to save the secret key:

   Update importKey.js:

   const fs = require('fs');
   
   const bs58 = require('bs58');
   const { Keypair } = require('@solana/web3.js');
   
   const privateKey = '4YFq9y5f5hi77Bq8kDCE6VgqoAqKGSQN87yW9YeGybpNfqKUG4WxnwhboHGUeXjY7g8262mhL1kCCM9yy8uGvdj7';
   
   const keypairData = Keypair.fromSeed(Uint8Array.from(bs58.default.decode(privateKey).slice(0, 32)));
   
   const secretKey = `[${keypairData.secretKey.toString()}]`;
   
   fs.writeFileSync('keypair.json', secretKey);
   
   console.log('Public Key:', keypairData.publicKey.toString());
   console.log('Secret Key saved to keypair.json');
   

   Run the script again:

   node importKey.js
   

   This will create a file named keypair.json with your secret key.

6. Import the keypair into Solana CLI:

   Use the Solana CLI to set the keypair:

   solana config set --keypair ./keypair.json
   

   Now your Solana CLI is configured to use the imported keypair.

Verification

To verify that the keypair is correctly configured, you can run:

solana address

This should display the public address of the imported keypair, which should match the one printed by your Node.js script.