Backup/Restore P12 on Mac
It is of vital importance to keep a cold backup of your P12 file. The term cold simply refers to storing your P12 file offline, thereby protecting your data from unauthorized access and vulnerabilities. Cold storage may include but are not limited to encrypted hardware wallets or USB keys.
Backing up your P12
Log into your local system and open a terminal session.
Create directory
Change your current directory to /home, then create a temporary directory to store the P12 file. In this example, we'll name our directory constellation-backup, but you are free to choose any custom location or directory name.
cd ~
mkdir constellation-backup
Change to temp directory
Change directories to your newly created directory.
cd ~/constellation-backup
Connect to your node
Open an sftp session to your node and enter your passphrase to connect. (Remember to replace the examples below with your own info.)
sftp -i ~/.ssh/my-node-ssh-keyname nodeadmin@123.123.123.123
Enter passphrase for key '/Users/netmet/.ssh/my-node-ssh-keyname':
Connected to 1123.123.123.123.
sftp>
What's my key pair name?
Use the command below to review your ~/.ssh directory. Alternatively, try looking in your default home directory or where you originally saved your key pair during setup.
ls -l ~/.ssh
Locate P12 file
In your sftp session, change directories to /home/nodeadmin/tessellation or your custom location, then list out the contents of the directory.
cd /home/nodeadmin/tessellation
ls -l
sftp> ls -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 nodeadmin nodeadmin 31 Jun 11 14:28 my-p12file.p12
sftp>
Download P12 file
You have now confirmed the location and existence of your p12 file. You can use the get command to get the file. Since you're in your temp directory, the file will automatically download there.
get my-p12file.p12
If the file was downloaded correctly, you should see a 100% status next to the filename.
Fetching /home/nodeadmin/tessellation/my-p12file.p12 to my-p12file.p12
/home/nodeadmin/tessellation/my-p12file.p12 100% 31 0.3KB/s 00:00
sftp>
End session
Exit your sftp session with the exit command.
exit
Verify download
Back in your local command prompt, execute a long list ls -l inside the constellation-backup directory you created earlier. Verify that your p12 key file is downloaded.
ls -l
total 8 -rw-r--r-- 1 netmet staff 31 Aug 11 18:30 my-p12file.p12 constellation@MacBook constellation-backup %
Transfer to cold storage
- Transfer your newly downloaded p12 file to your cold storage device.
- Remember to remove the p12 file and temp backup directory when you are done.
Restoring your P12
Install Tessellation
If you are restoring your p12 file to node that has been installed using nodectl (recommended):
- Make sure you do the installation of
Tessellationfirst usingnodectlbefore you restore your p12 key file. - During the installation you will need to use the same p12 file name as you did previously in order to make sure that the configuration
nodectlbuilds matches.
Migrate P12 backup
Migrate your p12 backup from cold storage to your temp constellation-backup directory. Make sure you are in the correct directory containing your p12 backup file.
cd ~/constellation-backup
Do a directory listing to make sure you see your backed up file.
ls -l
constellation@MacBook constellation-backup % ls -l
total 8 -rw-r--r-- 1 netmet staff 31 Aug 11 18:30 my-p12file.p12 constellation@MacBook constellation-backup %
Connect to node
Open an sftp session to your node and enter your passphrase to connect. (Remember to replace the examples below with your own info.)
sftp -i ~/.ssh/my-node-ssh-keyname nodeadmin@123.123.123.123
Enter passphrase for key 'my-node-ssh-keyname': Welcome to Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS
Locate P12 file
In your sftp session, change directories to /home/nodeadmin/tessellation or your custom location, then list out the contents of the directory.
cd /home/nodeadmin/tessellation
ls -l
sftp> ls -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 nodeadmin nodeadmin 31 Jun 11 14:28 my-p12file.p12
sftp>
You have now confirmed the location and existence of your temporary p12 file.
IMPORTANT
If you followed the directions to restore a new or existing node, you should have used nodectl to install
Tessellation properly using the same P12 filename. The directory listing will show your p12 file with the
same name that you are attempting to restore.
Restore P12 file
If you did not create a temporary p12 file, this directory may be empty depending on your custom configuration. Enter the put command to restore the p12 file.
put my-p12file.p12
If the file was downloaded correctly, you should see a 100% status next to the filename.
Uploading my-p12file.p12 to /home/nodeadmin/tessellation/my-p12file.p12
my-p12file.12 100% 31 0.6KB/s 00:00
sftp>
Exit session
Exit your sftp session with the exit command. You have successfully completed the restore process.
exit
p12 Migration - Blue Box
If you are coming from the New Node Installation with p12 migration document (which shares elements of this document), you can return to that document now by clicking here; otherwise continue forward.