Ethereum: bitcoin-cli fails with authentication error

Ethereum: Bitcoin CLI Fails with Auth Error

As a developer working with the Ethereum blockchain, it is essential to understand how to interact with the network using command line tools such as bitcoin-cli. However, recently I had to face an issue where bitcoin-cli failed with an authentication error. In this article, we will explore the issue and provide steps to resolve it.

Issue:

When running bitcoin-cli without any arguments, the following output is generated:


Usage: bitcoin-cli [options]  [...]
or
bitcoin-  [...]
Bitcoin CLI version 1.2.3
Error: Authentication error for user 'username': Not found.

The error message indicates that bitcoin-cli cannot find an account with the specified username.

Solution:

To fix this issue, you need to specify the correct username and password using the -user and -pass options. Here is the corrected command:

bitcoind -datadir=/Users/varunvb/Downloads -conf=/Users/varunvb/Downloads/bitcoin.conf -daemon -user 'username' -pass 'password'


Explanation:

The-useroption specifies the username to use for authentication.

The-passoption specifies the password for the user.

**You should replaceusername'' andpassword'' with your actual Ethereum account credentials.


Example use case:
For example, let's say you want to transfer ETH from one wallet to another. You will run the following command:
bitcoind -datadir=/Users/varunvb/Downloads -conf=/Users/varunvb/Downloads/bitcoin.conf -daemon -user 'myusername' -pass 'mypassword'

This will authenticate with your Ethereum wallet and allow you to transfer ETH between wallets.
Tips and Variations:

If you are using a different username or password, make sure to update the bitcoin.conffile accordingly.

You can specify multiple users by separating them with commas in the-useroption. For example:


bitcoind -datadir=/Users/varunvb/Downloads -conf=/Users/varunvb/Downloads/bitcoin.conf -daemon -user 'username1, username2'

By following these steps and tips, you should be able to resolve the authentication error with bitcoin-cli` when running it as a daemon.

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