Managing accounts and sending transactions

Web3JS exposes several APIs used to create and interact with accounts in Ethereum. In this recipe, you will learn how to work with Ethereum accounts using the web3 object.

Getting ready

You need to have web3.js in your application to use these scripts. Make sure that you have a valid provider set up for the library to work. You can get more details about this from the first two recipes of this chapter.

Some methods used in the recipe may need access to the personal API. You have to expose it via rpc. This can be done in two ways. The first method is to use the --rpcapi flag to expose the personal API while starting the node:

$ geth --rpc --rpcapi="db,eth,net,web3,personal"

Or, you can use web3.admin to start the API from the geth JavaScript console:

> admin.startRPC("<ip_address>", <rpc_port>, "*", "db,eth,net,web3,personal")

Note

It is not recommended to exposes personal APIs over the internet. This allows anyone to read/create accounts...