mmgen-wallet/doc/wiki/Autosigning.md

Manual transacting | Autosigning v1 | Autosigning v2

For most situations, Version 2 autosigning is the best way to transact with MMGen Wallet.

Transacting, the manual way

Transacting manually involves the following steps:

Preparation of signing session:

1. Boot and log in to offline signing machine

Transacting:

1. On online machine, create transaction with mmgen-txcreate (or mmgen-swaptxcreate)
2. Insert removable device
3. Mount removable device
4. Copy transaction file to removable device
5. Unmount removable device
6. Extract removable device and transfer it to offline machine
7. Mount removable device
8. Locate transaction file on removable device, sign it with mmgen-txsign
9. Unmount removable device
10. Extract removable device and transfer it to online machine
11. Mount removable device
12. Locate signed transaction file on removable device, send it with mmgen-txsend

Admittedly, this is all quite tedious. To simplify the transaction workflow, Version 1 Autosigning was introduced.

Autosigning, Version 1

Here the main innovation was to eliminate keyboard interaction with the offline signing machine during the signing process.

Preparation of signing session:

1. Boot and log in to offline signing machine
2. Set up autosigning session (mmgen-autosign setup)
3. Start signing loop (mmgen-autosign wait)

Transacting:

1. On online machine, create transaction with mmgen-txcreate (or mmgen-swaptxcreate)
2. Insert removable device
3. Mount removable device
4. Copy transaction file to /mnt/mmgen_autosign/tx on removable device (or /mnt/mmgen_autosign/xmr/tx for Monero)
5. Unmount removable device
6. Extract removable device and transfer it to offline machine
7. Wait for autosigning to complete
8. Extract removable device and transfer it to online machine
9. Mount removable device
10. Locate signed transaction file on removable device, send it with mmgen-txsend

Differences compared to manual method:

• signing session preparation involves additional steps
• signing requires no keyboard interaction
• removable device and, for Linux, mountpoints must be prepared as described in mmgen-autosign --help

While this is already much better, there was still room for improvement. Enter Version 2 Autosigning.

Autosigning, Version 2

Here the main innovation was to automate all mounting, unmounting, and file copying operations. Version 2 autosigning is sometimes referred to in the program output and documentation by the term “automount”.

Preparation of signing session:

1. Same as for Version 1

Transacting:

1. On online machine, insert removable device
2. Create transaction with mmgen-txcreate (or mmgen-swaptxcreate)
3. Extract removable device and transfer it to offline machine
4. Wait for autosigning to complete
5. Extract removable device and transfer it to online machine
6. Send transaction with mmgen-txsend

Differences compared to Version 1:

• filename arguments are omitted from all commands
• for online operations, the --autosign option must be supplied, or autosign set to true in the config file
• only one transaction may be created-signed-sent at a time (Version 1 allows for multiple signables per signing operation)
• unsent transactions may be aborted and ranges of sent transactions viewed or checked for confirmation status (see mmgen-txsend --help)