backup-a-validator.md

Backup a Validator

It is CRUCIAL to backup your validator's private key. It's the only way to restore your validator in an event of a disaster.

The validator private key is a Tendermint Key - a unique key used to sign consensus votes. It is generated when the node is created by secretd init.

To see the associated public key:

secretd tendermint show-validator

To see the associated bech32 address:

secretd tendermint show-address

If you are using the software sign (which is the default signing method of tendermint), your Tendermint Key is located in ~/.secretd/config/priv_validator_key.json.

The easiest way is to backup the whole config folder.

Or you can use hardware to manage your Tendermint Key much more safely, such as YubiHSM2.