--- title: Weeks Eighteen and Nineteen EPF6 tags: [EPF] --- # PR for Managing Key in Besu on Ephemery During the last two weeks, I was working on empowering Besu to become a bootnode on the Ephemery network. Wrote a write-up on attributes that make a regular node a bootnode and how to run a bootnode; you can read it from the link below. Also opened a new PR to handle the key. [Link to Configure Besu Client as a Bootnode](https://hackmd.io/@0xEllie/r1QQ8Qzybe) With the last PRs I've done so far, I knew the key would be preserveds throughout the entire run time of Ephemry. But since Ephemery changes its chainId every 28 days, it starts with an empty database in a new folder. There are challenges that need to be addressed: Whether the user wants to stop and start the node or to migrate the node from another client or another machine, the private key file will be gone if it is not being saved somewhere. To keep the key (manually), there are two options: 1. Export the key into `--to` path via command-line options. When Besu is generating the key for the first time, you need to keep the key somewhere and pass it to Besu every time you stop and start it. 2. Pass the key through `--node-private-key-file` via command-line options. But we want to stay away from handling this kind of DevOps work by automating the whole ephemery restart at every cycle. This way we will be able to maintain a more robust network. This is where the PR I made comes in handy. However you provide the key file (generated by Besu or pass the key through `--node-private-key-file` via command options), the key file will be automatically preserved and will be copied to Ephemery's new data folder at each Ephemery automatic restart. [Link to the PR](https://github.com/hyperledger/besu/pull/9210/commits/e4a6d06df37431b3b2611235816c39e3f9786145) [Link to the PR description](https://github.com/hyperledger/besu/pull/9210#issuecomment-3478554168) #### Next? - If I get feedback from the Besu team, I will work on it to get the PR merged. - Will work on the presentation at Buenos Aires Devconnect and also the final report.