KES Key Rotation / Operational Certificate Companion Script
This guide was graciously contributed by [FRADA] ADA Made in France. If you find this guide useful, please consider staking to it (FRADA ticker).🙏
Every Cardano Pool Operator has to generate a new KES key pair and Operational Certificate every 90 days. A full guide is available here. In order to help Pool Operators during the process, a Companion Script is available in addition to the guide linked above.
What the Companion Script does
Checks KES period and counter on chain
Reminds user about the good practice and counter cases
Asks user if he wants to backup current KES keys and NODE cert
Asks user if he wants to rotate KES keys
Calculates Starting KES Period
Provides next-steps to generate new OP cert on air-gapped machine
How to use Companion Script
Download the Script
The script can be found on this GitHub repository by [FRADA] ADA Made In France
Make script executable
Run the script
1. Script will ask if you want to backup current KES Keys and OP certificate
If you answer yes :
3 files kes.vkey.bak, kes.skey.bak and node.cert.bak will be created in your $NODE_HOME directory
Previous backup will be deleted
If you answer no :
No backup will be created
2. Script will ask if you want to generate a new KES key pair
If you answer yes :
2 files will be created : kes.skey and kes.key. Those are your new KES key pair
If you answer no :
No new KES key pair will be generated and the script will stop
3. Script will calculate for your the KES starting period
4. Script will then provide you with the next steps and the cardano-cli command to execute on your Air-Gapped machine
The command includes the KES starting period you need to use.
Example of Script Output
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