Remove personal namespace from geth

[holiman]

Rationale

We have long been wanting to remove account management from geth. This proposal is a step towards that, by removing the personal namespace from geth.

With the upcoming 1.11 release, I think this would be a good time to do it.

UX affected

I think the most blatant PITA for users would be in scenarios where geth is used to sign clique blocks. However, it's a one-time effort to switch to use clef instead. Docs here: https://geth.ethereum.org/docs/clef/cliquesigning

Methods affected

Methods which have other alternatives

• personal.listAccounts
  • personal.listAccounts is identical to eth.accounts
• personal.deriveAccount
  • personal.deriveAccount is identical to clef_deriveAccount (not externally exposed)
• personal.openWallet
  • personal.openWallet corresponds to clef_openWallet (not externally exposed)
• personal.sign
  • personal.sign prefixes data with eip-191 string, and signs.
  • Has corresponding clef-method.
• personal.listWallets
  • opposed to listAccounts, this method lists full details, e.g. usb path or keystore-file paths
  • corresponds to clef_listWallets (not externally exposed)
• personal.ecRecover
  • returns the address for the account that was used to create the signature.
  • corresponds to EcRecover on clef extapi
• personal.sendTransaction
  • SetDefaults
  • Sign
  • Submit
• personal.signTransaction
  • Does not do SetDefaults, but requires all args set
  • Sign, return RLP
• personal.newAccount
  • Exists in clef (not externally exposed)
  • also geth account new
• personal.importRawKey
  • personal.importRawKey corresponds to clef_importRawKey (not externally exposed)
  • personal.importRawKey corresponds to geth account import

Methods that do not have other (direct) alternatives

• personal.unpair
  • Unpair deletes a pairing between wallet and geth.
  • No corresponding method
• personal.unlockAccount
  • replaced by rules in clef
• personal.lockAccount
  • replaced by rules in clef
• personal.initializeWallet
  • InitializeWallet initializes a new wallet at the provided URL, by generating and returning a new private key.
  • has no corresponding method

[qb2main]

!!! How to create new account using API. All methods ... (not externally exposed) how to create it using API, help pls