Wallet recovery with passphrase is not working

[ShahanaFarooqui]

initwallet REST API is working without passphrase but it fails with passphrase, with 'invalid passphrase' error message.

I opened first issue about this API #3128 (#3128) almost 10 days back also and i am testing these scenarios from almost last 15 days. I found that initwallet REST API is behaving strangly.

If I generate the genseed with passphrase through lncli and use this cipher_seed_mnemonic array to recover the wallet through initwallet REST API, then it works perfectly. But, if i will generate the genseed with passphrase through REST and use that cipher_seed_mnemonic array to recover with initwallet REST then i am getting 'invalid passphrase' error.

Your environment
version of lnd: 0.6.0-beta
which operating system: Windows
version bitcoind: v0.17.1

Steps to reproduce

1. Call GET /v1/genseed with aezeed_passphrase value.
2. Call POST /v1/initwallet with wallet_password. it will initialize the wallet successfully.
3. Delete the wallet manually.
4. Call POST /v1/initwallet with wallet_password, aezeed_passphrase and cipher_seed_mnemonic array generated from step 1.

Initialize wallet with below details:
Method: POST,
url: https://192.168.1.8:8080/v1/initwallet,
payload: {
"wallet_password":"c3VoZWIxMjM=",
"cipher_seed_mnemonic":["absent","stuff","layer","holiday","slam","pelican","drift","heart","prepare","casual","treat","liar","small","venue","fragile","wise","frown","safe","brief","cherry","pigeon","pole","sound","rocket"],
"aezeed_passphrase":"dGhpc2lzbXlwYXNzcGhyYXNl"
}

Expected behaviour
It should successfully recover the wallet.

Actual behaviour
Failed response with { "error": "invalid passphrase", "code": 2 }

I have tested initwallet with multiple scenarios and all the scenarios are working with GRPC but not with REST.

[Roasbeef]

Do you understand the difference between the aezeed_passphrase and the wallet_password? Only the wallet_password is actually required.

Perhaps it's an issue of encoding (base64) between the wallet calls? Will try to reproduce on our end.

[ShahanaFarooqui]

We are not using passphrase when initializing the wallet, using it only to recover the wallet. And if it is not even required for recovery then can you please explain the use case where passphrase should be passed to initwallet API?

[wpaulino]

I don't think there's an issue here given that things are working fine with gRPC. Like @Roasbeef mentioned, it is most likely an encoding issue of the distinct passphrases.

We are not using passphrase when initializing the wallet, using it only to recover the wallet. And if it is not even required for recovery then can you please explain the use case where passphrase should be passed to initwallet API?

wallet_password is the password to unlock the wallet. This does not serve a purpose other than encrypting your secrets on-disk. It is always required when using initwallet.

aezeed_passphrase is an additional optional passphrase that only applies to your seed and not your wallet.

[saubyk]

The scenario that we are testing is:

• Intialize a wallet with aezeed_passphrase and generate a cipher seed (from genseed api)
• Try to recover the same wallet by passing the aezeed_passphrase and the previously generated cipher_seed_mnemonic

The scenario works when the seed and the passphrase are generated with grpc.
The recovery step fails when the seed and passphrase generated via REST APIs are used.

[ShahanaFarooqui]

@ashwilly, we didn’t have any funds to recover as we were on testnet. We are developing an application called ‘Ride the Lightning’ (RTL) and we wanted to include create new wallet feature for our users but unfortunately we are also worried about the recovery. We will appreciate any help on the issue :). Thanks.

[Roasbeef]

Was this eventually resolved w/ proper API usage?