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dcrctl Basics

Prerequisites:

dcrctl is the client that controls dcrd and dcrwallet via remote procedure call (RPC). You can use dcrctl for many things such as checking your balance, buying tickets, creating transactions, and viewing network information.

dcrctl is not a daemon - it does not run permanently in the background - it calls the requested RPC method, prints the response, and then terminates immediately.

Usage

To call dcrd RPC methods:

dcrctl <options> <rpc method> <rpc method args>

To call dcrwallet RPC methods:

dcrctl <options> --wallet <rpc method> <rpc method args>

To list available options:

dcrctl --help

To list available RPC methods:

dcrctl -l

Unlocking Your Wallet

Some functionality of dcrwallet requires the wallet to be unlocked.

The command to unlock your wallet follows:

promptsecret | dcrctl --wallet walletpassphrase - 0

Here, we are specifying for dcrctl to send the command to dcrwallet by using the --wallet flag. The actual command is walletpassphrase which accepts two parameters, your private passphrase and a time limit. Specifying 0 for a time limit unlocks dcrwallet without a time limit. Note, however, that this only unlocks the wallet for the current session. If you close the window the wallet is running in, or stop/restart the dcrwallet, you will need to unlock it again the next time you start it.

If the command was successful, you will not get a confirmation from dcrctl, but if you look at your dcrwallet session, it will say:

[INF] RPCS: The wallet has been unlocked without a time limit.

NOTE: Because unlocking the wallet is required for many functions of dcrwallet, dcrwallet can be started with the --promptpass flag or setting promptpass=true in dcrwallet.conf.

Checking Your Balance

To send the getbalance command to dcrwallet using dcrctl, enter the following in your shell:

dcrctl --wallet getbalance

This will return all of the balances for all of your accounts.

Getting a New Receiving Address

To send the getnewaddress command to dcrwallet using dcrctl, enter the following in your shell:

dcrctl --wallet getnewaddress

This will generate and return a new payment address. To minimize address reuse, use this command to get a new address for each transaction you wish to receive.

Sending DCR

To send DCR to an address, issue the sendtoaddress command to dcrwallet using dcrctl. Enter the following in your shell, filling in the receiving address and amount to send:

dcrctl --wallet sendtoaddress <address> <amount>

If successful, dcrctl will return a transaction hash that can be used to watch the transaction on the official Decred Block Explorer.

Check Network Stats

There are many different commands to check different network stats. Here we will cover sending getinfo to dcrd and getstakeinfo to dcrwallet.

To get information about your local dcrd node, issue the getinfo command to dcrd using dcrctl. Enter the following in your shell:

dcrctl getinfo

To get staking information about the Proof-of-Stake network, issue the getstakeinfo command to dcrwallet using dcrctl. Enter the following in your shell:

dcrctl --wallet getstakeinfo

Additional Commands

More commands can also be found on the dcrctl RPC Commands page.