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Caution

You are not reading the latest stable version of this documentation. If you want up-to-date information, please have a look at 0.3.5.x.

Specter Service

To run Specter as a service on your Start9 server, simply install it from the marketplace.

You can then configure it to connect to the bitcoin network via connecting to Bitcoin Core directly, or to Electrs.

Electrs will be more performant but will use more system resources.

Once up and running you can follow these instructions to setup a signing device with Specter.

There are two ways to create a wallet from a signing device using Specter.

Some signing devices permit you to “air gap” which means transferring the xpub (and subsequent unsigned/signed transactions) back and forth between Specter and the signing device via an SD card (Coldcard for example) - other devices require a direct USB connection (Trezor One for example).

Note

Using an airgapped signing device like a Coldcard is far easier to setup as unsigned transactions can be simply downloaded to your local machine where they can be saved to an SD card and transferred to a signing device for signing. Signing devices that connect via USB require a more complicated setup.

For devices like the Trezor One, air gapping is not possible. This means importing xpubs via USB - Specter permits this via the HWI which requires running a second instance of Specter on your local machine (i.e not your server).

  1. Start by heading to Specter running on your server (you can use either Tor or LAN - if you are accessing your server over LAN the Launch UI button will open up the LAN interface for Specter - if you’re accessing over Tor it will open up the Tor interface).

  2. Click on the cog in the top right, or Update your settings:

    img-1
  3. Click USB devices and then Remote Specter USB connection:

    img-2
  4. Click copy under step 2:

    img-3
  5. Now start Specter on your local machine (not your server) by either installing the application [here](https://specter.solutions) or run it in the background by following the instructions here.

  6. Once it’s up and running, Head to the HWI settings here - http://127.0.0.1:25441/hwi/settings/

    img-4
  7. Paste in the domain that you copied from Specter running on your server and click Update

    img-5
  8. Now connect your Trezor One or other signing device to your local machine:

    img-6
  9. Head back to Specter on your server and click Save Changes

  10. Click Test connection

  11. You should see this along the top of the screen:

    img-7

    Note

    At current time of writing, you must hit save before hitting test connection.

  12. You can now click Add new device and select the type of signing device you’re using (in this case, a Trezor).

    img-8
  13. Name the device and click Get via USB:

    img-9
  14. You may be asked for your PIN and passphrase here, and you may need to confirm extraction on the signing device.

  15. Specter will then begin extracting the public key(s) from your device:

    img-10
  16. You may not want all the default types of extended public key. Remove/keep the ones you want by clicking “edit” and “remove”.

  17. Click “Continue”

  18. You can now Add new wallet or create single key wallet:

    img-12

    Tip

    If you want to create a multisig wallet, add another device first, and make sure you generated an xpub intented for multisig on the first device, then come back to this step.

  19. Select the device (or devices if you are making a multisig wallet) that you want to use.

    img-13
  20. Name the wallet and select the key(s) you want to use.

    Tip

    (If you only have one key, it will automatically use that key)

  21. Select Scan for existing funds if you have already used this wallet and wish to establish the transaction history, if this is a brand new wallet this is not necessary and should be deselected.

  22. Click Create wallet:

    img-11
  23. If you selected “rescan” you can refresh the page and watch as your bitcoin node rescans the blockchain for your wallet’s history.

    Note

    This will be very slow if Specter is configured to connect to Bitcoin Core directly, and extremely fast if connecting via Electrs.

Specter is now setup to use your signing device!