How can I create unencrypted addresses?

Question

In my alphanet tezos-client, tezos-client gen keys <address> creates an unencrypted address, and requires the --encrypted flag to create an encrypted address.

But in the mainnet tezos-client, running tezos-client gen keys <address> asks for a new password and creates an encrypted address.

How can I create unencrypted addresses via in the mainnet tezos-client?

Answer 1

On mainnet, here is how to do it:

1. start by creating the key with a non-existent node (here xxx does not exist !):

tezos-client -A xxx gen keys for_stackexchange

It will display some error messages and say nothing more. In fact, the key was created.

2. call it again:

tezos-client -A xxx gen keys for_stackexchange
Error:
  The secret_key alias for_stackexchange already exists.
    The current value is unencrypted:edsk43pBvh7zPgiGWSG3XSHybCqdQV7XRosqcGPLA9TDBc5ens7oP4.

3. display the associated address:

tezos-client show address for_stackexchange -S                 
Warning:
  Failed to acquire the protocol version from the node
  Rpc request failed:
     - meth: GET
     - uri: http://localhost:8732/chains/main/blocks/head/metadata
     - error: Unable to connect to the node: "Connection refused"

Hash: tz1Rpm5To3JT8vpqbt681EMuxEaM4tL2MvRi
Public Key: edpkvPpcAmrCFUiwBPZ4SGEsDXQstVmLHJoXKQURE2ANXem7zQH2e9
Secret Key: unencrypted:edsk43pBvh7zPgiGWSG3XSHybCqdQV7XRosqcGPLA9TDBc5ens7oP4