Configure a Sui Client
The Sui client configuration specifies which network to connect to and which address to send transactions.
- Prerequisites
First, confirm that Sui has been installed successfully:
$ sui --version
If this command returns sui not found, then Sui is not installed and you must follow the installation instructions.
sui client
Run the Sui CLI with the command:
$ sui client
The first prompt confirms if you want to create the client.yaml file, select Y:
Config file ["<PATH-TO-FILE>/client.yaml"] doesn't exist, do you want to connect to a Sui full node server [y/N]?
The second prompt configures the network server URL to connect to:
Sui full node server URL (Defaults to Sui Testnet if not specified) :
If you specify nothing, the client uses Testnet by default. Using Testnet is recommended for developers new to Sui that do not have a project already developed.
The options are:
-
https://fullnode.testnet.sui.io:443: The RPC URL for Testnet. -
https://fullnode.devnet.sui.io:443: The RPC URL for Devnet. Devnet is not recommended for new Sui developers, as it is better suited for more advanced use cases and the network wipes data weekly as part of its update process. -
https://fullnode.mainnet.sui.io:443: The RPC URL for Mainnet network. Publishing applications to Mainnet costs real SUI tokens. -
http://0.0.0.0:9000: The RPC URL for a Localnet network, if configured. Learn how to setup a local network.
Testnet and Devnet data persistence is not guaranteed.
Devnet data is wiped regularly as part of weekly scheduled software updates.
Testnet data persists through the regular update process, but might be wiped occasionally. Testnet data wipes are announced ahead of time.
For more information about the release schedule of Sui networks, see Sui Network Release.
The final prompt is to select an encryption scheme. You must select a key scheme by pressing 0, 1, or 2. After you select a scheme, the client generates a new Sui address.
Select key scheme to generate key pair (0 for ed25519, 1 for secp256k1, 2 for secp256r1):
The options are:
-
ed25519: Small key size and compact signatures. -
secp256k1: Provides security through generating and verifying keys using ECDSA. -
secp256r1: Uses randomly generated curves to generate keys.
The client will return your new address and 12-word recovery phrase:
Generated new key pair for address with scheme "ed25519" [0xb9c83a8b40d3263c9ba40d551514fbac1f8c12e98a4005a0dac072d3549c2442]
Secret Recovery Phrase : [cap wheat many line human lazy few solid bored proud speed grocery]
Store recovery phrases securely and do not share them with anyone, as they provide access to any objects and tokens that an address owns.
It will not be visible again once the CLI history disappears.
Learn more about Sui addresses, key generation, and recovery phrases.
client.yaml
Your Sui client is now configured. By default, Sui stores this information in either the ~/.sui/sui_config/client.yaml file (macOS/Linux) or %USERPROFILE%\.sui\sui_config\client.yaml file (Windows). You can store a client.yaml file in a different location, if preferred, and specify it's location with the --client.config flag.
Sui stores the key for the Sui address in a separate file, ~/.sui/sui_config/sui.keystore (macOS/Linux) or %USERPROFILE/.sui/sui_config/sui.keystore (Windows). Learn more about Sui addresses in Create a Sui Address.
If a previous Sui installation stored a client.yaml file locally, you will receive the sui client --help output in the console. You can delete the existing ~/.sui/sui_config/client.yaml file if you'd like to start fresh, or you can continue using the existing configuration.
The client.yaml file contains the following configuration information:
keystore:
File: /Users/your_user/.sui/sui_config/sui.keystore
external_keys: ~
envs:
- alias: testnet
rpc: "https://fullnode.testnet.sui.io:443"
ws: ~
basic_auth: ~
active_env: testnet
active_address: "0x7df01d3935b7ab3cd1da6828eed763ee2cc556670528a47baa6af8c251866e48"