Upgrading electrum on tails to 3.3.4
February 26, 2019 at 7:52 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 139 CommentsI see a lot of requests on reddit asking how to install the new version of Electrum on Tails. So I thought I would create a blog post showing people how to do it. There’s a lot of things you have to type so you might want to copy and paste this into a text file and load it on a USB, so you can copy and paste certain commands back into the commandline.
Currently, the running version of Electrum on Tails is insecure because it allows nodes to broadcast messages that can potentially be phishing attacks and trick users into downloading malware. Electrum 3.3.3 and above can mitigate such attacks. Currently, the latest version of Electrum is 3.3.6, so I’ll write about that.
First off, whenever you make “weird changes” to whatever you are doing, even in general, you should make a backup. This is doubly true if this involves money. My recommendation is to use the Tails official backup procedure here: https://tails.boum.org/blueprint/backups/ . There are a actually a couple of ways you can backup Tails. If the official article is somehow unsatisfactory, I can write another “how to” article later.
Ok, boot to Tails. We have to be able to login as “administrator” for what we need to do, so when we login, press the “+” sign on the bottom left hand of the screen:
Then double-click on “administration password” and set the password to any arbitrary password you like. (This, by the way, allows you to execute the “sudo” command which gives your Tails account temporary root privileges. This password is forgotten on the next reboot, so it won’t introduce any security problems once we’re done).
Now that we are logged in, we have to make sure the persistent folder has correct settings. Go to Applications -> Tails -> Configure Persistent Volume:
From there, make sure that the “dotfiles” switch is set to “on” and click “save” button:
Now, we can begin upgrading the Electrum wallet. The next step is to verify the binary’s validity. There are a lot of “scam wallets” going around where people download the wrong binary which then steals money. A hacker can also theoretically hack into the website and change the binary as well. So any binary that is not part of the official Tails distribution should be verified that is hasn’t been tampered with. One of the maintainers of Electrum is “ThomasV” and his GPG key is here:
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/pubkeys/ThomasV.asc
gpg signature: 6694 D8DE 7BE8 EE56 31BE D950 2BD5 824B 7F94 70E6
Notice the high number of stars in the GitHub page. This means that a lot of people are saying “yep, I like this key”. I also recommend searching for this fingerprint on multiple search engines such as DuckDuckGo, Bing, and Google so you can cross-verify and make sure that is the REAL “ThomasV” in question. Don’t trust one particular source for GPG keys, just in case that source gets hacked or is somehow untrustworthy.
Anyway, save the key to your Tails distribution. Visit this webpage https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/pubkeys/ThomasV.asc, and highlight the text of the key, right click and press “copy”.
Then open gedit, which is the text editor to Tails:
Now paste the key, and then save it as “thomasv.key” in the “Tor Browser” directory.
Next, open “tor browser directory”:
in nautilus and double click the key. This will import it:
Once it’s imported, you have to then “sign” the key. By signing the key, one of the things you are doing is indicating “I trust this key as valid and I made sure that it’s owned by the actual ‘ThomasV’ in question.” You can verify the key by comparing the signatures with people who you know have the correct key (googling the fingerprint and verifying with multiple sites helps). The particular GitHub account we got our key from is heavily starred, and a google search shows a lot of references to it, so we have a reasonable assurance that it is the real one. I have also personally used this particular key for years with that exact signature, so I can personally attest that the signature with the following key is valid:
6694 D8DE 7BE8 EE56 31BE D950 2BD5 824B 7F94 70E6
There are web-of-trust benefits to signing the key, but I won’t go into that for now. Ok, now let’s sign the key.
Click on the clipboard icon, on the upper right hand corner of the screen, and then select “Manage keys”:
When the dialogue box comes up, click on “GnuPG keys” on the left, then scroll down until you find the key you want to sign (in this case ThomasV), right click and press “properties”.
From there, you’ll get this dialogue box, so click on the trust tab and then press the “sign this key” button:
We did a reasonable search for the key, so let’s click on “casually searched”. Also click on “others may not see this signature” for correctness. Then click the “sign” button:
We have now successfully signed the key.
Ok, now that is done, we can download electrum. Download the AppImage binary and the appropriate signatures from this webpage:
https://electrum.org/#download
The “AppImage” version of Tails is a self-contained version of Electrum with all the appropriate libraries and python version encased in one file. Currently Electrum 3.3.6 uses a version of python that the current version of Tails does not support (3.12.1). So the AppImage is your only recourse.
Ok, so once you download Electrum and it’s signature file, you can now verify the signature. Navigate to the “Tor Browser” directory you were in earlier, and right click the electrum-3.3.6-x86_64.AppImage.asc file and click “Open with Verify Signature”.
Once that goes through, it should hopefully give you a “good signature” emblem on top:
The “good signature” line shows that the binary has not been tampered with and is safe to put on the system. This is because we verified that it was digitally signed by a well-known hacker with a good reputation.
Ok. Next steps. We have to create some folders in an a appropriate directory. We do this because Tails has an ephemeral filesystem mostly, with only a few key directories that are “remembered” between each bootup. The “Persistent” folder is one of those folders.
So let’s return to the command terminal and type these commands (or copy and paste if you prefer):
sudo mkdir -p /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/
mkdir -p /home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/
mkdir -p /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/
If the sudo command asks for a password, use the “administrator account” password that you setup when you booted Tails.
Ok, next go back to “Tor Browser” window and right click the AppImage files. From there click properties:
Click on the permissions tab and click on “allow executing file as program”:
This makes the file “executable” meaning it turns the file into an “app” that Tails can run. Then right click and rename file to “electrum.AppImage”.
Then open the persistent directory:
and drag the “electrum.AppImage” over to “Persistent/bin”
It’s best to be extra cautious about bitcoin wallets, so we are not going to “write over” the old bitcoin wallet, we are going to create another wallet and put it in a separate directory. (Conservatism is an important concept in the bitcoin world). So let’s open your old electrum wallet and copy the seed. You can do this by going to Wallet -> Seed on your menubar and writing it down or saving it to a file in your persistent partition.
Keep these words in a safe place and don’t give it to anyone! Your seed is a “second layer” of defense in case you somehow screw up the upgrade process. If upgrading your wallet does not work for some reason, you can always re-create a new wallet, type the seed words back in and be able to recover your bitcoins through your seed words. So make sure you don’t lose that seed!
Once we have the words stored in a safe place, let’s go ahead and make the bitcoin icon point to the new version of Electrum that we just put on the persistent folder.
Go back to your terminal window and type the following:
gedit /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications/electrum.desktop
When gedit opens, copy and paste the following:
[Desktop Entry]
Comment=Lightweight Bitcoin Client
Exec=/home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/electrum.AppImage -D /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/
GenericName[en_US]=Bitcoin Wallet
GenericName=Bitcoin Wallet
Icon=electrum
Name[en_US]=Electrum Bitcoin Wallet
Name=Electrum Bitcoin Wallet
Categories=Finance;Network;
StartupNotify=false
Terminal=false
Type=Application
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/bitcoin;
Actions=Testnet;
Then save.
Go back to your terminal and type:
sudo chmod +x /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications/electrum.desktop
Go to Places -> Computer on the upper left hand corner of the screen. Once it opens, Press ctrl-l and type this in the directory:
/live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications
There should be an “Electrum” icon there, double click on it then click on “trust” (we verified the binary so we know we can trust it). When the new wallet comes up, go install the Electrum wallet like you normally would, but select “standard wallet” and “I already have a seed”.
When the prompt comes up, paste the words of that seed that you entered earlier and click next. When Electrum comes on, it should show your old “history of transactions”. Make sure you can see them.
Next, we have to tell Electrum to use the Tails proxy to communicate. Go to tools -> network in the menu:
Then click on the proxy tab and tell it to use the “Tor Proxy at port 9050”:
Reboot Tails, re-login and click on Electrum icon on your menu, it should bring up the new version of Tails:
Send a small test transaction to another wallet and make sure it works.
If there are any errors with this blog post, please leave a COMMENT and I can fix it.
LocalWords: Electrum AppImage
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Stever's blog 
I can’t get the first command to make the files work. “mkdir -p /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications” it says permission not granted
Comment by Katie— February 27, 2019 #
Katie, you should be able to have access to that directory. Are you using a persistent partition? If not, you need to have a persistent partition to load electrum
Comment by steveeq1— February 28, 2019 #
1. I see computer/bin but not persistent/bin. I transferred the Appimage there. Is this incorrect?
2. I did not have a location live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications. I tried creating this folder path then running the gedit text. When I clicked save then the terminal displays error, ‘Set document failed: setting attribute metadata: :gedit-encoding not supported’.
Comment by Evan— March 1, 2019 #
Evan,
1) Did you enable the persistent partition? If not, you have to enable it.
2) You have to create persistent/bin by typing these words into the terminal:
mkdir -p /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications
mkdir -p /home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/
mkdir -p /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/
3) You don’t have location “live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications” because that location doesn’t exist. You have to a put a slash in front of it: “/live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications”
Comment by steveeq1— March 2, 2019 #
Thanks Steve. I had to run this after creating the folders to fix permissions (found on the Tails website).
find /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/ -uid 1000 -exec chown -R 1000:1000 ‘{}’ \;
Comment by Evangelos Foutris— March 3, 2019 #
great write up. ty.
Comment by H0dl (@H0dl2)— March 4, 2019 #
Hi. I was having the same error as tKatie:
“I can’t get the first command to make the files work. “mkdir -p /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications” it says permission not granted
Comment by Katie— February 27, 2019”
To fix it I had to enable dotfiles in the “configure persistence” function first. I would recommend updating the tutorial to include that before trying to enter that command.
Great article BTW Thank you so much for taking the time to write it!
Comment by Intrin— March 7, 2019 #
When I go to paste my electrum.appimage in persistent/bin im told I don’t have permission to view the contents of the folder?
Comment by interimprogress— March 13, 2019 #
interimprogress,
Yes, this was an error in my blog. I fixed it in this version, but for now type:
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/
Comment by steveeq1— March 13, 2019 #
Despite setting up the admin account and doing everything else, when I get to the part where I drag the appimage into the bin, I’m told I “do not have the necessary permissions to view the contents of ‘bin'”
Comment by Justafool— March 15, 2019 #
Oh, sorry, I just realized you addressed that already. Now I’ve realized that’s not my problem at all, upon copying and pasting the commands into the terminal and being prompted for a password, it doesn’t allow me the time to type before being told ‘Sorry, try again.’, and then doesn’t allow me to type on the 2nd and 3rd try, only hit enter. I restarted and changed my admin password to one character to see if I could hit it quickly before being denied, but that didn’t work. I thought it worked when I copied and pasted the one character and then hit enter, but evidently not.
Comment by justafool— March 15, 2019 #
is this legit?
Comment by y— March 15, 2019 #
Everything worked but then when I rebooted tails and went to applications, Internet, Electrum Bitcoin Wallet it opened up the old version of electrum. I can still get to the new version by going to /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications. Should I just keep going to that directory to get to it or is there something else I should do?
Comment by xyz— March 16, 2019 #
The .desktop file is probably not created.
Go back to your terminal window and type the following:
gedit /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications/electrum.desktop
When gedit opens, copy and paste the following:
[Desktop Entry]
Comment=Lightweight Bitcoin Client
Exec=/home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/electrum.AppImage -D /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/
GenericName[en_US]=Bitcoin Wallet
GenericName=Bitcoin Wallet
Icon=electrum
Name[en_US]=Electrum Bitcoin Wallet
Name=Electrum Bitcoin Wallet
Categories=Finance;Network;
StartupNotify=false
Terminal=false
Type=Application
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/bitcoin;
Actions=Testnet;
Then save.
Go to Places -> Computer on the upper left hand corner of the screen. Once it does, Press ctrl-l and type this in the directory:
/live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications
Comment by steveeq1— March 17, 2019 #
Hey steve this guide was awesome and everything worked perfect except that desktop icon part, just like “xyz” commented. I tried copy and pasting what you answered them again. but its still not replacing the old icons. Other than that it worked like a charm 🙂
Comment by Lawrence— March 17, 2019 #
Fixed permission errors, ran into another permission error with electrum.desktop but fixed it using
Sudo chows -R 1000:1000 /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications/electrum.desktop
But after trusting the app and the icon becoming the electrum icon, the application never opens. Old wallet icon opens just fine, new wallet icon doesn’t open or anything
Comment by interimprogress— March 17, 2019 #
I paste ‘/live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications’ and the screen keeps loading. I go to it manually and there is no electrum in the directory it is blank?
Comment by hg— March 17, 2019 #
hg,
If that directory is blank, you have to create the electrum.desktop file in that directory.
You have to open “gedit” and go into the “/live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications/electrum.desktop” and save a file called “electrum.desktop” file in there. paste the “[Desktop Entry]” text I put in my blog post earlier.
Comment by steveeq1— March 17, 2019 #
interimprogress,
Enter your terminal program and type:
/home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/electrum.AppImage -D /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/
Tell me what error you get
Comment by steveeq1— March 17, 2019 #
This may be a dumb question but I’m having the same issue as Katie, my question is what the persistant partition is and how to enable it. I got the new version to work but I have to open it from the AppImage and put in my seed every time.
Comment by Matt— March 17, 2019 #
I had the same issue as interimprogress and this was the error i got in terminal;
root@amnesia:~# /home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/electrum.AppImage -D /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/
QStandardPaths: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set, defaulting to ‘/tmp/runtime-root’
QApplication: invalid style override passed, ignoring it.
Electrum then launched and says its 3.3.4, however I cannot connect to any server, as the tor proxy checkbox is absent, its only the SOCKS proxy check box that’s there.
Might be worth mentioning that I’m on version 3.13 of tails
Comment by grepory— March 19, 2019 #
running the image from the persistent bin works fine though, and I don’t dare restart right now
Comment by grepory— March 19, 2019 #
Same issue as justafool. Won’t let me input a password in the terminal
Comment by Math— March 19, 2019 #
Thx for the guide, Steve. You are a lifesaver. I was having some issues similar to other people here until realsing I renamed the appimage file Electrum.Appimage with a capital E instead of lowercase e. Working fine now though.
I also think it might be easier for for some people to just save the app image to a separate usb, run it from tails without enabling persistence, and re-enter whatever seed they need each time instead of bothering with all the other configurations.
Comment by Ron Frederick Swanson— March 19, 2019 #
Hey, I have problems, if i put in the
/home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/electrum.AppImage -D /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/
I get
QApplication: invalid style override passed, ignoring it.
Thank it launches the new one. But it wont replace the old icon for some reason.
Comment by Billybob— March 20, 2019 #
Applmage is a bad signature . Bad or forged the signed data was modified.
Comment by Frank— March 20, 2019 #
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the guide and drive to keep electrum working on Tails. Currently having the same issue as justafool and Math with being unable to successfully enter administator password, no matter how many tries or different passwords I try to use.
Hopefully this whole thing can be fixed soon.
Cheers
Comment by murmurb— March 20, 2019 #
im getting Bad Signature for the AppleImage
Comment by Andre— March 20, 2019 #
gregory,
set proxy to point to 127.0.0.1 (yourself) and set port to 9050
Comment by steveeq1— March 20, 2019 #
Billybob,
You have to create the electrum.desktop file and copy and paste the “[Desktop Entry]” stuff I put in my article. Put that file in /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications/
After that, the menu icon on top should point to 3.3.4
Comment by steveeq1— March 20, 2019 #
justafool and Math and murmurb,
There is a difference between the “tails encryption password” and an “administrator’s password”. Did you specifically set an administrator’s password on bootup? the way to do it is here:
Also, are you getting the password prompt in the terminal window? Where you type the “sudo” commands?
Comment by steveeq1— March 20, 2019 #
Andre,
did you import the thomasv public key? Another thing is to let it finish downloading, because you might be comparing against a file that is incomplete.
What happens when you go to the terminal and type:
gpg –verify ~/Tor\ Browser/electrum-3.3.4-x86_64.AppImage.asc
Comment by steveeq1— March 20, 2019 #
I fixed the issue by setting a password with the sudo -i command
Comment by Math— March 20, 2019 #
I also am getting ‘Bad or forged signature. The signed data was modified.’
Did everything exactly as showed in guide.
I tried:
gpg –verify ~/Tor\ Browser/electrum-3.3.4-x86_64.AppImage.asc
as suggested. here is what command prompt returned:
gpg: ify: skipped: No public key
gpg: /home/amnesia/Tor Browser/electrum-3.3.4×86.AppImage.asc: encryption failed: No public key
Comment by A— March 20, 2019 #
I have a new issue though when i try to save the text in gedit i get this in my command prompt
** (gedit:19397): WARNING **: Set document metadata failed: Setting attribute metadata::gedit-encoding not supported
Comment by Math— March 20, 2019 #
A,
You didn’t save the public key. Visit this webpage https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/pubkeys/ThomasV.asc , and copy the key.
Then save the file. Then double click the icon:
Comment by steveeq1— March 20, 2019 #
Math,
See if the file saved anyway. Try saving to a different directory and see if anything different happens.
Comment by steveeq1— March 20, 2019 #
No luck
Comment by Math— March 20, 2019 #
I can’t save the gedit. I get the message: Could not find the file “/live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications/electrum.desktop”
Comment by Kaja— March 21, 2019 #
I guess I just forgot to set up the administrator’s password. But now I have the same problem as justafool, Math and murmurb.
Comment by Kaja— March 21, 2019 #
Can we use our old wallet files? (/home/amnesia/.electrum/wallets)
When I click Applications > Internet > Electrum Bitcoin Wallet and then try to choose one of my old wallets, I get the following error:
Cannot load wallet (2):
This version of Electrum is too old to open this wallet.
(highest supported storage version: 16, version of this file: 18)
When I double-click /home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/electrum.AppImage and select an old wallet file, it works fine.
Comment by Bill Fisher— March 21, 2019 #
Hi, i followed everything, but when i go to open electrum in the places/computer part, it says the application could not be launched. any idea what the issue could be? everything other than electrum is up to date
Comment by Thomas— March 21, 2019 #
Hello thanks a lot for this tutorial.
Despite setting an administrator password at login (twice using different passwords) I get the error in Terminal “sorry try again”. It just won’t accept a password.
I’ll start googling but I figured I’d report the error here also.
Comment by hillo12345— March 21, 2019 #
I opened a root terminal (instead of terminal) and the system accepted the password but the ‘bin’ folder that was created is locked.
But I now have electrum.appimage in the persistent folder and it’s the correct version with the correct wallet.
Any reason I can’t just double click the app from that folder indefinitely?
Comment by hillo12345— March 21, 2019 #
Hello guys, after completing all the steps I click the electrum icon and nothing happens.. I get this error after running this: /home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/electrum.AppImage -D /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/
Error:
:~$ /home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/electrum.AppImage -D /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/tmp/.mount_electr9GryxU/usr/bin/electrum”, line 324, in
config = SimpleConfig(config_options)
File “/tmp/.mount_electr9GryxU/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/electrum/simple_config.py”, line 87, in __init__
self.path = self.electrum_path()
File “/tmp/.mount_electr9GryxU/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/electrum/simple_config.py”, line 111, in electrum_path
make_dir(path, allow_symlink=False)
File “/tmp/.mount_electr9GryxU/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/electrum/util.py”, line 900, in make_dir
os.mkdir(path)
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: ‘/home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/’
Comment by GingerRoots— March 21, 2019 #
Never mind, now my wallet works. Thank you!!!
Comment by GingerRoots— March 21, 2019 #
Is it ok if I’m able too run the new electrum from files .but unable too have it stored with the old Bitcoin wallet I’m unable too use the old one but can run the new one from persistant files
Comment by John— March 22, 2019 #
I also cant make the icons work, however i dont really care as long as the file in the bin folder works. it seems to, but there is no option in the network settings for a tor proxy. i’ve tried setting the proxy myself (both socks5/socks4) to 127.0.0.1 with port 9050. that also didn’t work. Please help.
Comment by playstation1900— March 22, 2019 #
I’ve got to the last part. When I try to open spectrum bitcoin wallet, I trusted it and now it says error launching application what did I miss ??
Comment by Coco— March 22, 2019 #
Run it from the applmage that’s in the persistent folder
Comment by John— March 22, 2019 #
Im having a problem when i try to save on gedit i get an error that says: Could not find the file “/live/persistence/TailsD…ications/electrum.desktop”. i can still access electrum but i would have to go to the bin and open it.
Comment by jefe— March 22, 2019 #
yeah that worked for me thanks john
Comment by Math— March 22, 2019 #
Hey Steve,
Thanks a lot for this great guide!
Spent hours on others that didn’t work and yours worked like a charm.
I also used it for the ltc wallet with the same result, just great!
Comment by Peter— March 22, 2019 #
thanks m8 works like a charm
Comment by theezakje— March 23, 2019 #
after ‘/live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications’
opening and trusting new executable application.
Nothing Loads for me…
Comment by Neil— March 24, 2019 #
[…] Source […]
Pingback by Mise à niveau d'Electrum on Tails vers la version 3.3.4 - Gadget Maso— March 25, 2019 #
I’m having the same issue as Math and murmurb from earlier, and I don’t see any kind of solution in the comments… I copied and pasted the first set of terminal commands, but it instantly tells me that the password is incorrect before I have the chance to enter anything. The second and third tries don’t allow me to type anything at all. Any help is appreciated as I am trying to access my wallet as soon as possible
Comment by Dad— March 25, 2019 #
Hey Stevee
I followed all the steps up until entering “gedit /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications/electrum.desktop” into the terminal. The gedit popped up and I pasted the “[Desktop Entry]” portion into the text box and tried to save but I got this message, “You do not have the permissions necessary to save the file. Please check that you typed the location correctly and try again.” Any idea how to help?
Comment by Yankeeclipper— March 27, 2019 #
I am in the same boat as math and murmurb and dad…. can’t get my password entered into the terminal… and I know I set it up. Any help Steve?
Comment by shelly— March 27, 2019 #
it may not show that you are typing your password but it is typing your password and it doesnt show the characters. just type out the password and hit enter
Comment by pinhead larry— March 28, 2019 #
I tried that but it didn’t work even when I entered my correct password it gave me the incorrect message
Comment by Shelly— March 28, 2019 #
Thank You Very Much.
The only real issue I had was that the downloaded AppImage had the version number in the name, so all the references to it in the script did not connect. Renamed the appImage and it seems to be working.
You put a lot of time in on this! Is there a way we electrum/tails users can give you a tip?
Comment by lizard— March 29, 2019 #
Update: similar to other users posting here, I can’t get the Gnome menus to show the new electrum.
To solve it temporarily, I copied
/live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications/electrum.desktop
to
/home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/electrum.desktop
I can execute it from either desktop file, but it is easier to navigate to the 2nd directory (does not have a dotfile in the path)
Note that if you execute the AppImage directly, it seems to find the original wallet files first and does not ever complete synchronizing (must be a conf issue).
Again, Thanks!!
Comment by lizard— March 29, 2019 #
When trying to save the deggit desktop file i get two errors
** (gedit:12567): WARNING **: Set document metadata failed: Setting attribute metadata::gedit-spell-language not supported
** (gedit:12567): WARNING **: Set document metadata failed: Setting attribute metadata::gedit-encoding not supported
Comment by erbchp— March 30, 2019 #
Finally figured out a fix for anyone who still can’t get the Applications menu shortcut to run the new version of Electrum. Open up the persistent volume configurator (Top left Applications menu -> System Tools -> Configure persistent volume), scroll to the very bottom, toggle Dotfiles on, save, and restart Tails. Must’ve flashed my drive 3 times to figure this one out so I hope it helps! Note: I recommend restoring from a clean backup, using my fix, then following his tutorial all the way through, I have no idea if it works retroactively.
tldr: Make sure your persistent volume has saving dotfiles enabled.
Comment by Storm— March 31, 2019 #
So far I can open version 3.3.4 but only through nautilus with root. I can recover my wallet. My problem is that I cannot connect to a network.
Comment by jim— March 31, 2019 #
Thank you Storm! WIsh this was in the fing instructions, would have saved me a lot of time ugh.
Comment by bob— April 5, 2019 #
Anyone who couldnt get it working just cant follow instructions. Worked for me first time. Thankyou 🙂
Comment by Bertie Yurty— April 6, 2019 #
For whatever reason, after I type in the commands, it won’t add the directory folders. Anyone having similar issues?
Comment by josh— April 7, 2019 #
Hi Steve, after trusting electrum desktop and trying to open it, nothing happens.
So i went to terminal and typed “/home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/electrum.AppImage -D /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/”
and this is what I get :
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/tmp/.mount_electrcaOG1o/usr/bin/electrum”, line 324, in
config = SimpleConfig(config_options)
File “/tmp/.mount_electrcaOG1o/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/electrum/simple_config.py”, line 87, in __init__
self.path = self.electrum_path()
File “/tmp/.mount_electrcaOG1o/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/electrum/simple_config.py”, line 111, in electrum_path
make_dir(path, allow_symlink=False)
File “/tmp/.mount_electrcaOG1o/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/electrum/util.py”, line 900, in make_dir
os.mkdir(path)
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: ‘/home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/’
However, the electrum appImage in the bin file opens and i am able to run it, is it safe? whats the difference between this electrum and the “desktop” version?
Thanks a lot
Comment by Bitcoiner— April 8, 2019 #
I received a bad signature from the electrum.org/#download page. The signature didn’t download but opened in a new page so I copied and saved it into gedit, then opened with verify signature. What’s wrong?
Comment by Ryan— April 10, 2019 #
So I right clicked and saved link as and when I verified this time it says valid but untrusted signature…is that okay?
Comment by Ryan— April 10, 2019 #
When they ask me to put my administrator password in the terminal, i cant type anything except press enter. I tried to copy+paste, doesnt work either. So i created all the directory manually and made it to the final step.
Now, here i am, i do need to type the administrator password to run the following
> sudo chmod +x /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications/electrum.desktop
I’ve setted up the Administrator Password at launch and i already had a persistent folder before today.
I’am able to connect to the new version on Electrum tho, by running the AppImage.
I will try to send a payment asap to see if i am temporarly able to use my coins.
Edit : i’ve just sent a payment while finishing writing, so everything seems fine, will see at reboot.
Will let u know, and thanks if anyone can help. I will try to reboot and try again, maybe its just a bug dat i can type my password in Terminal.
Comment by slowbro— April 11, 2019 #
I got all the way to the last steps, when I went to the final directory the electrum.desktop application did not have the icon, instead whiteness. When I double click it says there was an error launching the application.
Comment by Biglilbbsauce— April 16, 2019 #
I have been tried to upgrade electrum to version 3.3.4. After I did everythink in your instructions I have still version 3.1.2. What can I do in this situation?
Comment by Admail— April 20, 2019 #
Is there any way to reverse this process? I feel like I did everything instructed but now my persistent volume has been giving me trouble and I can’t figure out exactly what it is. I somehow screwed up my permissions, in my tailsdata_unlocked I see a “persistence.conf.insecure_disabled” file and my “persistence.conf” has a lock on it. I’ll figure out another way to run electrum but I’d really be grateful if someone could help me get my permissions back. The selected files in the persistence wizard keep auto-switching to off. I’ve deleted all the directories I made from this tutorial. The only thing I haven’t done is removed the key because I don’t know where it is or how to identify it without seeing it in my list of keys. I’ve tried for hours and I can’t figure this out, someone help please.
Comment by tired— April 20, 2019 #
Nevermind my last comment, finally found a solution after all this time. Don’t know if I’ll be running into issues later but everything’s back to normal as can be so far. Here is the link for anyone like me that may run into this problem and have no clue what the hell you did to your permissions.
https://gist.github.com/mc2pw/aeb4ca3972fea54d4858#configure-ownership-and-permissions
Comment by tired— April 20, 2019 #
link didn’t post. just search in search engine setting-up-tails-with-persistence.md and go to Configure Ownership and Permissions, just trying to help sorry for the triple post
Comment by tired— April 20, 2019 #
All worked great except new Electrum wouldn’t connect to network after initial setup — but did just fine after relaunching it. Thanks so much, Stever!!
Comment by JJ— April 22, 2019 #
Having same issue as xyz.
The program is there I can navigate to it.
However old electrum is still installed and that is the one tails defaults unto.
Separate issue. Is nada on 127.0.0.1@9050.
I do NOT have the checkbox for tor proxy.
Hope tails dev’s step up to the plate here. Pretty sure due to the security nature to release a mid update including the latest electrum.
Comment by Ej— April 24, 2019 #
I am sorry to say but this guide is way complicated the advice on this https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-docs/blob/master/tails.rst?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app#using-the-most-current-electrum-on-tails
helped me resolve it on the first try. Thank you Stever for attempting to help people.
Comment by here comes the sun— April 27, 2019 #
How to run the Electrum 3.3.4 application after instaled it? Nothing happens when I double click electrum icon after installalled it.
Comment by Admail— April 29, 2019 #
Hi there, while trying to open the AppImage.asc file i get a response saying the key is valid but not trustworthy.
I hope someone will be able to help me out with this.
Comment by Doener Damm— May 2, 2019 #
ThomasV PGP latest change 2 days ago, is there anything to worry about?
Comment by Chugggg— May 4, 2019 #
Chuggg, yes he updated his key, a couple of people signed off on his key as “valid”. His gpg signature is the same, so it’s still considered safe.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
Doener Damm,
You are still safe. You probably didn’t sign the key correctly. You are supposed to SIGN the key and click on “casually searched” in the dialogue box that comes in. Then click the “sign” button.
By signing the key, you are making it “trustworthy”. signing basically means “I know this key actually belongs to the ThomasV in question and he is not some poser pretending to be ThomasV”
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
Admail,
Go to the terminal and type “/home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/electrum.AppImage -D /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/”. See what error it gives you.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
Ej,
If tails is loading the old version of tails, you probably didn’t install the .desktop file correctly. open gedit, copy and paste the contents of the electrum.desktop file, then open it in nautilus and double click and make sure it loads.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
Admail,
Go to Places -> Computer on the upper left hand corner of the screen. Once it opens, Press ctrl-l and type this in the directory:
/live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications
Double click that icon and see if the new version of tails comes up. If there is no icon, you have to create a .desktop file. Go to the blog, and search for “[Desktop Entry]” and copy that text area into electrum.desktop file.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
Biglilbbsauce,
Go to the terminal and type “/home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/electrum.AppImage -D /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/”. See what error it gives you.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
ryan,
You are still safe. You probably didn’t sign the key correctly. You are supposed to SIGN the key and click on “casually searched” in the dialogue box that comes in. Then click the “sign” button.
By signing the key, you are making it “trustworthy”. signing basically means “I know this key actually belongs to the ThomasV in question and he is not some poser pretending to be ThomasV”. When it says “untrusted signature”, it means that the key validates the binary, but you didn’t indicate that gpg key actually belongs to ThomasV .
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
Ryan,
If it’s a bad signature, check to make sure the file finished downloading. There have been no known public breakins in to the electrum.org site, so it’s more likely that electrum didn’t finish downloading.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
Bitcoiner,
Is your persistent partition enabled? Also, there is no “conf” directory apparently. You probably forgot to execute these commands:
sudo mkdir -p /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/
mkdir -p /home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/
mkdir -p /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/
Go back to the blog and search for above text and follow those instructions.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
josh,
What error does it give you?
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
Storm, I made a false assumption that “dotfiles” was enabled in the persistent directory. It didnt occur to me. I will edit the blog post accordingly. Sorry folks.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
bob,
This is my fault, I made a false assumption that “dotfiles” was enabled in the persistent directory. It didnt occur to me. I will edit the blog post accordingly. Sorry folks.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
jim,
Go to tools -> network in the menu. Then click on the proxy tab and tell it to use the “Tor Proxy at port 9050”. Also make sure you are connected to the internet and your web browser can open up a web page.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
josh,
What error is it giving you? Most likely if you can’t issue those commands, you did not click on the “administrator” link at bootup.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
erbchp,
Those are warnings, not errors. It should still save.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
Yankeeclipper and dad,
There are several possible solutions, but I suspect you did not load tails with “administrator” permissions and you did not set the administrator password on the initial bootup. The description is at the very beginning of this article.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
hillo12345,
When you create folders as root, the permissions of folders become owned by “root”. You have to change the permissions to be owned by user “amnesia”:
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/
In the blog, search for above term and issue the commands in that list.
Yes, you can double click electrum.AppImage indefinitely and that will “work”, but it’s nice to run it from the menus
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
Thomas,
Go to the terminal and type “/home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/electrum.AppImage -D /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/”. See what error it gives you.
I suspect you didn’t create the “conf” directory. Issue these commands:
sudo mkdir -p /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/
mkdir -p /home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/
mkdir -p /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/
Go to my blog article and do the instructions around that area.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
Bill Fisher,
Yes, you can double click on the electrum.AppImage file, but it will use the old wallet and overwrite it. It is better to create a NEW wallet in another directory so you can go back to the previous version of electrum if something goes wrong. But yes, you can technically just double click on the electrum.AppImage file.
Comment by steveeq1— May 21, 2019 #
Hi am receiving an error whenit comes to typing the gedit /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications/electrum.desktop
i get this message ** (gedit:18907): WARNING **: Set document metadata failed: Setting attribute metadata::gedit-spell-language not supported
** (gedit:18907): WARNING **: Set document metadata failed: Setting attribute metadata::gedit-encoding not supported
Please advice
Comment by Darkmanx— May 26, 2019 #
I had a lot of issues trying to make this work, but this was because I was trying to go way too fast. Electrum works like a charm now, thanks Steve!
Comment by Kent— May 26, 2019 #
Darkmanx. You can ignore those errors. You can still save hte file, right?
Comment by steveeq1— May 28, 2019 #
Like Yankeeclipper said, when I try to save the gedit file I get an error message saying that I do not have permission to save, however I made an admin password in the beginning. How can I get it to properly save?
Comment by zoe— June 3, 2019 #
At the very first terminal command, I’m stuck they don’t accept my real admistrator password and say “sorry, try again” What should I do?
There was a comment where the person was claiming he has made the folder himself, any advice on the procedure? Thanks everyoe
Comment by jackjackjack— June 4, 2019 #
I still get the same massage ‘sorry try again’ At the very first terminal command, I cannot log in.
My password was simply ‘1’ but it doesn’t work, even when it’s longer, it doesn’t work. I have the impression there is something wrong in what I do.
Yet, I followed all the steps, I made the password while booting the tails and etc.. Please help me but it looks like some other people are having same problem as I am. ANY ADVICE?
Comment by jackjackjack— June 6, 2019 #
I still get the same massage ‘sorry try again’ At the very first terminal command, I cannot log in.
My password was simply ‘1’ but it doesn’t work, even when it’s longer, it doesn’t work. I have the impression there is something wrong in what I do.
Yet, I followed all the steps, I made the password while booting the tails and etc.. Please help me but it looks like some other people are having same problem as I am. ANY ADVICE?
Comment by jackjackjack— June 6, 2019 #
amnesia@amnesia:~$ sudo mkdir -p /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications
We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:
#1) Respect the privacy of others.
#2) Think before you type.
#3) With great power comes great responsibility.
[sudo] password for amnesia:
1
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for amnesia:
amnesia@amnesia:~$ 1
bash: 1: command not found
THIS IS WHAT I GET
Comment by jackjackjack— June 6, 2019 #
amnesia@amnesia:~$ sudo mkdir -p /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications
We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:
#1) Respect the privacy of others.
#2) Think before you type.
#3) With great power comes great responsibility.
[sudo] password for amnesia:
1
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for amnesia:
amnesia@amnesia:~$ 1
bash: 1: command not found
THIS IS WHAT I GET
Comment by jackjackjack— June 6, 2019 #
jackjackjack,
Sorry for the lateness. There are TWO passwords. One is the password that unlocks your encryption. There is another one that you specify on this screen:
Click the “plus” symbol. From there, there will be an option to set the administrator password for this one session. Select the administrator password and choose an arbitrary password. I just put the letter “a”. When you run the sudo command, it should work with that password.
Comment by steveeq1— June 11, 2019 #
hello, i saw that 3 other people had this same error when trying to save the geddit file
** (gedit:24426): WARNING **: Set document metadata failed: Setting attribute metadata::gedit-spell-language not supported
how can i fix this???
Comment by klala— June 14, 2019 #
steveeq1
I appreciate your screen shot and reply. But yes that is exactly what I did I know what you mean, but the terminal says ‘sorry try again’ even if i type in my administration password. I can’t go any further because of this, and I think some of the people in the comments are having the same problem….. This is so frustrating, my password is correct…..
Comment by jackjackjack— June 16, 2019 #
jackjackjack,
Go into terminal and try:
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /home/amnesia/Persistent/bin/
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /home/amnesia/Persistent/conf/electrum/
Comment by steveeq1— June 17, 2019 #
Man, you’re awesome. Everything works like a charm, I am grateful for it.
I have another stubborn application that just won’t work on my TAILS – VIPole. I got it to be running, but it refuses to see SOCKS5 proxy or even network altogether. I know this is off topic here, but there was no other options to contact you, so… Any reply would be much appreciated.
Comment by Slava— June 19, 2019 #
I followed all these instructions to the letter and went well – except the part that says, “let’s go back to the command line terminal”
I don’t think we went there at all in the first place?
Well – I located something called the terminal under applications – tried to input them instructions – something spewed out to the effect of, “with great power comes great responsibility”, and then it asked for my admin password, which was set on opening tails.
But it wouldn’t accept it, and then just went kind of….unresponsive
I tried multiple times with the same outcome.
I managed to open the electrum wallet, create a new wallet etc – and it’s in persistence folder.
Will I be okay from here?
Or are the actions carried out via those command lines totally necessary?
Comment by Ruben— June 30, 2019 #
Just in case this helps anybody else, I experienced the same issue with the terminal seemingly not accepting the administration password I had set at the beginning.
The first time I tried, I was pasting all of the commands in to the terminal in one hit. The second time I copied them in one by one and had no issue, that is all I did differently so I can only assume that is where I went wrong in the first instance.
Comment by FleaFace— July 5, 2019 #
Ruben,
reboot and make sure your wallet is still there. The commandline commands that you give in terminal are necessary to set the permissions correctly on tails. It IS necessary. Some people are reporting that the sudo password is not working, but goddamit I am not sure why. It is possibly a tails problem as it works for me.
Don’t use your bitcoin wallet until you know the key is persistent across bootups.
– Steve
Comment by steveeq1— July 8, 2019 #
I get to the final step and get “Error cannot launch application” tried everything twice. Now I cant launch eith the new Electrum or old one wtf. Helllllp
Comment by bobo— July 10, 2019 #
Steve you absolute beauty. Doing god’s work!
Comment by Ruairidh Macdonald— July 21, 2019 #
Big up Steve!!! Very grateful to you.
Comment by Peter— July 24, 2019 #
I followed all steps exactly. now I can’t open either version of electrum. WTF man??
Comment by wtfman— July 25, 2019 #
bobo/myself,
Ok… for some reason when I view this page on my windows machine, ‘desktop’ is cut off to ‘desk’ in several locations. I copied & pasted everything and got the icon as shown in the screenshot… I tried to open it and the system hung (happens alot due to using a cheap laptop) When I restarted, it reverted to showing the “AppImage” file in /bin. I ran that and it worked! (Although the electrum icon still points to the old version)
Comment by wtfman— July 25, 2019 #
wtfman,
That’s funny. I was in the room with TWO people yesterday and the walktrhough worked JUST FINE with them. Is it possible you did something wrong?
Can you also give SOME SORT OF DESCRIPTION of the problem other than “it doesn’t work”? That might help with people trying to fix your problem.
Comment by steveeq1— August 6, 2019 #
It is best to run from the .desktop icon. Make sure you go to the blog entry where it says:
> Go back to your terminal window and type the following:
> gedit /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications/electrum.desktop
And follow the instructions from there. To use electrum, you should double click the “.desktop” icon because that points to the correct wallet.
Comment by steveeq1— August 6, 2019 #
Omg I could cry.. THIS WORKED!!! I am not computer savvy AT ALL and the process wasn’t without hiccups but after 2 hours I DID IT!!! What did I just do I need to show off haha!! What do I call what I just did jaja IM SO HAPPY THANK YOU!!!
Comment by Jane— August 12, 2019 #
Just chiming in to say that I’m experiencing the same problems as the others with the administration password. I changed the administration password at least three times on startup, but the terminal always gives me the same “Sorry, try again”. The AppImage is working for me so that’s good enough. Hope someone finds a fix.
Comment by PaperCloud— August 16, 2019 #
I had the same issue and repeated it like a mad woman and finally it worked. You drag one line of command at a time? press enter when black bit is highlighted and continue whether anything happens or not. good luck
Comment by Jane— August 16, 2019 #
also dont copy paste.. drag the command across
Comment by Jane— August 16, 2019 #
Hello, I get an error when launching the wallet. I followed all the steps, everythings there, but when I trust and launch the wallet I get an error saying “There was an error launching the application” Any help?
Thanks
Comment by abezo— August 20, 2019 #
Hi steve. Great write up and everything has worked fine except that the blue dot network connection is not turning green and its not showing the last transaction.
Any ideas?
Comment by Joe— August 20, 2019 #
Hey Steve thanks for your Help,
So up until now everything worked fine but I can’t open the Wallet. I followed the instructions but something seems to be wrong
Comment by Steve— October 9, 2019 #
Thank you Steve for this excellent guide.
I have exactly the same problem as Yankee etc:
I followed all the steps up until entering “gedit /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications/electrum.desktop” into the terminal. The gedit popped up and I pasted the “[Desktop Entry]” portion into the text box and tried to save but I got this message, “You do not have the permissions necessary to save the file. Please check that you typed the location correctly and try again.
After making sure that Dotfiles in Persistent volume configuration are “On”, I restarted Tails and set up an Admin password: so the problem should not be there, I imagine.
Thanks again.
Comment by catallaxy— October 14, 2019 #
Hi Steve – now that Tails has been upgraded to 4.0 and Electrum is working again I’m wondering if we can move back to the native install for Electrum now? Could you please help me understand how to point the icon back to the native version?
Cheers
Comment by bloopbloop— October 30, 2019 #
In case anyone has the same issue, I was getting “Bad or forged signature” on the AppImage, however when I ran a terminal from the folder the files were in and ran “gpg –verify .asc ” it worked.
Comment by adawg— December 7, 2019 #
I’m having an issue signing the Thomas key. It keeps saying “you have no personal PGP keys that can be used to indicate your trust of this key”
Comment by A_saint— February 7, 2020 #
Hi Steve
when I go to
/live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/dotfiles/.local/share/applications
there is no Electrum icon but just the text file icon: electrum.desktop
maybe because Im using the Latest release: Electrum-4.0.9 ?
Comment by felix— January 20, 2021 #