diff --git a/doc/init.md b/doc/init.md index 7dee450c2..ed9ce7215 100644 --- a/doc/init.md +++ b/doc/init.md @@ -29,13 +29,15 @@ file, however it is recommended that a strong and secure password be used as this password is security critical to securing the wallet should the wallet be enabled. -If bitcoind is run with "-daemon" flag, and no rpcpassword is set, it will -print a randomly generated suitable password to stderr. You can also -generate one from the shell yourself like this: +If bitcoind is run with the "-server" flag (set by default), and no rpcpassword is set, +it will use a special cookie file for authentication. The cookie is generated with random +content when the daemon starts, and deleted when it exits. Read access to this file +controls who can access it through RPC. -`bash -c 'tr -dc a-zA-Z0-9 < /dev/urandom | head -c32 && echo'` +By default the cookie is stored in the data directory, but it's location can be overridden +with the option '-rpccookiefile'. -Once you have a password in hand, set `rpcpassword=` in `/etc/bitcoin/bitcoin.conf` +This allows for running bitcoind without having to do any manual configuration. `conf`, `pid`, and `wallet` accept relative paths which are interpreted as relative to the data directory. `wallet` *only* supports relative paths.