[RPC] insertKey method is not expecting a Substrate URI

[EclesioMeloJunior]

Issue summary

• I noticed that at insertKey RPC method the polkadot ui are sending the suri (aka Substrate URI, aka //Allice, //Bob...) but our RPC method is expecting a hexadecimal seed (if you type subkey inspect //Allice you will get the hex seed for the suri //Allice), the error the ui got is:

could not byteify non 0x prefixed string: null

• The api.rpc.author.insertKey polkadot js API is expecting a suri as paramater as well:

insertKey: RpcPromiseResult
 (keyType: string | Text, suri: string | Text, publicKey: string | Bytes | Uint8Array)

Screenshots

1. Sending a suri but got error response
   
   the log what gossamer node are receiving:
   

2. Trying to send a hex seed, got the same error response:
   
   the log what gossamer node are receiving:
   

Other information and links

• Substrate example insertKey RPC method: https://github.com/paritytech/substrate/blob/1d5abf01abafdb6c15bcd0172f5de09fd87c5fbf/client/rpc/src/author/mod.rs#L94
• Substrate example insert_unknow implementation: https://github.com/paritytech/substrate/blob/7dcc77b982f59eaf6cec19499d981164b04a255d/client/keystore/src/local.rs#L291
• I guess the insertKey RPC spec is not updated with this info, there says seed and the example shows a seed being passed as request parameter

[decentration]

you won't be able to get the mnemonic seed from subkey inspect, the inspect element only provides the public information of the key. You would have to generate a key and then keep the seed in a safe place.

[EclesioMeloJunior]

@decentration thanks for clarifying that!

[EclesioMeloJunior]

I've tryied to call this RPC call using the https://polkadot.js.org/apps on polkadot and kusama networks and to both nets the RPC call author.insertKey outputs:

1: author.insertKey
-32601: Method not found

And I look at smoldot implemented rpc calls and I noticed that author_insertKey is not implemented yet

@timwu20 @danforbes fyi

[danforbes]

@EclesioMeloJunior does this documentation help clarify the format that the Substrate implementation expects? https://github.com/substrate-developer-hub/substrate-docs/blob/e537cc2de3618d283e58e308c30ae6c436d0569e/v3/tutorials/05-private-network/e-launch-custom-chain/index.mdx#option-1-use-the-polkadot-js-apps-ui

[EclesioMeloJunior]

@danforbes yes, helps a lot! Thanks!