Creating a hallmark for a node

A hallmark is a "stamp of approval" for a Nxt node. By creating a digital signature based on your IP address and secret passphrase (private key), you are verifying that your account "owns" a node and is accountable for it. This helps protect the network from attack, and increases the network's trust in your node. You do not need to generate a hallmark if you are a casual Nxt user. It is a very good idea for those who operate public Nxt nodes on dedicated, public servers. Hallmarks have no impact on forging.

To create a hallmark:

Navigate to http://localhost:7876/index.html (or http://127.0.0.1:7876/index.html ) and log in with your account.
Under the settings menu in the top right of the client, choose "Generate Hallmark" and enter the following details:
- Public IP: The IP Address of your Nxt node, or, if you are advertising a DNS name in your properties file for the setting of: nxt.myAddress= then use this DNS name here as well instead of the IP address. If using non-default port, the hallmark must also include that port, otherwise the hallmark is ignored.
- Weight: A weighting value for your node.
  - If you only operate one node, the value doesn't matter... but if you operate multiple nodes, you can use this value to set a relative "weight" for each node. The network will "sum" all of the weights for your hallmarked node, and use the ratios of those weights to determine how much traffic each one can bear. For example, if you have four nodes and want them all weighted equally, set equal values. But if one node has much more memory and bandwidth allocated to it, you may weight it more highly relative to the other three.
- Date: Today's date
- Secret phrase: Your account number's secret passphrase.
Click "Submit".

Your Nxt server will generate a hallmark value for you, in the form of a long string of text. The response from the server will look something like this:

f04cb689775673b915745531ced78b8af718588b8f67b92cdb39c23e1eacb74b0700312e322e332e34640000008a2d3301c8be91a8cbe1c6b79b128b31fbacdfeceda971ef46121e8cfc26d6fffa02224f045362c70b253158227ae9e6cae9a6081863b890489d197b615a0f46ff47008a5e

The value in quotes after "hallmark": is your hallmark.

Next, you must edit the settings file for your Nxt node:

If it is running, stop the client.
In the folder nxt/conf/, create a copy of nxt-default.properties called nxt.properties
Locate the following lines in nxt.properties and edit them:
- # My externally visible IP address or host name, to be announced to peers. # It can optionally include a port number, which will also be announced to peers, # and may be different from nxt.peerServerPort (useful if you do port forwarding behind a router).nxt.myAddress=
  and add your public IP address immediately after the equals sign. If you do not know your IP address, browse to http://www.whatismyip.com/ from the server/computer where your node is running. For example:
  nxt.myAddress=47.24.56.121
- # My hallmark, if available.nxt.myAddress=
  and add your hallmark value immediately after the equals sign. For example:
```
 nxt.myHallmark=842fd6793b8f00a3d77d0a16409453cce597661bcb21e67523d7bfd1d5a450600c0037302e37342e3138322e3134640000004c5233019b98830ea8845g0f32b0ae8b3648d35c22fad263f927422b73d3771fcc766ce8079eb49e953b75fb3c320a42678ab4f01a9d9c0ab3cdc09236a16999b234099eac
```
Save and close the file.
Restart your Nxt server to activate the hallmark.

For additional information, see FAQ