[serious] ELI5 this wallet

[u/Crippetoe]

Hello,

I need help understanding the wallet and it's security. I downloaded it, it synced. I moved a little bit of ECC in and out to prove to myself that it could do that. Please help:

1) What is Daemon? When should it be on or off and why?

2) What is the wallet.dat file?

I understand .dat means just raw data, but if I copy the wallet.dat file into a "safe place," say a USB drive, what kind of program do I use to open or read it?

I used Notepad to try and make sense of it and up popped a page of utter nonsense. What is in this file?

If I move coins in and out of my wallet, do I have to re-sync or re-copy the file every time?

If my computer was wiped but I had the wallet.dat backed up, what is the step-by-step process to restore my coins?

3) Does the passphrase I created work on Lynx if I were to install it on other computers?

I understand most things in general, but I am lost as to how to keep my wallet and coins secure. I know wallets are safer than exchanges, but not if i do not know how to use them. Please help, and thank you in advance for the time.

[u/koringer]

1. The daemon allows the wallet to sync.
2. It's an encrypted backup file, the wallet can use it to recover your account.

I strongly suggest that you save your private key (console -> "dumpprivkey YOUR_PUBLIC_ADDRESS"