![](http://i.imgur.com/jVLWgAY.png)

It is now trivially easy to update your witness with a few lines Python:
```
from steemtools.experimental import Transactions

t = Transactions()
props = {
    "account_creation_fee": "15.000 STEEM",
    "maximum_block_size": 65536,
    "sbd_interest_rate": 500,
}
tx = t.witness_update("furion", "<PUBLIC_POSTING_KEY>", "https://steemdb.com/@furion/witness", props, "<PRIVATE_ACTIVE_KEY>", sim_mode=False)
pprint(tx)
```

**Outputs:**
```
{'expiration': '2016-09-21T19:50:27',
 'extensions': [],
 'operations': [['witness_update',
                 {'block_signing_key': 'STM7WDG2QpThdkRa3G2PYXM7gH9UksoGm4xqoFBrNet6GH7ToNUYx',
                  'fee': '0.000 STEEM',
                  'owner': 'furion',
                  'props': {'account_creation_fee': '15.000 STEEM',
                            'maximum_block_size': 65536,
                            'sbd_interest_rate': 500},
                  'url': 'https://steemdb.com/@furion/witness'}]],
 'ref_block_num': 59959,
 'ref_block_prefix': 4091806926,
 'signatures': ['205afd9f3ac04...1bb0459320894e']}
```

![](http://i.imgur.com/QT6T4PD.png)

**Why would you want to update your witness programmatically?**
1.) If you would like to stop minting blocks while your witness is offline, or being upgraded, then you should update your witness with an empty signing key `""` to avoid missing blocks.

2.) If you would like to do an automated failover to another server, you should change your signing key to avoid forking (very bad).

3.) Because its easier and more fun than cli_wallet.

**Source**
[> steemtools on GitHub](https://github.com/Netherdrake/steemtools)

Big thanks to @jesta for the challenge. 

-------------------

<center>[![](http://i.imgur.com/5MaAhy7.png)](https://steemit.com/@furion)
Don't miss out on the next post - follow me.
[steemtools](https://github.com/Netherdrake/steemtools) | [steem.li](https://steem.li)  | [witness](https://steemdb.com/@furion/witness)
</center>

-------------------