491acd4ca6
This commit is the first stage of several that are planned to convert
the blockchain package into a concurrent safe package that will
ultimately allow support for multi-peer download and concurrent chain
processing. The goal is to update btcd proper after each step so it can
take advantage of the enhancements as they are developed.
In addition to the aforementioned benefit, this staged approach has been
chosen since it is absolutely critical to maintain consensus.
Separating the changes into several stages makes it easier for reviewers
to logically follow what is happening and therefore helps prevent
consensus bugs. Naturally there are significant automated tests to help
prevent consensus issues as well.
The main focus of this stage is to convert the blockchain package to use
the new database interface and implement the chain-related functionality
which it no longer handles. It also aims to improve efficiency in
various areas by making use of the new database and chain capabilities.
The following is an overview of the chain changes:
- Update to use the new database interface
- Add chain-related functionality that the old database used to handle
- Main chain structure and state
- Transaction spend tracking
- Implement a new pruned unspent transaction output (utxo) set
- Provides efficient direct access to the unspent transaction outputs
- Uses a domain specific compression algorithm that understands the
standard transaction scripts in order to significantly compress them
- Removes reliance on the transaction index and paves the way toward
eventually enabling block pruning
- Modify the New function to accept a Config struct instead of
inidividual parameters
- Replace the old TxStore type with a new UtxoViewpoint type that makes
use of the new pruned utxo set
- Convert code to treat the new UtxoViewpoint as a rolling view that is
used between connects and disconnects to improve efficiency
- Make best chain state always set when the chain instance is created
- Remove now unnecessary logic for dealing with unset best state
- Make all exported functions concurrent safe
- Currently using a single chain state lock as it provides a straight
forward and easy to review path forward however this can be improved
with more fine grained locking
- Optimize various cases where full blocks were being loaded when only
the header is needed to help reduce the I/O load
- Add the ability for callers to get a snapshot of the current best
chain stats in a concurrent safe fashion
- Does not block callers while new blocks are being processed
- Make error messages that reference transaction outputs consistently
use <transaction hash>:<output index>
- Introduce a new AssertError type an convert internal consistency
checks to use it
- Update tests and examples to reflect the changes
- Add a full suite of tests to ensure correct functionality of the new
code
The following is an overview of the btcd changes:
- Update to use the new database and chain interfaces
- Temporarily remove all code related to the transaction index
- Temporarily remove all code related to the address index
- Convert all code that uses transaction stores to use the new utxo
view
- Rework several calls that required the block manager for safe
concurrency to use the chain package directly now that it is
concurrent safe
- Change all calls to obtain the best hash to use the new best state
snapshot capability from the chain package
- Remove workaround for limits on fetching height ranges since the new
database interface no longer imposes them
- Correct the gettxout RPC handler to return the best chain hash as
opposed the hash the txout was found in
- Optimize various RPC handlers:
- Change several of the RPC handlers to use the new chain snapshot
capability to avoid needlessly loading data
- Update several handlers to use new functionality to avoid accessing
the block manager so they are able to return the data without
blocking when the server is busy processing blocks
- Update non-verbose getblock to avoid deserialization and
serialization overhead
- Update getblockheader to request the block height directly from
chain and only load the header
- Update getdifficulty to use the new cached data from chain
- Update getmininginfo to use the new cached data from chain
- Update non-verbose getrawtransaction to avoid deserialization and
serialization overhead
- Update gettxout to use the new utxo store versus loading
full transactions using the transaction index
The following is an overview of the utility changes:
- Update addblock to use the new database and chain interfaces
- Update findcheckpoint to use the new database and chain interfaces
- Remove the dropafter utility which is no longer supported
NOTE: The transaction index and address index will be reimplemented in
another commit.
|
||
|---|---|---|
| addrmgr | ||
| blockchain | ||
| btcec | ||
| btcjson | ||
| chaincfg | ||
| cmd | ||
| database | ||
| database2 | ||
| docs | ||
| limits | ||
| mining | ||
| peer | ||
| release | ||
| txscript | ||
| wire | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| .travis.yml | ||
| blocklogger.go | ||
| blockmanager.go | ||
| btcd.go | ||
| CHANGES | ||
| config.go | ||
| cpuminer.go | ||
| deps.txt | ||
| discovery.go | ||
| doc.go | ||
| dynamicbanscore.go | ||
| dynamicbanscore_test.go | ||
| goclean.sh | ||
| LICENSE | ||
| log.go | ||
| mempool.go | ||
| mempoolerror.go | ||
| mining.go | ||
| params.go | ||
| policy.go | ||
| policy_test.go | ||
| README.md | ||
| rpcserver.go | ||
| rpcserverhelp.go | ||
| rpcserverhelp_test.go | ||
| rpcwebsocket.go | ||
| sample-btcd.conf | ||
| server.go | ||
| service_windows.go | ||
| signal.go | ||
| upgrade.go | ||
| upnp.go | ||
| version.go | ||
btcd
[
]
(https://travis-ci.org/btcsuite/btcd)
btcd is an alternative full node bitcoin implementation written in Go (golang).
This project is currently under active development and is in a Beta state. It is extremely stable and has been in production use since October 2013.
It properly downloads, validates, and serves the block chain using the exact rules (including bugs) for block acceptance as Bitcoin Core. We have taken great care to avoid btcd causing a fork to the block chain. It passes all of the 'official' block acceptance tests (https://github.com/TheBlueMatt/test-scripts) as well as all of the JSON test data in the Bitcoin Core code.
It also relays newly mined blocks, maintains a transaction pool, and relays individual transactions that have not yet made it into a block. It ensures all transactions admitted to the pool follow the rules required by the block chain and also includes the same checks which filter transactions based on miner requirements ("standard" transactions) as Bitcoin Core.
One key difference between btcd and Bitcoin Core is that btcd does NOT include wallet functionality and this was a very intentional design decision. See the blog entry here for more details. This means you can't actually make or receive payments directly with btcd. That functionality is provided by the btcwallet and Paymetheus (Windows-only) projects which are both under active development.
Requirements
Go 1.5 or newer.
Installation
Windows - MSI Available
https://github.com/btcsuite/btcd/releases
Linux/BSD/MacOSX/POSIX - Build from Source
-
Install Go according to the installation instructions here: http://golang.org/doc/install
-
Ensure Go was installed properly and is a supported version:
$ go version
$ go env GOROOT GOPATH
NOTE: The GOROOT and GOPATH above must not be the same path. It is
recommended that GOPATH is set to a directory in your home directory such as
~/goprojects to avoid write permission issues.
- Run the following command to obtain btcd, all dependencies, and install it:
$ go get -u github.com/btcsuite/btcd/...
- btcd (and utilities) will now be installed in either
$GOROOT/binor$GOPATH/bindepending on your configuration. If you did not already add the bin directory to your system path during Go installation, we recommend you do so now.
Updating
Windows
Install a newer MSI
Linux/BSD/MacOSX/POSIX - Build from Source
- Run the following command to update btcd, all dependencies, and install it:
$ go get -u -v github.com/btcsuite/btcd/...
Getting Started
btcd has several configuration options avilable to tweak how it runs, but all of the basic operations described in the intro section work with zero configuration.
Windows (Installed from MSI)
Launch btcd from your Start menu.
Linux/BSD/POSIX/Source
$ ./btcd
IRC
- irc.freenode.net
- channel #btcd
- webchat
Mailing lists
- btcd: discussion of btcd and its packages.
- btcd-commits: readonly mail-out of source code changes.
To subscribe to a given list, send email to list+subscribe@opensource.conformal.com
Issue Tracker
The integrated github issue tracker is used for this project.
Documentation
The documentation is a work-in-progress. It is located in the docs folder.
GPG Verification Key
All official release tags are signed by Conformal so users can ensure the code has not been tampered with and is coming from the btcsuite developers. To verify the signature perform the following:
-
Download the public key from the Conformal website at https://opensource.conformal.com/GIT-GPG-KEY-conformal.txt
-
Import the public key into your GPG keyring:
gpg --import GIT-GPG-KEY-conformal.txt -
Verify the release tag with the following command where
TAG_NAMEis a placeholder for the specific tag:git tag -v TAG_NAME
License
btcd is licensed under the copyfree ISC License.