Bitcoin Core 0.11.0
Bitcoin Core installation binaries can be downloaded from bitcoincore.org and the source-code is available from the Bitcoin Core source repository.
Bitcoin Core version 0.11.0 is now available from:
https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.11.0/
This is a new major version release, bringing both new features and bug fixes.
Please report bugs using the issue tracker at github:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues
Upgrading and downgrading
How to Upgrade
If you are running an older version, shut it down. Wait until it has completely shut down (which might take a few minutes for older versions), then run the installer (on Windows) or just copy over /Applications/Bitcoin-Qt (on Mac) or bitcoind/bitcoin-qt (on Linux).
Downgrade warning
Because release 0.10.0 and later makes use of headers-first synchronization and parallel block download (see further), the block files and databases are not backwards-compatible with pre-0.10 versions of Bitcoin Core or other software:
-
Blocks will be stored on disk out of order (in the order they are received, really), which makes it incompatible with some tools or other programs. Reindexing using earlier versions will also not work anymore as a result of this.
-
The block index database will now hold headers for which no block is stored on disk, which earlier versions won’t support.
If you want to be able to downgrade smoothly, make a backup of your entire data directory. Without this your node will need start syncing (or importing from bootstrap.dat) anew afterwards. It is possible that the data from a completely synchronised 0.10 node may be usable in older versions as-is, but this is not supported and may break as soon as the older version attempts to reindex.
This does not affect wallet forward or backward compatibility. There are no known problems when downgrading from 0.11.x to 0.10.x.
Important information
Transaction flooding
At the time of this release, the P2P network is being flooded with low-fee transactions. This causes a ballooning of the mempool size.
If this growth of the mempool causes problematic memory use on your node, it is
possible to change a few configuration options to work around this. The growth
of the mempool can be monitored with the RPC command getmempoolinfo
.
One is to increase the minimum transaction relay fee minrelaytxfee
, which
defaults to 0.00001. This will cause transactions with fewer BTC/kB fee to be
rejected, and thus fewer transactions entering the mempool.
The other is to restrict the relaying of free transactions with
limitfreerelay
. This option sets the number of kB/minute at which
free transactions (with enough priority) will be accepted. It defaults to 15.
Reducing this number reduces the speed at which the mempool can grow due
to free transactions.
For example, add the following to bitcoin.conf
:
minrelaytxfee=0.00005
limitfreerelay=5
More robust solutions are being worked on for a follow-up release.
Notable changes
Block file pruning
This release supports running a fully validating node without maintaining a copy of the raw block and undo data on disk. To recap, there are four types of data related to the blockchain in the bitcoin system: the raw blocks as received over the network (blk???.dat), the undo data (rev???.dat), the block index and the UTXO set (both LevelDB databases). The databases are built from the raw data.
Block pruning allows Bitcoin Core to delete the raw block and undo data once it’s been validated and used to build the databases. At that point, the raw data is used only to relay blocks to other nodes, to handle reorganizations, to look up old transactions (if -txindex is enabled or via the RPC/REST interfaces), or for rescanning the wallet. The block index continues to hold the metadata about all blocks in the blockchain.
The user specifies how much space to allot for block & undo files. The minimum allowed is 550MB. Note that this is in addition to whatever is required for the block index and UTXO databases. The minimum was chosen so that Bitcoin Core will be able to maintain at least 288 blocks on disk (two days worth of blocks at 10 minutes per block). In rare instances it is possible that the amount of space used will exceed the pruning target in order to keep the required last 288 blocks on disk.
Block pruning works during initial sync in the same way as during steady state, by deleting block files “as you go” whenever disk space is allocated. Thus, if the user specifies 550MB, once that level is reached the program will begin deleting the oldest block and undo files, while continuing to download the blockchain.
For now, block pruning disables block relay. In the future, nodes with block pruning will at a minimum relay “new” blocks, meaning blocks that extend their active chain.
Block pruning is currently incompatible with running a wallet due to the fact that block data is used for rescanning the wallet and importing keys or addresses (which require a rescan.) However, running the wallet with block pruning will be supported in the near future, subject to those limitations.
Block pruning is also incompatible with -txindex and will automatically disable it.
Once you have pruned blocks, going back to unpruned state requires re-downloading the entire blockchain. To do this, re-start the node with -reindex. Note also that any problem that would cause a user to reindex (e.g., disk corruption) will cause a pruned node to redownload the entire blockchain. Finally, note that when a pruned node reindexes, it will delete any blk???.dat and rev???.dat files in the data directory prior to restarting the download.
To enable block pruning on the command line:
-prune=N
: where N is the number of MB to allot for raw block & undo data.
Modified RPC calls:
getblockchaininfo
now includes whether we are in pruned mode or not.getblock
will check if the block’s data has been pruned and if so, return an error.getrawtransaction
will no longer be able to locate a transaction that has a UTXO but where its block file has been pruned.
Pruning is disabled by default.
Big endian support
Experimental support for big-endian CPU architectures was added in this release. All little-endian specific code was replaced with endian-neutral constructs. This has been tested on at least MIPS and PPC hosts. The build system will automatically detect the endianness of the target.
Memory usage optimization
There have been many changes in this release to reduce the default memory usage of a node, among which:
- Accurate UTXO cache size accounting (#6102); this makes the option
-dbcache
precise where this grossly underestimated memory usage before - Reduce size of per-peer data structure (#6064 and others); this increases the number of connections that can be supported with the same amount of memory
- Reduce the number of threads (#5964, #5679); lowers the amount of (esp. virtual) memory needed
Fee estimation changes
This release improves the algorithm used for fee estimation. Previously, -1
was returned when there was insufficient data to give an estimate. Now, -1
will also be returned when there is no fee or priority high enough for the
desired confirmation target. In those cases, it can help to ask for an estimate
for a higher target number of blocks. It is not uncommon for there to be no
fee or priority high enough to be reliably (85%) included in the next block and
for this reason, the default for -txconfirmtarget=n
has changed from 1 to 2.
Privacy: Disable wallet transaction broadcast
This release adds an option -walletbroadcast=0
to prevent automatic
transaction broadcast and rebroadcast (#5951). This option allows separating
transaction submission from the node functionality.
Making use of this, third-party scripts can be written to take care of transaction (re)broadcast:
- Send the transaction as normal, either through RPC or the GUI
- Retrieve the transaction data through RPC using
gettransaction
(NOTgetrawtransaction
). Thehex
field of the result will contain the raw hexadecimal representation of the transaction - The transaction can then be broadcasted through arbitrary mechanisms supported by the script
One such application is selective Tor usage, where the node runs on the normal internet but transactions are broadcasted over Tor.
For an example script see bitcoin-submittx.
Privacy: Stream isolation for Tor
This release adds functionality to create a new circuit for every peer
connection, when the software is used with Tor. The new option,
-proxyrandomize
, is on by default.
When enabled, every outgoing connection will (potentially) go through a different exit node. That significantly reduces the chance to get unlucky and pick a single exit node that is either malicious, or widely banned from the P2P network. This improves connection reliability as well as privacy, especially for the initial connections.
Important note: If a non-Tor SOCKS5 proxy is configured that supports
authentication, but doesn’t require it, this change may cause that proxy to reject
connections. A user and password is sent where they weren’t before. This setup
is exceedingly rare, but in this case -proxyrandomize=0
can be passed to
disable the behavior.
0.11.0 Change log
Detailed release notes follow. This overview includes changes that affect behavior, not code moves, refactors and string updates. For convenience in locating the code changes and accompanying discussion, both the pull request and git merge commit are mentioned.
RPC and REST
- #5461
5f7279a
signrawtransaction: validate private key - #5444
103f66b
Add/rest/headers/<count>/<hash>.<ext>
- #4964
95ecc0a
Add scriptPubKey field to validateaddress RPC call - #5476
c986972
Add time offset into getpeerinfo output - #5540
84eba47
Add unconfirmed and immature balances to getwalletinfo - #5599
40e96a3
Get rid of the internal miner’s hashmeter - #5711
87ecfb0
Push down RPC locks - #5754
1c4e3f9
fix getblocktemplate lock issue - #5756
5d901d8
Fix getblocktemplate_proposals test by mining one block - #5548
d48ce48
Add /rest/chaininfos - #5992
4c4f1b4
Push down RPC reqWallet flag - #6036
585b5db
Show zero value txouts in listunspent - #5199
6364408
Add RPC callgettxoutproof
to generate and verify merkle blocks - #5418
16341cc
Report missing inputs in sendrawtransaction - #5937
40f5e8d
show script verification errors in signrawtransaction result - #5420
1fd2d39
getutxos REST command (based on Bip64) - #6193
42746b0
[REST] remove json input for getutxos, limit to query max. 15 outpoints - #6226
5901596
json: fail read_string if string contains trailing garbage
Configuration and command-line options
- #5636
a353ad4
Add option-allowselfsignedrootcertificate
to allow self signed root certs (for testing payment requests) - #5900
3e8a1f2
Add a consistency check-checkblockindex
for the block chain data structures - #5951
7efc9cf
Make it possible to disable wallet transaction broadcast (using-walletbroadcast=0
) - #5911
b6ea3bc
privacy: Stream isolation for Tor (on by default, use-proxyrandomize=0
to disable) - #5863
c271304
Add autoprune functionality (-prune=<size>
) - #6153
0bcf04f
Parameter interaction: disable upnp if -proxy set - #6274
4d9c7fe
Add option-alerts
to opt out of alert system
Block and transaction handling
- #5367
dcc1304
Do all block index writes in a batch - #5253
203632d
Check against MANDATORY flags prior to accepting to mempool - #5459
4406c3e
Reject headers that build on an invalid parent - #5481
055f3ae
Apply AreSane() checks to the fees from the network - #5580
40d65eb
Preemptively catch a few potential bugs - #5349
f55c5e9
Implement test for merkle tree malleability in CPartialMerkleTree - #5564
a89b837
clarify obscure uses of EvalScript() - #5521
8e4578a
Reject non-final txs even in testnet/regtest - #5707
6af674e
Change hardcoded character constants to descriptive named constants for db keys - #5286
fcf646c
Change the default maximum OP_RETURN size to 80 bytes - #5710
175d86e
Add more information to errors in ReadBlockFromDisk - #5948
b36f1ce
Use GetAncestor to compute new target - #5959
a0bfc69
Add additional block index consistency checks - #6058
7e0e7f8
autoprune minor post-merge improvements - #5159
2cc1372
New fee estimation code - #6102
6fb90d8
Implement accurate UTXO cache size accounting - #6129
2a82298
Bug fix for clearing fCheckForPruning - #5947
e9af4e6
Alert if it is very likely we are getting a bad chain - #6203
c00ae64
Remove P2SH coinbase flag, no longer interesting - #5985
37b4e42
Fix removing of orphan transactions - #6221
6cb70ca
Prune: Support noncontiguous block files - #6256
fce474c
Use best header chain timestamps to detect partitioning - #6233
a587606
Advance pindexLastCommonBlock for blocks in chainActive
P2P protocol and network code
- #5507
844ace9
Prevent DOS attacks on in-flight data structures - #5770
32a8b6a
Sanitize command strings before logging them - #5859
dd4ffce
Add correct bool combiner for net signals - #5876
8e4fd0c
Add a NODE_GETUTXO service bit and document NODE_NETWORK - #6028
b9311fb
Move nLastTry from CAddress to CAddrInfo - #5662
5048465
Change download logic to allow calling getdata on inbound peers - #5971
18d2832
replace absolute sleep with conditional wait - #5918
7bf5d5e
Use equivalent PoW for non-main-chain requests - #6059
f026ab6
chainparams: use SeedSpec6’s rather than CAddress’s for fixed seeds - #6080
31c0bf1
Add jonasschnellis dns seeder - #5976
9f7809f
Reduce download timeouts as blocks arrive - #6172
b4bbad1
Ignore getheaders requests when not synced - #5875
304892f
Be stricter in processing unrequested blocks - #6333
41bbc85
Hardcoded seeds update June 2015
Validation
Build system
- #5501
c76c9d2
Add mips, mipsel and aarch64 to depends platforms - #5334
cf87536
libbitcoinconsensus: Add pkg-config support - #5514
ed11d53
Fix ‘make distcheck’ - #5505
a99ef7d
Build winshutdownmonitor.cpp on Windows only - #5582
e8a6639
Osx toolchain update - #5684
ab64022
osx: bump build sdk to 10.9 - #5695
23ef5b7
depends: latest config.guess and config.sub - #5509
31dedb4
Fixes when compiling in c++11 mode - #5819
f8e68f7
release: use static libstdc++ and disable reduced exports by default - #5510
7c3fbc3
Big endian support - #5149
c7abfa5
Add script to verify all merge commits are signed - #6082
7abbb7e
qt: disable qt tests when one of the checks for the gui fails - #6244
0401aa2
configure: Detect (and reject) LibreSSL - #6269
95aca44
gitian: Use the new bitcoin-detached-sigs git repo for OSX signatures - #6285
ef1d506
Fix scheduler build with some boost versions. - #6280
25c2216
depends: fix Boost 1.55 build on GCC 5 - #6303
b711599
gitian: add a gitian-win-signer descriptor - #6246
8ea6d37
Fix build on FreeBSD - #6282
daf956b
fix crash on shutdown when e.g. changing -txindex and abort action - #6354
bdf0d94
Gitian windows signing normalization
Wallet
- #2340
811c71d
Discourage fee sniping with nLockTime - #5485
d01bcc4
Enforce minRelayTxFee on wallet created tx and add a maxtxfee option - #5508
9a5cabf
Add RandAddSeedPerfmon to MakeNewKey - #4805
8204e19
Do not flush the wallet in AddToWalletIfInvolvingMe(..) - #5319
93b7544
Clean up wallet encryption code - #5831
df5c246
Subtract fee from amount - #6076
6c97fd1
wallet: fix boost::get usage with boost 1.58 - #5511
23c998d
Sort pending wallet transactions before reaccepting - #6126
26e08a1
Change default nTxConfirmTarget to 2 - #6183
75a4d51
Fix off-by-one error w/ nLockTime in the wallet - #6276
c9fd907
Fix getbalance * 0
GUI
- #5219
f3af0c8
New icons - #5228
bb3c75b
HiDPI (retina) support for splash screen - #5258
73cbf0a
The RPC Console should be a QWidget to make window more independent - #5488
851dfc7
Light blue icon color for regtest - #5547
a39aa74
New icon for the debug window - #5493
e515309
Adopt style colour for button icons - #5557
70477a0
On close of splashscreen interrupt verifyDB - #5559
83be8fd
Make the command-line-args dialog better - #5144
c5380a9
Elaborate on signverify message dialog warning - #5489
d1aa3c6
Optimize PNG files - #5649
e0cd2f5
Use text-color icons for system tray Send/Receive menu entries - #5651
848f55d
Coin Control: Use U+2248 “ALMOST EQUAL TO” rather than a simple tilde - #5626
ab0d798
Fix icon sizes and column width - #5683
c7b22aa
add new osx dmg background picture - #5620
7823598
Payment request expiration bug fix - #5729
9c4a5a5
Allow unit changes for read-only BitcoinAmountField - #5753
0f44672
Add bitcoin logo to about screen - #5629
a956586
Prevent amount overflow problem with payment requests - #5830
215475a
Don’t save geometry for options and about/help window - #5793
d26f0b2
Honor current network when creating autostart link - #5847
f238add
Startup script for centos, with documentation - #5915
5bd3a92
Fix a static qt5 crash when using certain versions of libxcb - #5898
bb56781
Fix rpc console font size to flexible metrics - #5467
bc8535b
Payment request / server work - part 2 - #6161
180c164
Remove movable option for toolbar - #6160
0d862c2
Overviewpage: make sure warning icons gets colored
Tests
- #5453
2f2d337
Add ability to run single test manually to RPC tests - #5421
886eb57
Test unexecuted OP_CODESEPARATOR - #5530
565b300
Additional rpc tests - #5611
37b185c
Fix spurious windows test failures after 012598880c - #5613
2eda47b
Fix smartfees test for change to relay policy - #5612
e3f5727
Fix zapwallettxes test - #5642
30a5b5f
Prepare paymentservertests for new unit tests - #5784
e3a3cd7
Fix usage of NegateSignatureS in script_tests - #5813
ee9f2bf
Add unit tests for next difficulty calculations - #5855
d7989c0
Travis: run unit tests in different orders - #5852
cdae53e
Reinitialize state in between individual unit tests. - #5883
164d7b6
tests: add a BasicTestingSetup and apply to all tests - #5940
446bb70
Regression test for ResendWalletTransactions - #6052
cf7adad
fix and enable bip32 unit test - #6039
734f80a
tests: Error when setgenerate is used on regtest - #6074
948beaf
Correct the PUSHDATA4 minimal encoding test in script_invalid.json - #6032
e08886d
Stop nodes after RPC tests, even with –nocleanup - #6075
df1609f
Add additional script edge condition tests - #5981
da38dc6
Python P2P testing - #5958
9ef00c3
Add multisig rpc tests - #6112
fec5c0e
Add more script edge condition tests
Miscellaneous
- #5457, #5506, #5952, #6047 Update libsecp256k1
- #5437
84857e8
Add missing CAutoFile::IsNull() check in main - #5490
ec20fd7
Replace uint256/uint160 with opaque blobs where possible - #5654, #5764 Adding jonasschnelli’s GPG key
- #5477
5f04d1d
OS X 10.10: LSSharedFileListItemResolve() is deprecated - #5679
beff11a
Get rid of DetectShutdownThread - #5787
9bd8c9b
Add fanquake PGP key - #5366
47a79bb
No longer check osx compatibility in RenameThread - #5689
07f4386
openssl: abstract out OPENSSL_cleanse - #5708
8b298ca
Add list of implemented BIPs - #5809
46bfbe7
Add bitcoin-cli man page - #5839
86eb461
keys: remove libsecp256k1 verification until it’s actually supported - #5749
d734d87
Help messages correctly formatted (79 chars) - #5884
7077fe6
BUGFIX: Stack around the variable ‘rv’ was corrupted - #5849
41259ca
contrib/init/bitcoind.openrc: Compatibility with previous OpenRC init script variables - #5950
41113e3
Fix locale fallback and guard tests against invalid locale settings - #5965
7c6bfb1
Add git-subtree-check.sh script - #6033
1623f6e
FreeBSD, OpenBSD thread renaming - #6064
b46e7c2
Several changes to mruset - #6104
3e2559c
Show an init message while activating best chain - #6125
351f73e
Clean up parsing of bool command line args - #5964
b4c219b
Lightweight task scheduler - #6116
30dc3c1
[OSX] rename Bitcoin-Qt.app to Bitcoin-Core.app - #6168
b3024f0
contrib/linearize: Support linearization of testnet blocks - #6098
7708fcd
Update Windows resource files (and add one for bitcoin-tx) - #6159
e1412d3
Catch errors on datadir lock and pidfile delete - #6186
182686c
Fix two problems in CSubnet parsing - #6174
df992b9
doc: add translation strings policy - #6210
dfdb6dd
build: disable optional use of gmp in internal secp256k1 build - #6264
94cd705
Remove translation for -help-debug options - #6286
3902c15
Remove berkeley-db4 workaround in MacOSX build docs - #6319
3f8fcc9
doc: update mailing list address
Credits
Thanks to everyone who directly contributed to this release:
- 21E14
- Adam Weiss
- Alex Morcos
- ayeowch
- azeteki
- Ben Holden-Crowther
- bikinibabe
- BitcoinPRReadingGroup
- Blake Jakopovic
- BtcDrak
- charlescharles
- Chris Arnesen
- Ciemon
- CohibAA
- Corinne Dashjr
- Cory Fields
- Cozz Lovan
- Daira Hopwood
- Daniel Kraft
- Dave Collins
- David A. Harding
- dexX7
- Earlz
- Eric Lombrozo
- Eric R. Schulz
- Everett Forth
- Flavien Charlon
- fsb4000
- Gavin Andresen
- Gregory Maxwell
- Heath
- Ivan Pustogarov
- Jacob Welsh
- Jameson Lopp
- Jason Lewicki
- Jeff Garzik
- Jonas Schnelli
- Jonathan Brown
- Jorge Timón
- joshr
- jtimon
- Julian Yap
- Luca Venturini
- Luke Dashjr
- Manuel Araoz
- MarcoFalke
- Matt Bogosian
- Matt Corallo
- Micha
- Michael Ford
- Mike Hearn
- mrbandrews
- Nicolas Benoit
- paveljanik
- Pavel Janík
- Pavel Vasin
- Peter Todd
- Philip Kaufmann
- Pieter Wuille
- pstratem
- randy-waterhouse
- rion
- Rob Van Mieghem
- Ross Nicoll
- Ruben de Vries
- sandakersmann
- Shaul Kfir
- Shawn Wilkinson
- sinetek
- Suhas Daftuar
- svost
- Thomas Zander
- Tom Harding
- UdjinM6
- Vitalii Demianets
- Wladimir J. van der Laan
And all those who contributed additional code review and/or security research:
- Sergio Demian Lerner
As well as everyone that helped translating on Transifex.