These are a simple set of utilities for working with the bitcoin network/protocol. Together you can use them as a 'flyweight' client. I like small sets of inter-working programs because it is the UNIX philosophy about building small bricks which you can piece together to create a set of highly configurable inter-locking mechanism of programs and daemons.
This is a proof of concept built off of the work-in-progress
libbitcoin.
Subvertx is a suite of 4 tools:
- poller, downloads the blockchain from a bitcoind into a PostgreSQL database.
- balance, queries the PostgreSQL database downloaded with poller to find the balance of a bitcoin address.
- priv, create a new private key, sign data, verify data or show the bitcoin address of that key.
- mktx, connects to a bitcoind and sends some money from an output to a new address. You can use this in conjunction with a site like blockexplorer.com as a tool to make transactions very simply. Or even make offline transactions or use it like a super lightweight client that can run on embedded devices.
- txrad, like the website
http://www.transactionradar.com/. It connects to 100 random nodes and then monitors for transaction messages. Simply run txrad.
Show help:
genjix@random:~/subvertx$ priv
Usage: priv [COMMAND] [ARGS]...
The priv commands are:
new Generate a new private key and output to STDOUT
sign Sign the next argument using the private key in STDIN
verify Verify the next argument using the private key in STDIN
address show the associated bitcoin address
genjix@random:~/subvertx$ mktx
Usage: mktx COMMAND [ARGS]...
Commands:
create Create a new transaction and output the binary data
send Send a transaction to the network, reading from STDIN
Options:
-p, --previous-output Previous output in the form NAME@OUT:INDEX
-k, --keypair Load a keypair with an identifier NAME@FILE
A single dash - for FILE will load from STDIN
-r, --recipient Specify a destination ADDRESS:AMOUNT
AMOUNT uses internal bitcoin values
0.1 BTC = 0.1 * 10^8 = 1000000
-H, --host Host of bitcoin node
-P, --port Port for bitcoin node
-h, --help This help text
Please email suggestions and questions to <genjix@riseup.net>.
Make a new private key, sign and verify a transaction hash:
genjix@random:~/subvertx$ priv new > /tmp/private_key
genjix@random:~/subvertx$ priv sign f5cffc95a4a83c23cb9f666c7cf552f27d9845778bb09a98d5169c461483ba41 < /tmp/private_key > signed_data
genjix@random:~/subvertx$ priv verify f5cffc95a4a83c23cb9f666c7cf552f27d9845778bb09a98d5169c461483ba41 "`cat signed_data`" < /tmp/private_key
1
Show your bitcoin address:
genjix@random:~/subvertx$ priv address < /tmp/private_key
14DDgj2r8WQEwfTDEjJFBn3wRnHmXzgB3z
This is done in 2 steps: creating the transaction, then piping it to send the transaction somewhere. Pipes allow you to do really clever things like send to multiple nodes, send it over a network file share, buffer it to send later (like on USB stick with a different machine that doesn't have your private key).
$ mktx
Usage: mktx COMMAND [ARGS]...
Commands:
create Create a new transaction and output the binary data
send Send a transaction to the network, reading from STDIN
Options:
-p, --previous-output Previous output in the form NAME@OUT:INDEX
-k, --keypair Load a keypair with an identifier NAME@FILE
A single dash - for FILE will load from STDIN
-r, --recipient Specify a destination ADDRESS:AMOUNT
AMOUNT uses internal bitcoin values
0.1 BTC = 0.1 * 10^8 = 1000000
-H, --host Host of bitcoin node
-P, --port Port for bitcoin node
-h, --help This help text
Please email suggestions and questions to <genjix@riseup.net>.
There are 2 commands there. The 'create' actually constructs the transaction and then dumps its binary network format to STDOUT. 'send' reads from STDIN and sends it to the network. By default it sends to localhost:8333, but you can change it using the --host and --port options.
A transaction consists of inputs. You can use
blockexplorer to look them up. Here are some examples.
1. We want to send from transaction
c524c555aad1932c24c26ec20439a9caefc49f7c0df6d6bccced890ef980b45c's 0th output (which was sent to an address we own) to 2 addresses: 0.02 BTC to 12oabCifvHuxzXtYVGhkxVfWZDvKcU743s and 0.58 BTC to 14DDgj2r8WQEwfTDEjJFBn3wRnHmXzgB3z
There is 1 previous output:
00535291532821f2e4879cf670f61396be32b9579400ae1119497f36f268eb40:1
There are 2 recipients:
12oabCifvHuxzXtYVGhkxVfWZDvKcU743s:2000000
14DDgj2r8WQEwfTDEjJFBn3wRnHmXzgB3z:58000000
Note that we use internal BTC amounts (decimal value * 10^8 - see help text).
Now to spend that output, it has to have been sent to an address you own, hopefully generated using the priv tool earlier
$ mktx create -p priv@c524c555aad1932c24c26ec20439a9caefc49f7c0df6d6bccced890ef980b45c:0 -k priv@keys/privkey -r 12oabCifvHuxzXtYVGhkxVfWZDvKcU743s:2000000 -r 14DDgj2r8WQEwfTDEjJFBn3wRnHmXzgB3z:58000000
... funny binary output here ...
If we wish to store that output we can use a redirection > to save it. Maybe store it on your USB and take it to another computer. Or we can pipe it straight to the send command.
$ mktx create -p priv@c524c555aad1932c24c26ec20439a9caefc49f7c0df6d6bccced890ef980b45c:0 -k priv@keys/privkey -r 12oabCifvHuxzXtYVGhkxVfWZDvKcU743s:2000000 -r 14DDgj2r8WQEwfTDEjJFBn3wRnHmXzgB3z:58000000 | mktx send
1 peers connected.
s: version (85 bytes)
r: version (85 bytes)
s: verack (0 bytes)
r: verack (0 bytes)
Connected
s: tx (258 bytes)
c5 3e a3 b4 d4 4c cf 67 31 73 17 b2 bd 8d 0a 99 46 d8 2d 67 6c 02 d0 d1 13 2b 11 8f 95 d0 7f 57
The hash at the end is your transaction hash. If you do: tail -f .bitcoin/debug.log, or you look it up on bitcoincharts.com/bitcoin you will see that hash without the spaces (i.e CTRL-F for c53ea3 to see your transaction).
If you noticed, I loaded several private keys there using -k (or --keypair) KEYPAIR-NAME@FILENAME. You then reference which keypair belongs to which input this way.
2. Sending from
three,
different outputs to 14DDgj2r8WQEwfTDEjJFBn3wRnHmXzgB3z.
Previous outputs:
00535291532821f2e4879cf670f61396be32b9579400ae1119497f36f268eb40:1
637f001eb4cbe165946c02a56bcb73822610f5886516169f98da6252266b7d8a:1
85b423b9c8c5c5277575b87d94dbcd4f87c1be578756eff6a9fde8b7d55749fb:1
All the outputs (in this case) use a different private key: ./keys/foo, ./keys/bar and ./keys/abc.
We can load the keys and name them (to have a way to refer to them) using:
-k foo@keys/foo
-k bar@keys/bar
-k abc@keys/abc
And then indicate to mktx which key belongs with which inputs from above:
foo@00535291532821f2e4879cf670f61396be32b9579400ae1119497f36f268eb40:1
bar@637f001eb4cbe165946c02a56bcb73822610f5886516169f98da6252266b7d8a:1
abc@85b423b9c8c5c5277575b87d94dbcd4f87c1be578756eff6a9fde8b7d55749fb:1
1 recipient:
14DDgj2r8WQEwfTDEjJFBn3wRnHmXzgB3z:60000000
$ mktx create -p foo@00535291532821f2e4879cf670f61396be32b9579400ae1119497f36f268eb40:1 -p bar@637f001eb4cbe165946c02a56bcb73822610f5886516169f98da6252266b7d8a:1 -p abc@85b423b9c8c5c5277575b87d94dbcd4f87c1be578756eff6a9fde8b7d55749fb:1 -k foo@keys/foo -k bar@keys/bar -k abc@keys/abc -r 14DDgj2r8WQEwfTDEjJFBn3wRnHmXzgB3z:60000000 | mktx send
1 peers connected.
s: version (85 bytes)
r: version (85 bytes)
s: verack (0 bytes)
r: verack (0 bytes)
Connected
s: tx (581 bytes)
c5 24 c5 55 aa d1 93 2c 24 c2 6e c2 04 39 a9 ca ef c4 9f 7c 0d f6 d6 bc cc ed 89 0e f9 80 b4 5c
To use the poller you first need to import the schema which can be found in /usr/share/libbitcoin/bitcoin.sql (a pre-downloaded blockchain is
here).
# do all the postgres stuff to make a new database
$ sudo su postgres
# createuser genjix
...
# psql
> CREATE DATABASE bitcoin;
> quit
# exit
$ psql bitcoin < /usr/share/libbitcoin/bitcoin.sql
# it is a good idea to run this in screen
$ screen -S poller
$ poller bitcoin genjix psqlpassword localhost
... starts downloading the blockchain into postgresql
# now close the terminal. You can re-open the terminal with screen -x poller
Poller is doing full blockchain validation. It will take a long time since it's an SQL database and it's validating all the blocks.
Balance needs the full blockchain otherwise you might not get an up-to-date balance reported back. It's fairly simple to use:
$ balance postgresql:database:username:password 1jkjsjkdskjb2kkjbkjdsk
The PPA can be viewed on
launchpad.
Add these 2 lines to the end of your /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/genjix/libbitcoin/ubuntu oneiric main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/genjix/libbitcoin/ubuntu oneiric main
$ wget -q "http://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x3D1978972EC26E7B" -O- | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install subvertx
This PPA also has a package for libbitcoin-dev although the API is undocumented at the moment.
Gentoo ebuildKamil Domański has made a gentoo ebuild.
layman -a bitcoin
emerge subvertx
Source code for the non-Ubuntu paupers:
https://gitorious.org/libbitcoin/libbitcoinhttps://gitorious.org/libbitcoin/subvertxYou will need:
- g++ 4.6
- cppdb
- boost
- libpq-dev
- postgresql
Build cppdb using the instructions on their site.
$ svn co
http://cppcms.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/cppcms/cppdb/trunk cppdb-trunk
$ cd cppdb-trunk
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
You can use -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX if you wish to install to a non-standard place such as a local directory.
$ cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/tmp/cppdb/ .. -DPQ_BACKEND_INTERNAL=1
$ make
# make install
Clone repo and build.
$ git clone git://gitorious.org/libbitcoin/libbitcoin.git
$ cd libbitcoin
$ autoreconf -i
$ ./configure
$ make
# make install
Don't forget to initialise and create a database (see first post above for more details how).
$ psql bitcoin < bitcoin.sql
Same for the subvertx suite
$ git clone git://gitorious.org/libbitcoin/subvertx.git
$ cd subvertx
$ autoreconf -i
$ ./configure
$ make
# make install
I can't stress enough for people to use this at their own peril as it's alpha software.
Thanks goes to,
Kamil Domański (kdomanski)
Jan Engelhardt (se7) <
jengelh@medozas.de>
Patrick Strateman (phantomcircuit)
Denis Roio (jaromil)
Amir Taaki (genjix) <
genjix@riseup.net>
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I started out similar to you with Britcoin, but have learnt along the way a lot about the law and how finance works. Trust me, you aren't covered by the law and there's serious potential for trouble if you're not careful.
