Version 0.7.0 release candidate 1 ready for testing

[Gavin Andresen]

Bitcoin version 0.7.0 release candidate 1 binaries are now available for download at:
  http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.7.0/test/

Please use the issue tracker at https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues to report bugs.

Notable changes:

Security
--------
* Fixed denial-of-service attacks (disk and CPU exhaustion) related to the alert system

Qt GUI
------
* Add UI RPC console / debug window
* Re-Enable URI handling on Windows, add safety checks and tray-notifications
* Add 2 labels to the overviewpage that display Wallet and Transaction status (obsolete or current)
* Extend the optionsdialog (e.g. language selection) and re-work it to a tabbed UI
* Merge sign/verify message into a single window with tabbed UI
* Improve error reporting at startup
* Fine-grained UI updates for a much smoother UI during block downloads
* Reorganize tray icon menu into more logical order
* Persistently poll for balance change when number of blocks changed
* Much better translations
* Added 'immature balance' display on the overview page
* (Windows only): enable ASLR and DEP for bitcoin-qt.exe
* (Windows only): add meta-data to bitcoin-qt.exe (e.g. description)

Bitcoin Improvement Proposals implemented
-----------------------------------------
BIP 22 - 'getblocktemplate', 'submitblock' RPCs
BIP 34 - block height in coinbase
BIP 35- 'mempool' message, extended 'getdata' message behavior

Core bitcoin handling and blockchain database
---------------------------------------------
* Reduced CPU usage, by eliminating some redundant hash calculations
* Cache signature verifications, to eliminate redundant signature checks
* Transactions with zero-value outputs are considered non-standard
* Mining: when creating new blocks, sort 'paid' area by fee-per-kb
* Database: better validation of on-disk stored data
* Database: minor optimizations and reliability improvements
* -loadblock=FILE will import an external block file

JSON-RPC API
------------
* Internal HTTP server is now thread-per-connection, rather than
  a single-threaded queue that would stall on network I/O.
* Internal HTTP server supports HTTP/1.1, pipelined requests and
  connection keep-alive.
* Support JSON-RPC 2.0 batches, to encapsulate multiple JSON-RPC requests
  within a single HTTP request.
* IPv6 support
* Added raw transaction API.  See https://gist.github.com/2839617
* Added 'getrawmempool', to list contents of TX memory pool
* Added 'getpeerinfo', to list data about each connected network peer
* Added 'listaddressgroupings' for better coin control
* Rework gettransaction, getblock calls. 'gettransaction' responds for
  non-wallet TXs now.
* Remove deprecated RPC 'getblocknumber'
* New blockchain checkpoint at block 193,000
* listtransactions output now displays "smart" times for transactions,
  and 'blocktime' and 'timereceived' fields were added


P2P networking
--------------
* IPv6 support
* Tor hidden service support
* Attempts to fix "stuck blockchain download" problems
* Replace BDB database "addr.dat" with internally-managed "peers.dat"
  file containing peer address data.
* Lower default send buffer from 10MB to 1MB
* proxy: SOCKS5 by default
* Support connecting by hostnames passed to proxy (-proxydns)
* Add -seednode connections, and use this for -dnsseed + -proxydns
* Added -externalip and -discover
* Add -onlynet to connect only to a given network (IPv4, IPv6, or Tor)
* Separate listening sockets, -bind=<addr>


Internal codebase
-----------------
* Additional unit tests
* Compile warning fixes

Miscellaneous
-------------
* Reopen debug.log upon SIGHUP
* Bash programmable completion for bitcoind(1)
* On supported OS's, each thread is given a useful name

Thanks to everybody who contributed to this release:
=======================================

Chris Moore
Christian von Roques
David Joel Schwartz
Douglas Huff
Fordy
Gavin Andresen
Giel van Schijndel
Gregory Maxwell
Jeff Garzik
Luke Dashjr
Matt Corallo
Michael Ford
Michael Hendricks
Peter Todd
Philip Kaufmann
Pieter Wuille
R E Broadley
Ricardo M. Correia
Rune K. Svendsen
Scott Ellis
Stephane Glondu
Wladimir J. van der Laan
cardpuncher
coderrr
fanquake
grimd34th
sje397
xanatos

Thanks to Sergio Lerner for reporting denial-of-service vulnerabilities fixed in this release.

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[gmaxwell]

Bitcoin version 0.7.0 release candidate 1 binaries are now available for download at:

I'm so glad the RC is finally cut.  In my opinion, Bitcoin 0.7 is the most exciting release yet.  The new raw transactions API opens up an enormous number of possiblities, and the GUI  "console" makes those and many other advanced features accessible to a larger part of the Bitcoin userbase.

If anyone wants to play around with some fancy transactions on testnet3, let me know.  Joint input mixing transactions are especially fun.

Some extra stuff that makes me excited that didn't make it into Gavin's list:

* Addr.dat becomes peers.dat
-- this moves our peer database into a non-bdb file and eliminates the single most common source of database corruption I've seen reported, it also elimiates some confusing naming (A lot of people didn't like being told to delete their addr.dat— they thought it was their bicoin addresses!)

* loadblock command line parameter
-- Initially created for block loading benchmarking, this command lets you take a blockchain file and load it rapidly into bitcoin but without skipping any of the important security checks. It can be used to securely bootstrap a node from an untrusted blockchain download or be used to repair a node with corrupted indexes.

The "Tor hidden service support" bullet doesn't really do the new hidden service integration justice. It's really great. With this Bitcoin has a fighting chance of staying operable even in places where it's widely filtered, and people using tor with bitcoin are much less likely to accidentally leak identifying information.

If you're looking for some hidden service peers to use with the new Tor integration:  I have a node running at 6hgmaxwellgpv2oe.onion

One of the other things that went along with the raw transaction API is much better tools for inspecting and decoding transactions— and not just your own. From the console (GUI, CLI, or RPC) it's possible to do basically everything blockexplorer does— except look up by address; even for transactions that aren't in your wallet.

[Gyrsur]

let's celebrate!

[P_Shep]

Seems to be working OK.

[Buffer Overflow]

Oh dear, problem.

Code:

An error occurred while setting up the RPC port 8332 for listening: Cannot assign requested address

Error appears when starting up bitcoin client in qt mode & daemon, then exits. Works fine in 0.6.3.

Ubuntu 12.04 x86_64 Desktop Version.

[Diapolo]

Oh dear, problem.

Code:

An error occurred while setting up the RPC port 8332 for listening: Cannot assign requested address

Error appears when starting up bitcoin client in qt mode & daemon, then exits. Works fine in 0.6.3.

Ubuntu 12.04 x86_64 Desktop Version.

2 programs listening on the same port won't work, I'm surprised that worked with 0.6.3 or only difference there was, the error had not been reported ?

Dia

[grue]

loving the new debug window! just one thing, is there supposed be something here?

[Pieter Wuille]

Code:

An error occurred while setting up the RPC port 8332 for listening: Cannot assign requested address

That's normal if some other instance is already running which is listening on port 8332. Testnet+mainnet maybe? Or Bitcoind and Bitcoin-Qt? Or an old and a new version?

If neither of these is the case, please paste (the end of) your debug.log file somewhere.

[Diapolo]

loving the new debug window! just one thing, is there supposed be something here?

If you don't have any unconfirmed balance in your wallet the answer is NO.
Edit: Well it should read 0.00 BTC... more details please.

Dia

[grue]

loving the new debug window! just one thing, is there supposed be something here?

If you don't have any unconfirmed balance in your wallet the answer is NO.
Edit: Well it should read 0.00 BTC... more details please.

Dia

but the line spacing between "Unconfirmed" and "number of transactions" is bigger than normal.

[Carlton Banks]

Which version of Berkeley DB libraries is preferable? Qt Creator is telling me it doesn't have <db_cxx.h>

[drrussellshane]

Great!

Does this version have coin control?

[Carlton Banks]

For anyone else having problems like mine above: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/build-unix.txt

And it seems that Berkeley DB version 5.1 development library is what's required (and not 4.8 as in the above document, but the other dependencies listed are useful to getting the job done)

[jgarzik]

Which version of Berkeley DB libraries is preferable? Qt Creator is telling me it doesn't have <db_cxx.h>

Version 4.8 provides maximum file format compatibility, and is the recommended version.

More recent BDB versions work also.

[jgarzik]

Does this version have coin control?

The raw transaction API provides coin control, and is accessible via the GUI's RPC console.

There is no coin control dialog, if that was your question.

[jgarzik]

And it seems that Berkeley DB version 5.1 development library is what's required (and not 4.8 as in the above document, but the other dependencies listed are useful to getting the job done)

Version 4.8 is the recommended and upwards compatible version.  Version 4.8 is what the official binaries are built with.

However, your operating system may ship a more recent version by default.  Or sometimes data downloaded from third party websites (not recommended!) is built with another version of BDB.

[keystroke]

Very nice! Would be nice when the command line options are opened and "Show Details..." is clicked if that windows could be resized. Should something as small as this be filed as a feature request?

The synchronizing with network progress bar looks good now on Windows 8.

[Luke-Jr]

Does this version have coin control?

No, Coin Control was found to be poorly designed (how can you control specific outputs held by the same address?) and its maintainer disappeared. Parts of it (grouping logic) were merged into the new raw transaction RPC methods. At this point, getting Coin Control in probably means someone needs to step up to adapt it and clean it up to provide the same functionality as the raw transaction stuff.

[finway]

Updated translation, maybe it will be included in rc2 ?

[keystroke]

Does this version have coin control?

No, Coin Control was found to be poorly designed (how can you control specific outputs held by the same address?) and its maintainer disappeared. Parts of it (grouping logic) were merged into the new raw transaction RPC methods. At this point, getting Coin Control in probably means someone needs to step up to adapt it and clean it up to provide the same functionality as the raw transaction stuff.

Sad to say, looks like it was indeed abandoned: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/1359