Devcoin

[jasinlee]

Did you get the node info you needed out of that earlier markm?

[markm]

I do not know what exactly a DNS seed is, what exactly it is that I have to set up at the DNS-provider, in the zone-records of the domains I want to put DNS seeds into.

Once I have all those set up I can look into putting them into the code if our old caode even has DNS seed support in it.

(If it doesn't I can just find IP addresses to put into the last resort IP addresses list that is in the code.)

-MarkM-

[jasinlee]

I do not know what exactly a DNS seed is, what exactly it is that I have to set up at the DNS-provider, in the zone-records of the domains I want to put DNS seeds into.

Once I have all those set up I can look into putting them into the code if our old caode even has DNS seed support in it.

(If it doesn't I can just find IP addresses to put into the last resort IP addresses list that is in the code.)

-MarkM-

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Network

Bootstrapping

You choose which peers to connect to by sorting your address database by the time since you last saw the address and then adding a bit of randomization.

Bitcoin has three methods of finding peers.

Addr
The addr messages described above create an effect similar to the IRC bootstrapping method. You know reasonably quickly whenever a peer joins, though you won't know for a while when they leave.
Bitcoin comes with a list of addresses known as "seed nodes". If you are unable to connect to IRC and you've never connected to the network before, the client will update the address database by connecting to one of the nodes from this list.
The -addnode command line option can be used to manually add a node. The -connect option can force bitcoin to connect only to a specific node.

DNS
Bitcoin looks up the IP Addresses of several host names and adds those to the list of potential addresses. This is the default seeding mechanism, as of v0.6.x and later.

IRC
As-of version 0.6.x of the Bitcoin client, IRC bootstrapping is no longer enabled by default. The information below is accurate for most versions prior.

Bitcoin joins a random channel between #bitcoin00 and #bitcoin99 on irc.lfnet.org. Your nick is set to an encoded form of your IP address. By decoding all the nicks of all users on the channel, you get a list of all IP addresses currently connected to Bitcoin.
For hosts that cannot make outbound connections on port 6667, the lfnet servers are also listening on port 7777.

Now imagine all the words bitcoin, say devcoin

[laSeek]

I do not know what exactly a DNS seed is, what exactly it is that I have to set up at the DNS-provider, in the zone-records of the domains I want to put DNS seeds into.

Once I have all those set up I can look into putting them into the code if our old caode even has DNS seed support in it.

(If it doesn't I can just find IP addresses to put into the last resort IP addresses list that is in the code.)

-MarkM-

You control the zone - so assuming you use a secure approach to management - then lookups will be under your control and done in a responsible way.
I think the terminology has been confused a bit.  The nodes, from what I understand are just full time nodes running on a server with a fast connect and configured to allow a high number of connections to help bootstrap other nodes - ala seed nodes.

You can use DNS round-robin to make config easier for people.  They can just point to a single name - and DNS is setup to round-robin or to use an algo to distribute traffic over the set of DNS records - distributing the traffic a bit.

As IPV6 isn't enabled in dvc (from what saw after a quick lookup) you can't use anything smart with srv records.

With geoDNS for ipv6 or normal IP - you can config things a little smarter as many of the geoIP setups allow you to group a set of DNS records per geo zone.
This would allow EU users to lookup a DNS entry - and get back a subset of the records - so they have a faster bootstrap time than connecting all over the globe when bootstrapping the blockchain.

[markm]

Oh, I thought DNS seed was something along the lines of consult a main key domain such as for us devcoin.org or devcoin.com or devcoin.net and fine in its DNS somehow a whole list of IP addresses of nodes various people all over the net on gosh knows what domains of their own are running 24/7 as seed nodes.

So I was envisioning sometihng like maybe look up nodeip###.devcoin.com for values of ### starting at 001 and continuing until you reach one that does not exist, and each one will tell you the IP address of a different node somewhere out on the net.

I guess I will have to look at the code, if our old code even has DNS seeds in it, and based on what I see there look into setting up a bunch of DNS seeds on devcoin.org and devtome.org or whichever devsomething domains it is that I control, then plug into the hostnames used for that the IP addresses of some nodes that people are committing to run 24/7.

Or is that even what it means?

Maybe it isn't really some special tricky use of DNS at all, maybe all they really mean is that if you have the ability to look up names to resolve IP addresses, then you can name nodes in the code instead of having to put their IP addresses?

I am a little wary of doing DNS lookups because I0coin crashes regularly due to trying to look up an IP address, it seems it might be trying to do some kind of lookup by name of some node it somehow heard about, but the boost library crashes when the lookup fails.

It would be nice to know why only I0coin keeps crashing that way so as to avoid our adding of some need to look up names to other coins causing those other coins to start regularly dying like I0coin regularly does.

-MarkM-

[laSeek]

Oh, I thought DNS seed was something along the lines of consult a main key domain such as for us devcoin.org or devcoin.com or devcoin.net and fine in its DNS somehow a whole list of IP addresses of nodes various people all over the net on gosh knows what domains of their own are running 24/7 as seed nodes.

With Round Robin DNS you can do that - but with ipv4 it's manual - so you create A records for node.devcoin.org for each IP. 
ipv6 allows more of a dyamic lookup allowing more of dynamic approach - take a look at the srv records here - http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/dnsrecords.htm

Maybe it isn't really some special tricky use of DNS at all, maybe all they really mean is that if you have the ability to look up names to resolve IP addresses, then you can name nodes in the code instead of having to put their IP addresses?

Aye - you can plug in host-names instead of the ip addresses - giving you a little more flexibility with moving nodes about.
The lvl of security is about the same - although I'd suggest adding extra logging for the name -> IP lookup - so you can debug issues should they arise later.
Risks..
About the same as now - to subvert you'd have to add a hosts entry - rather than currently (with ip) you'd have to add a route.

Resolving a dns name to an IP shouldn't cause a crash if you properly wrap the call.
Robust coding.. is robust

[Icoin]

Here is the really cool part, you can use bitcoin offline wallets for devcoin. They use the same addresses/private keys. So you can send dvc to a btc address. Then recover them with the private key of that wallet on a devcoin client later.

Attention, this function does not work properly, when you try to import a private key to devcoind from bitcoind you end up with an import error!

[markm]

Use pywallet.py

See https://www.google.ca/search?q=pywallet.py&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a

The old code used by devcoin did not have an import command.

-MarkM-

[K1773R]

Use pywallet.py

See https://www.google.ca/search?q=pywallet.py&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a

The old code used by devcoin did not have an import command.

-MarkM-

why not linking it directly?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34028.0

[emfox]

Use pywallet.py

See https://www.google.ca/search?q=pywallet.py&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a

The old code used by devcoin did not have an import command.

-MarkM-

Any plan on updating devcoin code to bitcoin 0.8.1 ?

I'm in fact struggling with electrum and try to set up an online wallet for devcoin, but the devcoin code is so old that electrum's patch for bitcoin doesn't work

[twobits]

I do not know what exactly a DNS seed is, what exactly it is that I have to set up at the DNS-provider, in the zone-records of the domains I want to put DNS seeds into.

Once I have all those set up I can look into putting them into the code if our old caode even has DNS seed support in it.

(If it doesn't I can just find IP addresses to put into the last resort IP addresses list that is in the code.)

-MarkM-

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Network

Bootstrapping

You choose which peers to connect to by sorting your address database by the time since you last saw the address and then adding a bit of randomization.

Bitcoin has three methods of finding peers.

Addr
The addr messages described above create an effect similar to the IRC bootstrapping method. You know reasonably quickly whenever a peer joins, though you won't know for a while when they leave.
Bitcoin comes with a list of addresses known as "seed nodes". If you are unable to connect to IRC and you've never connected to the network before, the client will update the address database by connecting to one of the nodes from this list.
The -addnode command line option can be used to manually add a node. The -connect option can force bitcoin to connect only to a specific node.

DNS
Bitcoin looks up the IP Addresses of several host names and adds those to the list of potential addresses. This is the default seeding mechanism, as of v0.6.x and later.

IRC
As-of version 0.6.x of the Bitcoin client, IRC bootstrapping is no longer enabled by default. The information below is accurate for most versions prior.

Bitcoin joins a random channel between #bitcoin00 and #bitcoin99 on irc.lfnet.org. Your nick is set to an encoded form of your IP address. By decoding all the nicks of all users on the channel, you get a list of all IP addresses currently connected to Bitcoin.
For hosts that cannot make outbound connections on port 6667, the lfnet servers are also listening on port 7777.

Now imagine all the words bitcoin, say devcoin

Except that  does not match the code.

Seed nodes are not round robin dns either btw.

There are two types of seed nodes, one of which must be a fixed ip address, which is what we can easily support in the code right now.  The other is a custom DDNS server (that is what the dns seeds code it meant to talk to, not round robin dns for a single node).

[twobits]

I do not know what exactly a DNS seed is, what exactly it is that I have to set up at the DNS-provider, in the zone-records of the domains I want to put DNS seeds into.

Once I have all those set up I can look into putting them into the code if our old caode even has DNS seed support in it.

(If it doesn't I can just find IP addresses to put into the last resort IP addresses list that is in the code.)

-MarkM-

The DNS seed is meant to talk to a custom DDNS server that keeps a list of active live seen nodes, and sends them on request to the clients, picking 10 or so to send.   It is meant to replace the IRC peer finding.   

I already have put in the two valid hard coded seeds posted here so far into the code I am doing... so you can just pick that up.  Now if we can only actually chat on irc sometime like I have been trying to for the past few days... seems we just dont keep the same schedule.

[markm]

So does this custom DDNS server exist at all? And if so is it free open source?

-MarkM-

[twobits]

Here is the really cool part, you can use bitcoin offline wallets for devcoin. They use the same addresses/private keys. So you can send dvc to a btc address. Then recover them with the private key of that wallet on a devcoin client later.

Attention, this function does not work properly, when you try to import a private key to devcoind from bitcoind you end up with an import error!

Could be because bitcoin now supports compressed keys by default and devcoin does not have support for them.

[twobits]

So does this custom DDNS server exist at all? And if so is it free open source?

-MarkM-

Yes it exits.   No idea about the code availability.. I dont think all of it is publicly available , at least it was not last I checked.  On the other hand, it would not be too hard to create,   just a matter of programming as they say.  Or in other words time.  Also if we do this, we should probably also stash the location of the hosts to find receiver files into it.

[jasinlee]

Here is the really cool part, you can use bitcoin offline wallets for devcoin. They use the same addresses/private keys. So you can send dvc to a btc address. Then recover them with the private key of that wallet on a devcoin client later.

Attention, this function does not work properly, when you try to import a private key to devcoind from bitcoind you end up with an import error!

Could be because bitcoin now supports compressed keys by default and devcoin does not have support for them.

We have a standing bounty to bring dvc to 0.8.1?

[markm]

Here is the really cool part, you can use bitcoin offline wallets for devcoin. They use the same addresses/private keys. So you can send dvc to a btc address. Then recover them with the private key of that wallet on a devcoin client later.

Attention, this function does not work properly, when you try to import a private key to devcoind from bitcoind you end up with an import error!

Could be because bitcoin now supports compressed keys by default and devcoin does not have support for them.

DeVCoin is such old code it has no import private keys function at all.

Use pywallet.py to dump private keys and create a new wallet containing those you want.

Private keys presumably do not care whether addresses are compressed or not, we are dealing with they keys not the addresses.

-MarkM-

[twobits]

Here is the really cool part, you can use bitcoin offline wallets for devcoin. They use the same addresses/private keys. So you can send dvc to a btc address. Then recover them with the private key of that wallet on a devcoin client later.

Attention, this function does not work properly, when you try to import a private key to devcoind from bitcoind you end up with an import error!

Could be because bitcoin now supports compressed keys by default and devcoin does not have support for them.

We have a standing bounty to bring dvc to 0.8.1?

god I hope not, if that is the plan tell me know so I stop wasting my time with the code.

[weisoq]

The typical bitcoin markets really mess up the idea of using a "unit of account" because they make the purported exchange rates be kind of mythical. That vis, you might look up on MtGox the exchange rate of bitcoins as, say $100 per bitcoin, but the way that market operates you cannot really very well conclude from that that the price of a thousand one-hundred-million-dollar mansions would be one billion bitcoins.

But, that is exactly the kind of thing you have to be able to do with a "unit of account".

So basically what happens in practice is someone ships close to five million units of Deuterium to a General Mining Corp depot, the amount of GMC currency their shipment is worth is looked up on the tables for that moment in time at http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/digitalisassets.html and then if their debt is not a debt to GMC and denominated in GMC those same tables are used to convert the GMC they earned for the shipment into whatever currency their debt is denominated, and GMC settles up, usually in some national currency or in GMC currency or even in GRF currency, with the creditor on behalf of the miner.

This would get royally mucked up though if for example GFC did suddenly start demanding actual DeVCoins instead of the equivalent value in any generally acceptable currency... But, that would kind of be a step backwards from being an actual currency useable as a unit of account, and being just some weird limited-edition commodity...

-MarkM-

Mark (or anyone else) could you explain this a little more in simple terms, terms for an idiot like me (or by all means give me a link to something)? I've had a read through devtome and this thread where but I don't understand the debt/gmc/martians references. Is it debt in dvc owed to or from devcoin developers, and in broad terms do I understand correctly that the number of dvc borrowed (owed) > those created to date and for some time to come, and that debt may be repaid in any currency? If so, obviously a matter of opinion and market forces but does this infer one big argument that the relative price of dvc (debateable whether vs usd, btc whatever) should be much higher than currently, if the net dvc number is much smaller than assumed and/or much of the future income streams are already assigned away from a tradable market place? Having some problems getting my head around it. Thanks

[markm]

Hmm its a whole universe out there so yeah that can get complicated.

General Financial Corp does most of the refinancing stuff, its thread is

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=61557.0

Various other corps also have threads:

General Development Corp: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=94785.0

General Retirement Corp: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=94788.0

General Holding Corp: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=112992.0

GRouPcorp: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101342.0

DeVCorp: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=61407.0

-MarkM-