Bitcoin Core Nightly Builds - Testers Needed

[wtogami]

Hi folks,

The Bitcoin Core developers have a desire to do a mostly bug-fix, cleanup and translation update release in v0.9.2 a few weeks from now.  You do not need to be a developer to help!  With these unofficial nightly builds, power users can more easily aid in testing of the master branch which will help to find bugs and polish things up faster.  Additionally translators can more easily run the latest code and see what strings need to be translated as we rapidly approach the next stable release.

WARNING: Nightly builds are potentially dangerous.  These builds are untested and may contain bugs.  While every effort is taken to maintain security of the build and web server, we are not responsible for anything that goes wrong.  It is up to the user to protect their own data, and to the community to use Gitian to independently make matching builds and to point out if something has gone horribly wrong.

Unofficial Nightly Builds
http://nightly.bitcoin.it
Builds will appear here roughly once a day.  Sometimes there will be no new build if nothing changed in master.
(This has nothing to do with the wiki.  They just provided a convenient subdomain and Cloudflare protection of the download server.)

Source and Binary Reproducibility
https://github.com/nightlybitcoin/bitcoin/branches
https://github.com/nightlybitcoin/bitcoin/releases
https://github.com/nightlybitcoin/gitian.sigs
All binary builds are byte-for-byte reproducible by using Gitian to build a particular tag in git.  For example, the 0.9.99.0-20140415-74dd52a branch denotes in a custom version tag v0.9.99.0-20140415-74dd52a with build date of 20140415 and the 74dd52a commit from master.  Sometimes the nightly build will contain PR's.  This particular tag includes PR 4042 and PR 4049 that are both important for the next release.

Bug Reporting
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues
If you run into any problem with these builds please search the Bitcoin Github issues to find if it is already a known problem.  If your issue is not yet reported, file a new ticket and explain the problem.  You should include the exact name of the build you are using (i.e. v0.9.99.0-20140415-74dd52a) so the developers know exactly what you are talking about.  It would be helpful if you include a link to the branch used to build it which can be obtained from the README-SOURCE within the Linux tarball or Windows download directory.  For example, a typical branch will look something like this.  Include that link in your issue ticket and it will save time of the developers.

TODO's ... any Volunteers?
* There are many things that can be done to improve these automated nightly builds.  One of the most important has to do with security of the binaries.  Since each build is byte-for-byte reproducible from each git tag with Gitian, it should be possible for two or more independent builders to validate the results in an automated fashion.  Anyone interested in doing this?

Builder Changelog
2014-05-21: MacOS X builds added.
2014-05-13: Separate builds for master and 0.9.2 branch.
2014-04-16: Add auto-commit to gitian.sigs.
2014-04-15: Add GPG signatures to git tag.
2014-04-15: Deployed.
2014-04-13: Implemented nightly auto builder.

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[LightRider]

Great, thanks!

[ganabb]

cool , Testing out now.

[Cyrus]

Great!

I already did some translating for Bitcoin Core(on transifex), hopefully completing it before 9.2 comes out.

[wtogami]

Translators: The latest nightly build v0.9.99.0-20140417-2f3308f contains the first translation update from Transifex in many weeks.  This would be a good opportunity to check the translations of Bitcoin Core running in your native language.  If you see strings are missing or incorrect, anyone can join Bitcoin localization at Transifex.

[wtogami]

Could folks please test UPNP with the nightly builds on both Linux and Windows?  It seems to inconsistently work for me depending on which wireless router is used.  Please report Windows or Linux and the model of your wireless router.

Code:

2014-04-19 07:51:32 upnp thread start
2014-04-19 07:51:40 No valid UPnP IGDs found
2014-04-19 07:51:40 upnp thread exit

[Matt Corallo]

There have been every-commit builds on Jenkins for like 3 years now....
http://jenkins.bluematt.me/job/Bitcoin/ws/
Same as per-pull builds on pull-tester, but thats another story...

[wtogami]

There have been every-commit builds on Jenkins for like 3 years now....
http://jenkins.bluematt.me/job/Bitcoin/ws/
Same as per-pull builds on pull-tester, but thats another story...

Are they deterministic and easy to reproduce from a tag?

[wumpus]

There have been every-commit builds on Jenkins for like 3 years now....
http://jenkins.bluematt.me/job/Bitcoin/ws/
Same as per-pull builds on pull-tester, but thats another story...

The build environment for those is currently broken: the windows executables don't work ever since hardening was enabled.

We should probably change the pull tester to build using gitian at some point. This has the advantage of using the same build environment as releases (so problems with that will come to light) as well as producing reproducible builds.

[Matt Corallo]

There have been every-commit builds on Jenkins for like 3 years now....
http://jenkins.bluematt.me/job/Bitcoin/ws/
Same as per-pull builds on pull-tester, but thats another story...

The build environment for those is currently broken: the windows executables don't work ever since hardening was enabled.

OK...so why did no one fix this/tell me?

We should probably change the pull tester to build using gitian at some point. This has the advantage of using the same build environment as releases (so problems with that will come to light) as well as producing reproducible builds.

Absolutely...

[wtogami]

http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/32255092/
Please the announcement of the Development Roadmap for Bitcoin Core 0.9.2.  Feature Freeze is May 13th.  Translators should read the instructions here to learn how to help.

[wtogami]

We are only two days away from the scheduled 0.9.2 release candidate.  Now is a very good time to fix the translations.

[wtogami]

Status Update

http://nightly.bitcoin.it now has separate builds for the master and 0.9.2 branch.  0.9.2 is what will soon become the release while master is accepting changes that may not be safe for a near-term release.

The release candidate for 0.9.2 was previously scheduled for May 13th.  Yesterday it was decided to postpone this for 7 days due to the Bitcoin 2014 Amsterdam conference.  The string freeze is now in effect and it is a very good time to contribute translations during these next 7 days.

[wtogami]

Status Update
Thanks to Cory Fields gitian deterministic builds for MacOS X are now an official part of the Bitcoin Core release process.  These nightly builds now provide deterministic builds for Linux, Windows and MacOS X.  Great work Cory Fields!