bitshares-core

BitShares Core

BitShares Core is the BitShares blockchain node software and command-line wallet software. For UI reference wallet software (browser-based wallet and desktop wallet) visit BitShares UI.

Visit BitShares.github.io to learn about BitShares and join the community at BitSharesTalk.org.

Information for developers can be found in the Wiki and the BitShares Developer Documentation Portal. Users interested in how BitShares works can go to the BitShares Documentation site.

Visit Awesome BitShares to find more resources and links E.G. chat groups, client libraries and extended APIs.

• Getting Started
• Support
• Using Built-In APIs
• Accessing restrictable node API sets
• FAQ
• License

Getting Started

Build instructions and additional documentation are available in the Wiki.

Prebuilt binaries can be found in the releases page for download.

Installing Node and Command-Line Wallet Software

We recommend building on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (64-bit). Note: for older releases (Mainnet releases up to 7.0.2, Testnet releases up to test-7.0.4), we recommend Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

Install Operating System Dependencies:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install autoconf cmake make automake libtool git libboost-all-dev libssl-dev g++ libz-dev libbz2-dev liblzma-dev libzstd-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev doxygen

Build Node And Command-Line Wallet:

git clone https://github.com/bitshares/bitshares-core.git
cd bitshares-core
git checkout master # may substitute "master" with current release tag
git submodule update --init --recursive
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
make

Upgrade Node And Command-Line Wallet:

cd bitshares-core
git remote set-url origin https://github.com/bitshares/bitshares-core.git
git checkout master
git remote set-head origin --auto
git pull
git submodule update --init --recursive # this command may fail
git submodule sync --recursive
git submodule update --init --recursive
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
make

NOTE:

• BitShares requires a 64-bit operating system to build, and will not build on a 32-bit OS. Tested operating systems:

  • Linux (heavily tested with Ubuntu LTS releases)
  • macOS (various versions)
  • Windows (various versions, Visual Studio and MinGW)
  • OpenBSD (various versions)

• BitShares requires Boost libraries to build, supports version 1.58 to 1.83. Newer versions may work, but have not been tested. If your system came pre-installed with a version of Boost libraries that you do not wish to use, you may manually build your preferred version and use it with BitShares by specifying it on the CMake command line.

  Example: cmake -DBOOST_ROOT=/path/to/boost ..

  Note: for older releases (Mainnet releases up to 7.0.2, Testnet releases up to test-7.0.4), the supported boost version is 1.58 to 1.74.

• BitShares requires OpenSSL libraries to build, supports version 1.0.2 to 1.1.1 and version 3.0.x. If your system came pre-installed with a version of OpenSSL libraries that you do not wish to use, you may manually build your preferred version and use it with BitShares by specifying it on the CMake command line.

  Example: cmake -DOPENSSL_ROOT_DIR=/path/to/openssl ..

  Note: a) some earlier version of OpenSSL 3 are incompatible due to the lack of the RIPEMD160 provider, and b) for older releases (Mainnet releases up to 7.0.2, Testnet releases up to test-7.0.4), OpenSSL 3 is not supported.

Running and Stopping Node Software

Run Node Software:

Stay on bitshares-core/build directory before you run the below witness_node command

./programs/witness_node/witness_node

Under build directory the node run will automatically create the directory witness_node_data_dir along with config files underneath then start synchronizing the blockchain. It may take usually several hours to fully synchronize the blockchain data. The blockchain data will be stored under the directory witness_node_data_dir.

Stop Node Software:

For stopping the node run cleanly, you will need to access the node run terminal then press on Ctrl+C then wait for the run to stop, please note that it may take usually few minutes to exit the run. It's recommended to use linux command screen to initiate the node run so you can go back to the node run screen to stop it.

IMPORTANT: By default the node will start in reduced memory mode by using some of the commands detailed in Memory reduction for nodes. In order to run a full node with all the account histories which usually unnecessary, you need to remove partial-operations and max-ops-per-account from your config file. Please note that currently(2018-10-17) a full node will need more than 160GB of RAM to operate and required memory is growing fast. Consider the following table as minimal requirements before running a node:

* For this setup, allocate at least 500GB of SSD as swap.

To use the command-line wallet or other wallets / clients with the node, the node need to be started with RPC connection enabled, which can be done by starting the node with the --rpc-endpoint parameter, E.G.

./programs/witness_node/witness_node --rpc-endpoint=127.0.0.1:8090

or configure it in the config file by editing witness_node_data_dir/config.ini as follows:

rpc-endpoint = 127.0.0.1:8090

You can run the program with --help parameter to see more info:

./programs/witness_node/witness_node --help

Using Command-Line Wallet

Stay on bitshares-core/build directory before you run the below cli_wallet command

./programs/cli_wallet/cli_wallet

IMPORTANT: The cli_wallet or API interfaces to the node wouldn't be fully functional unless the node is fully synchronized with the blockchain. The cli_wallet command info will show result head_block_age which will tell you how far you are from the live current block of the blockchain.

To check your current block:

new >>> info

To query the blockchain, E.G. get info about an account:

new >>> get_account 

If you need to transact with your account but not only query, firstly set your initial password and unlock the wallet:

• For non-Windows operating systems, you can type the commands and press [ENTER], then input the password and press [ENTER], in this case the password won't show:

  复制

  new >>> set_password [ENTER]
  Enter password:
  locked >>> unlock [ENTER]
  Enter password:
  unlocked >>>
  

• For Windows, or you'd like to show the password, type the commands with the password:

  复制

  new >>> set_password 
  locked >>> unlock 
  unlocked >>>

To be able to transact with your account, import the corresponding private keys:

unlocked >>> import_key  

The private keys will be encrypted and stored in the wallet file, the file name is wallet.json by default. The private keys are accessible when the wallet is unlocked.

unlocked >>> dump_private_keys

Use lock command to make the private keys inaccessible. There is no auto-lock feature so far.

unlocked >>> lock

To import your initial (genesis) balances, import the private keys corresponding to the balances:

unlocked >>> import_balance  [ ...] true

Use help to see all available wallet commands.

>>> help

Use gethelp to see more info about individual commands. E.G.

>>> gethelp get_order_book

The definition of all commands is available in the wallet.hpp source code file. Corresponding documentation can be found in the Doxygen documentation.

You can run the program with --help parameter to see more info:

./programs/cli_wallet/cli_wallet --help

There is also some info in the Wiki.

Support

Technical support is available in the BitSharesTalk technical support subforum.

BitShares Core bugs can be reported directly to the issue tracker.

Questions can be posted in [Git