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Beginner's-Guide.md

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Introduction

Bcash is an alternative implementation of the bitcoin protocol, written in node.js. It is a full node which can be used for full blockchain validation and is aware of all known consensus rules.

Requirements

  • Linux, OSX, or Windows (*) (**)
  • node.js >=v8.14.0
  • npm >=v6.4.1
  • python2 (for node-gyp)
  • gcc/g++ (for leveldb and secp256k1)
  • git (optional, see below)

(*): Note that bcash works best with unix-like OSes, and has not yet been thoroughly tested on windows.

(**): The BSDs and Solaris have also not been tested yet, but should work in theory.

Build & Install

Bcash is meant to be installed via npm, but for the security conscious, it may be better to clone from github.

Installing via NPM

$ npm install -g bcash --production

Installing via Git

$ git clone git://github.com/bcoin-org/bcash.git
$ cd bcash
$ npm install -g --production

Note: Dependencies are checked for integrity using package-lock.json. However npm will not make these checks with npm install -g and it will link your installation globally so that bcash is in your path (e.g. $ bcash).

Installing via Docker

Check bcash-docker

Installing on Windows

Install OpenSSL v1.0.2L 64-Bit:

https://slproweb.com/download/Win64OpenSSL-1_0_2L.exe

As Administrator, open cmd.exe and run:

C:\Users\bcash\bcash>npm install --global --production windows-build-tools

to install VCBuild.exe and Python 2.7.x both required by node-gyp for building native modules.

Then continue Installing via Git

Note that you need a shell that supports bash scripts, like Git Bash to launch bcash.

Troubleshooting

If the build fails compilation for bcash-native or secp256k1-node validation will be slow (a block verification which should take 1 second on consumer grade hardware may take up to 15 seconds). Bcash will throw a warning on boot if it detects a build failure. If you run into this issue, please post an issue on the repo.

Starting up your first bcash node

If bcash is installed globally, $ bcash should be in your PATH. If not, the bcash bootstrap script resides in /path/to/bcash/bin/bcash.

$ bcash

Will run a bcash node as the foreground process, displaying all debug logs.

To run as a daemon:

$ bcash --daemon

This will start up a full node, complete with: a blockchain, mempool, miner, p2p server, wallet server, and an HTTP REST+RPC server.

All logs will be written to ~/.bcash/debug.log by default.

By default, the http server will only listen on 127.0.0.1:8332. No auth will be required if an API key was not passed in. If you listen on any other host, auth will be required and an API key will be auto-generated if one was not passed in.

Listening Externally

To listen publicly on the HTTP server, --http-host=0.0.0.0 (ipv4) or --http-host=:: (ipv4 and ipv6) can be passed. Additionally this: --http-port=1337 can set the port.

To advertise your node on the P2P network --public-host=[your-public-ip] and --public-port=[your-public-port] may be passed.

Using an API Key

If listening publicly on the HTTP server, an API key is required. One will be generated and reported in the logs automatically if no key was chosen. An api key can be chosen with the --api-key option.

Example:

$ bcash --http-host=0.0.0.0 --api-key hunter2 --daemon

API keys are used with HTTP Basic Auth:

$ curl http://x:hunter2@localhost:8332/

Bcash CLI is the prepackaged tool for hitting both the REST and RPC api.

$ bcash cli info --api-key hunter2
$ bcash rpc getblockchaininfo --api-key hunter2

Using Tor/SOCKS

Bcash has native support for SOCKS proxies, and will accept a --proxy option in the format of --proxy=[user]:[pass]@host:port.

Passing the --onion option tells bcash that the SOCKS proxy is a Tor socks proxy, and will enable Tor resolution for DNS lookups, as well as try to connect to .onion addresses found on the P2P network.

$ bcash --proxy joe:[email protected]:9050 --onion

Running bcash as a tor hidden service

Your hidden service must first be configured with tor. Once you have the .onion address, it can be passed into --public-host in the form of --public-host foo.onion.

Target Nodes

It's often desirable to run behind several trusted bitcoin nodes. To select permanent nodes to connect to, the --nodes option is available:

$ bcash --nodes foo.example.com:8333,1.2.3.4:8333,5.6.7.8:8333

If chosen, bcash will always try to connect to these nodes as outbound peers. They are top priority and whitelisted (not susceptible to permanent bans, only disconnections).

To only connect to these nodes. --max-outbound could be set to 3:

$ bcash --nodes foo.example.com,1.2.3.4,5.6.7.8 --max-outbound 3

Disabling Listening

To avoid accepting connections on the P2P network altogether, --listen=false can be passed to bcash.

Selfish Mode

Bcash also supports a "selfish" mode. In this mode, bcash still has full blockchain and mempool validation, but network services are disabled: it will not relay transactions or serve blocks to anyone.

$ bcash --selfish --listen=false

Note: Selfish mode is not recommended. We encourage you to help the network by relaying transactions and blocks. At the same time, selfish mode does have its uses if you do not have the bandwidth to spare, or if you're absolutely worried about potential DoS attacks.

Further Configuration

See Configuration.