0.9.0 release notes

doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.9.0.md

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+Bitcoin Core version 0.9.0 is now available from:
+
+  https://bitcoin.org/bin/0.9.0/
+
+This is a new major version release, bringing both new features and
+bug fixes.
+
+Please report bugs using the issue tracker at github:
+
+  https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues
+
+How to Upgrade
+--------------
+
+If you are running an older version, shut it down. Wait until it has completely
+shut down (which might take a few minutes for older versions), uninstall all
+earlier versions of Bitcoin, then run the installer (on Windows) or just copy
+over /Applications/Bitcoin-Qt (on Mac) or bitcoind/bitcoin-qt (on Linux).
+
+If you are upgrading from version 0.7.2 or earlier, the first time you run
+0.9.0 your blockchain files will be re-indexed, which will take anywhere from 
+30 minutes to several hours, depending on the speed of your machine.
+
+On Windows, do not forget to uninstall all earlier versions of the Bitcoin
+client first, especially if you are switching to the 64-bit version.
+
+Windows 64-bit installer
+-------------------------
+
+New in 0.9.0 is the Windows 64-bit version of the client. There have been
+frequent reports of users running out of virtual memory on 32-bit systems
+during the initial sync. Because of this it is recommended to install the
+64-bit version if your system supports it.
+
+NOTE: Release candidate 2 Windows binaries are not code-signed; use PGP
+and the SHA256SUMS.asc file to make sure your binaries are correct.
+In the final 0.9.0 release, Windows setup.exe binaries will be code-signed.
+
+OSX 10.5 / 32-bit no longer supported
+-------------------------------------
+
+0.9.0 drops support for older Macs. The minimum requirements are now:
+* A 64-bit-capable CPU (see http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3696);
+* Mac OS 10.6 or later (see https://support.apple.com/kb/ht1633).
+
+Downgrading warnings
+--------------------
+
+The 'chainstate' for this release is not always compatible with previous
+releases, so if you run 0.9 and then decide to switch back to a
+0.8.x release you might get a blockchain validation error when starting the
+old release (due to 'pruned outputs' being omitted from the index of
+unspent transaction outputs).
+
+Running the old release with the -reindex option will rebuild the chainstate
+data structures and correct the problem.
+
+Also, the first time you run a 0.8.x release on a 0.9 wallet it will rescan
+the blockchain for missing spent coins, which will take a long time (tens
+of minutes on a typical machine).
+
+Rebranding to Bitcoin Core
+---------------------------
+
+To reduce confusion between Bitcoin-the-network and Bitcoin-the-software we
+have renamed the reference client to Bitcoin Core.
+
+
+OP_RETURN and data in the block chain
+-------------------------------------
+On OP_RETURN:  There was been some confusion and misunderstanding in
+the community, regarding the OP_RETURN feature in 0.9 and data in the
+blockchain.  This change is not an endorsement of storing data in the
+blockchain.  The OP_RETURN change creates a provably-prunable output,
+to avoid data storage schemes -- some of which were already deployed --
+that were storing arbitrary data such as images as forever-unspendable
+TX outputs, bloating bitcoin's UTXO database.
+
+Storing arbitrary data in the blockchain is still a bad idea; it is less
+costly and far more efficient to store non-currency data elsewhere.
+
+Autotools build system
+-----------------------
+
+For 0.9.0 we switched to an autotools-based build system instead of individual
+(q)makefiles.
+
+Using the standard "./autogen.sh; ./configure; make" to build Bitcoin-Qt and
+bitcoind makes it easier for experienced open source developers to contribute 
+to the project.
+
+Be sure to check doc/build-*.md for your platform before building from source.
+
+Bitcoin-cli
+-------------
+
+Another change in the 0.9 release is moving away from the bitcoind executable
+functioning both as a server and as a RPC client. The RPC client functionality
+("tell the running bitcoin daemon to do THIS") was split into a separate
+executable, 'bitcoin-cli'. The RPC client code will eventually be removed from
+bitcoind, but will be kept for backwards compatibility for a release or two.
+
+`walletpassphrase` RPC
+-----------------------
+
+The behavior of the `walletpassphrase` RPC when the wallet is already unlocked
+has changed between 0.8 and 0.9.
+
+The 0.8 behavior of `walletpassphrase` is to fail when the wallet is already unlocked:
+
+    > walletpassphrase 1000
+    walletunlocktime = now + 1000
+    > walletpassphrase 10
+    Error: Wallet is already unlocked (old unlock time stays)
+
+The new behavior of `walletpassphrase` is to set a new unlock time overriding
+the old one:
+
+    > walletpassphrase 1000
+    walletunlocktime = now + 1000
+    > walletpassphrase 10
+    walletunlocktime = now + 10 (overriding the old unlock time)
+
+Transaction malleability-related fixes
+--------------------------------------
+
+This release contains a few fixes for transaction ID (TXID) malleability 
+issues:
+
+- -nospendzeroconfchange command-line option, to avoid spending
+  zero-confirmation change
+- IsStandard() transaction rules tightened to prevent relaying and mining of
+  mutated transactions
+- Additional information in listtransactions/gettransaction output to
+  report wallet transactions that conflict with each other because
+  they spend the same outputs.
+- Bug fixes to the getbalance/listaccounts RPC commands, which would report
+  incorrect balances for double-spent (or mutated) transactions.
+- New option: -zapwallettxes to rebuild the wallet's transaction information
+
+Transaction Fees
+----------------
+
+This release drops the default fee required to relay transactions across the
+network and for miners to consider the transaction in their blocks to
+0.01mBTC per kilobyte.
+
+Note that getting a transaction relayed across the network does NOT guarantee
+that the transaction will be accepted by a miner; by default, miners fill
+their blocks with 50 kilobytes of high-priority transactions, and then with
+700 kilobytes of the highest-fee-per-kilobyte transactions.
+
+The minimum relay/mining fee-per-kilobyte may be changed with the
+minrelaytxfee option. Note that previous releases incorrectly used
+the mintxfee setting to determine which low-priority transactions should
+be considered for inclusion in blocks.
+
+The wallet code still uses a default fee for low-priority transactions of
+0.1mBTC per kilobyte. During periods of heavy transaction volume, even this
+fee may not be enough to get transactions confirmed quickly; the mintxfee
+option may be used to override the default.
+
+0.9.0 Release notes
+=======================
+
+RPC:
+
+- New notion of 'conflicted' transactions, reported as confirmations: -1
+- 'listreceivedbyaddress' now provides tx ids
+- Add raw transaction hex to 'gettransaction' output
+- Updated help and tests for 'getreceivedby(account|address)'
+- In 'getblock', accept 2nd 'verbose' parameter, similar to getrawtransaction,
+  but defaulting to 1 for backward compatibility
+- Add 'verifychain', to verify chain database at runtime
+- Add 'dumpwallet' and 'importwallet' RPCs
+- 'keypoolrefill' gains optional size parameter
+- Add 'getbestblockhash', to return tip of best chain
+- Add 'chainwork' (the total work done by all blocks since the genesis block)
+  to 'getblock' output
+- Make RPC password resistant to timing attacks
+- Clarify help messages and add examples
+- Add 'getrawchangeaddress' call for raw transaction change destinations
+- Reject insanely high fees by default in 'sendrawtransaction'
+- Add RPC call 'decodescript' to decode a hex-encoded transaction script
+- Make 'validateaddress' provide redeemScript
+- Add 'getnetworkhashps' to get the calculated network hashrate
+- New RPC 'ping' command to request ping, new 'pingtime' and 'pingwait' fields
+  in 'getpeerinfo' output
+- Adding new 'addrlocal' field to 'getpeerinfo' output
+- Add verbose boolean to 'getrawmempool'
+- Add rpc command 'getunconfirmedbalance' to obtain total unconfirmed balance
+- Explicitly ensure that wallet is unlocked in `importprivkey`
+- Add check for valid keys in `importprivkey`
+
+Command-line options:
+
+- New option: -nospendzeroconfchange to never spend unconfirmed change outputs
+- New option: -zapwallettxes to rebuild the wallet's transaction information
+- Rename option '-tor' to '-onion' to better reflect what it does
+- Add '-disablewallet' mode to let bitcoind run entirely without wallet (when
+  built with wallet)
+- Update default '-rpcsslciphers' to include TLSv1.2
+- make '-logtimestamps' default on and rework help-message
+- RPC client option: '-rpcwait', to wait for server start
+- Remove '-logtodebugger'
+- Allow `-noserver` with bitcoind
+
+Block-chain handling and storage:
+
+- Update leveldb to 1.15
+- Check for correct genesis (prevent cases where a datadir from the wrong
+  network is accidentally loaded)
+- Allow txindex to be removed and add a reindex dialog
+- Log aborted block database rebuilds
+- Store orphan blocks in serialized form, to save memory
+- Limit the number of orphan blocks in memory to 750
+- Fix non-standard disconnected transactions causing mempool orphans
+- Add a new checkpoint at block 279,000
+
+Wallet:
+
+- Bug fixes and new regression tests to correctly compute
+  the balance of wallets containing double-spent (or mutated) transactions
+- Store key creation time. Calculate whole-wallet birthday.
+- Optimize rescan to skip blocks prior to birthday
+- Let user select wallet file with -wallet=foo.dat
+- Consider generated coins mature at 101 instead of 120 blocks
+- Improve wallet load time
+- Don't count txins for priority to encourage sweeping
+- Don't create empty transactions when reading a corrupted wallet
+- Fix rescan to start from beginning after importprivkey
+- Only create signatures with low S values
+
+Mining:
+
+- Increase default -blockmaxsize/prioritysize to 750K/50K
+- 'getblocktemplate' does not require a key to create a block template
+- Mining code fee policy now matches relay fee policy
+
+Protocol and network:
+
+- Drop the fee required to relay a transaction to 0.01mBTC per kilobyte
+- Send tx relay flag with version
+- New 'reject' P2P message (BIP 0061, see
+  https://gist.github.com/gavinandresen/7079034 for draft)
+- Dump addresses every 15 minutes instead of 10 seconds
+- Relay OP_RETURN data TxOut as standard transaction type
+- Remove CENT-output free transaction rule when relaying
+- Lower maximum size for free transaction creation
+- Send multiple inv messages if mempool.size > MAX_INV_SZ
+- Split MIN_PROTO_VERSION into INIT_PROTO_VERSION and MIN_PEER_PROTO_VERSION
+- Do not treat fFromMe transaction differently when broadcasting
+- Process received messages one at a time without sleeping between messages
+- Improve logging of failed connections
+- Bump protocol version to 70002
+- Add some additional logging to give extra network insight
+- Added new DNS seed from bitcoinstats.com
+
+Validation:
+
+- Log reason for non-standard transaction rejection
+- Prune provably-unspendable outputs, and adapt consistency check for it.
+- Detect any sufficiently long fork and add a warning
+- Call the -alertnotify script when we see a long or invalid fork
+- Fix multi-block reorg transaction resurrection
+- Reject non-canonically-encoded serialization sizes
+- Reject dust amounts during validation
+- Accept nLockTime transactions that finalize in the next block
+
+Build system:
+
+- Switch to autotools-based build system
+- Build without wallet by passing `--disable-wallet` to configure, this 
+  removes the BerkeleyDB dependency
+- Upgrade gitian dependencies (libpng, libz, libupnpc, boost, openssl) to more
+  recent versions
+- Windows 64-bit build support
+- Solaris compatibility fixes
+- Check integrity of gitian input source tarballs
+- Enable full GCC Stack-smashing protection for all OSes
+
+GUI:
+
+- Switch to Qt 5.2.0 for Windows build
+- Add payment request (BIP 0070) support
+- Improve options dialog
+- Show transaction fee in new send confirmation dialog
+- Add total balance in overview page
+- Allow user to choose data directory on first start, when data directory is
+  missing, or when the -choosedatadir option is passed
+- Save and restore window positions
+- Add vout index to transaction id in transactions details dialog
+- Add network traffic graph in debug window
+- Add open URI dialog
+- Add Coin Control Features
+- Improve receive coins workflow: make the 'Receive' tab into a form to request
+  payments, and move historical address list functionality to File menu.
+- Rebrand to `Bitcoin Core`
+- Move initialization/shutdown to a thread. This prevents "Not responding"
+  messages during startup. Also show a window during shutdown.
+- Don't regenerate autostart link on every client startup
+- Show and store message of normal bitcoin:URI
+- Fix richtext detection hang issue on very old Qt versions
+- OS X: Make use of the 10.8+ user notification center to display Growl-like 
+  notifications
+- OS X: Added NSHighResolutionCapable flag to Info.plist for better font
+  rendering on Retina displays.
+- OS X: Fix bitcoin-qt startup crash when clicking dock icon
+- Linux: Fix Gnome bitcoin: URI handler
+
+Miscellaneous:
+
+- Add Linux script (contrib/qos/tc.sh) to limit outgoing bandwidth
+- Add '-regtest' mode, similar to testnet but private with instant block
+  generation with 'setgenerate' RPC.
+- Add 'linearize.py' script to contrib, for creating bootstrap.dat
+- Add separate bitcoin-cli client
+
+Credits
+--------
+
+Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release:
+
+- Andrey
+- Ashley Holman
+- b6393ce9-d324-4fe1-996b-acf82dbc3d53
+- bitsofproof
+- Brandon Dahler
+- Calvin Tam
+- Christian Decker
+- Christian von Roques
+- Christopher Latham
+- Chuck
+- coblee
+- constantined
+- Cory Fields
+- Cozz Lovan
+- daniel
+- Daniel Larimer
+- David Hill
+- Dmitry Smirnov
+- Drak
+- Eric Lombrozo
+- fanquake
+- fcicq
+- Florin
+- frewil
+- Gavin Andresen
+- Gregory Maxwell
+- gubatron
+- Guillermo Céspedes Tabárez
+- Haakon Nilsen
+- HaltingState
+- Han Lin Yap
+- harry
+- Ian Kelling
+- Jeff Garzik
+- Johnathan Corgan
+- Jonas Schnelli
+- Josh Lehan
+- Josh Triplett
+- Julian Langschaedel
+- Kangmo
+- Lake Denman
+- Luke Dashjr
+- Mark Friedenbach
+- Matt Corallo
+- Michael Bauer
+- Michael Ford
+- Michagogo
+- Midnight Magic
+- Mike Hearn
+- Nils Schneider
+- Noel Tiernan
+- Olivier Langlois
+- patrick s
+- Patrick Strateman
+- paveljanik
+- Peter Todd
+- phantomcircuit
+- phelixbtc
+- Philip Kaufmann
+- Pieter Wuille
+- Rav3nPL
+- R E Broadley
+- regergregregerrge
+- Robert Backhaus
+- Roman Mindalev
+- Rune K. Svendsen
+- Ryan Niebur
+- Scott Ellis
+- Scott Willeke
+- Sergey Kazenyuk
+- Shawn Wilkinson
+- Sined
+- sje
+- Subo1978
+- super3
+- Tamas Blummer
+- theuni
+- Thomas Holenstein
+- Timon Rapp
+- Timothy Stranex
+- Tom Geller
+- Torstein Husebø
+- Vaclav Vobornik
+- vhf / victor felder
+- Vinnie Falco
+- Warren Togami
+- Wil Bown
+- Wladimir J. van der Laan