ikhcoin-Qt version 0.7.0 released

ikhcoin-Qt version 0.7.0 is now available for download at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ikhcoin/files/ikhcoin/ikhcoin-0.7.0/

We recommend that everybody running prior versions of ikhcoind/ikhcoin-Qt upgrade to this release, except for users running Mac OSX 10.5.

Please report bugs using the issue tracker at github: https://github.com/ikhcoin/ikhcoin/issues

Project source code is hosted at github; you can get source-only tarballs/zipballs directly from there: https://github.com/ikhcoin/ikhcoin/tarball/v0.7.0 # .tar.gz https://github.com/ikhcoin/ikhcoin/zipball/v0.7.0 # .zip

Ubuntu Linux users can use the “Personal Package Archive” (PPA) maintained by Matt Corallo to automatically keep ikhcoin up-to-date. Just type sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ikhcoin/ikhcoin sudo apt-get update in your terminal, then install the ikhcoin-qt package: sudo apt-get install ikhcoin-qt

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), then run the installer (on Windows) or just copy over /Applications/ikhcoin-Qt (on Mac) or ikhcoind/ikhcoin-qt (on Linux).

If you were running on Linux with a version that might have been compiled with a different version of Berkeley DB (for example, if you were using the PPA and are switching to the binary release), then run the old version again with the -detachdb argument and shut it down; if you do not, then the new version will not be able to read the database files and will exit with an error.

Incompatible Changes

Replaced the getmemorypool RPC command with getblocktemplate/submitblock and getrawmempool commands.
Remove deprecated RPC getblocknumber

ikhcoin Improvement Proposals implemented

BIP 22 - getblocktemplate, submitblock RPCs BIP 34 - block version 2, height in coinbase BIP 35 - mempool message, extended getdata message behavior

Core ikhcoin handling and blockchain database

Reduced CPU usage, by eliminating some redundant hash calculations
Cache signature verifications, to eliminate redundant signature checks
Transactions with zero-value outputs are considered non-standard
Mining: when creating new blocks, sort ‘paid’ area by fee-per-kb
Database: better validation of on-disk stored data
Database: minor optimizations and reliability improvements
-loadblock=FILE will import an external block file
Additional DoS (denial-of-service) prevention measures
New blockchain checkpoint at block 193,000

JSON-RPC API

Internal HTTP server is now thread-per-connection, rather than a single-threaded queue that would stall on network I/O.
Internal HTTP server supports HTTP/1.1, pipelined requests and connection keep-alive.
Support JSON-RPC 2.0 batches, to encapsulate multiple JSON-RPC requests within a single HTTP request.
IPv6 support
Added raw transaction API. See https://gist.github.com/2839617
Added getrawmempool, to list contents of TX memory pool
Added getpeerinfo, to list data about each connected network peer
Added listaddressgroupings for better coin control
Rework getblock call.
Remove deprecated RPC getblocknumber
Remove superceded RPC getmemorypool (see BIP 22, above)
listtransactions output now displays “smart” times for transactions, and blocktime and timereceived fields were added

P2P networking

IPv6 support
Tor hidden service support (see doc/Tor.txt)
Attempts to fix “stuck blockchain download” problems
Replace BDB database “addr.dat” with internally-managed “peers.dat” file containing peer address data.
Lower default send buffer from 10MB to 1MB
proxy: SOCKS5 by default
Support connecting by hostnames passed to proxy
Add -seednode connections, and use this instead of DNS seeds when proxied
Added -externalip and -discover
Add -onlynet to connect only to a given network (IPv4, IPv6, or Tor)
Separate listening sockets, -bind=<addr>

Qt GUI

Add UI RPC console / debug window
Re-Enable URI handling on Windows, add safety checks and tray-notifications
Harmonize the use of ellipsis (“…”) to be used in menus, but not on buttons
Add 2 labels to the overviewpage that display Wallet and Transaction status (obsolete or current)
Extend the optionsdialog (e.g. language selection) and re-work it to a tabbed UI
Merge sign/verify message into a single window with tabbed UI
Ensure a changed ikhcoin unit immediately updates all GUI elements that use units
Update QR Code dialog
Improve error reporting at startup
Fine-grained UI updates for a much smoother UI during block downloads
Remove autocorrection of 0/i in addresses in UI
Reorganize tray icon menu into more logical order
Persistently poll for balance change when number of blocks changed
Much better translations
Override progress bar design on platforms with segmented progress bars to assist with readability
Added ‘immature balance’ display on the overview page
(Windows only): enable ASLR and DEP for ikhcoin-qt.exe
(Windows only): add meta-data to ikhcoin-qt.exe (e.g. description)

Internal codebase

Additional unit tests
Compile warning fixes

Miscellaneous

Reopen debug.log upon SIGHUP
Bash programmable completion for ikhcoind(1)
On supported OS’s, each thread is given a useful name