Testing Bitcoin Core 22.0 Release Candidates (tests)

Aug 18, 2021

Host: josibake

Notes

Major versions of Bitcoin Core are released every 6-8 months. See the Life Cycle documentation for full details.
When all of the PRs for a release have been merged, Release Candidate 1 (rc1) is tagged. The rc is then tested. If any issues are found, fixes are merged into the branch and a new rc is tagged. This continues until no major issues are found in an rc, and that rc is then considered to be the final release version.
To ensure that users don’t experience issues with the new software, it’s essential that the rcs are thoroughly tested. This special review club meeting is for people who want to help with that vital review process.
This Bitcoin Core Release Candidate Testing Guide has a tutorial for testing the release candidate.
- Please note: for this release we will be testing new External Signer features, which will require you to either a) have a hardware wallet or b) setup a hardware wallet emulator.
- If you plan to use an emulator, it is recommended you set it up before the meeting. You can follow the instructions for setting up the Trezor emulator or the Coldcard emulator.
The guide is just to get you started on testing, so feel free to read the Release Notes and bring ideas of other things you’d like to test!

Meeting Log

17:00

<josibake> #startmeeting

17:00

<emzy> Hi

17:00

<josibake> hello everyone! welcome to another special edition of the bitcoin pr review club

17:00

<larryruane> hi!

17:00

<raj> hello

17:00

<Talkless> hi

17:00

<hernanmarino> hi everyone !

17:00

<janb> hi !

17:00

<darius27> hi!

17:00

<theStack> hi

17:00

<jnewbery> hi

17:00

<josibake> today we are going to be testing bitcoin's upcoming 22.0 release

17:01

<josibake> to help us along, we will be following this guide: https://github.com/bitcoin-core/bitcoin-devwiki/wiki/22.0-Release-Candidate-Testing-Guide

17:01

<michaelfolkson> hi

17:01

<josibake> not only is this a great way to help out bitcoin development by testing, but its also a great way to get experience compiling bitcoin on your own

17:02

<josibake> for starters, is this anyone's first time?

17:02

<schmidty> hi

17:02

<jarolrod> hi

17:02

<naiza> hi

17:02

<josibake> (also, give us a hi if you plan to follow along!)

17:02

<sriramdvt> hi

17:02

<raj> not first time in club, but first time in rc testing..

17:02

<shaman> Hello everyone !

17:02

<Talkless> hi

17:02

<josibake> raj: awesome! thanks for joining

17:02

<sugarjig> hi

17:02

<Azorcode> Hello Everyone

17:03

<chunkblob> hi!

17:03

<dulce> Hola mundo!

17:04

<svav> Hi

17:04

<josibake> for any newcomers (and just as a reminder), its encouraged to just blurt out questions! no need to ask for permission first or worry about if you're interrupting another question

17:04

<Talkless> raj: I beleive I've been in clube maybo once.. :/ first RC testing too

17:04

<josibake> Talkless: welcome!

17:05

<josibake> to begin, you'll need to either compile from source or get a pre-compiled binary. if you've never compiled from source before, you might want to go with the pre-compiled binary

17:05

<josibake> setting up dependencies and compiling can take a long time when it's the first time

17:07

<josibake> we'll give a few minutes for people to get their release candidate, but no need to wait on everyone else if you'd like to start working through the sections or have questions

17:09

<janb> are we testing on signet or also on mainnet ?

17:10

<raj> josibake, I was wondering, does such testing guides for RCs are produced for each release? or only this one for the review club?

17:10

<babasancheti> will there be a jitsi meet or just IRC?

17:11

<michaelfolkson> I never set up command line environment when compiling (or wipe, recreate data dir) :) Testing with no data dir definitely makes sense for some things

17:11

<josibake> raj: ideally, we would have a guide for every major release! the guides are produced independent of the pr review club

17:11

<josibake> going over the guide in the club is a great way to get more people involved with testing, tho

17:12

<josibake> babasancheti: the pr review club is just IRC

17:12

<raj> Understood. Ya it is a great place to start learning a lot of non-code stuffs around core..

17:13

<svav> I don't run a bitcoin node at the moment, but if I did, what is the best way to test the new release without affecting your existing node?

17:13

<babasancheti> josibake Okay, Thanks

17:13

<josibake> michaelfolkson: bitcoin core will always setup a data directory, it just uses the default one if you don't specify

17:13

<Talkless> svav: I would suggest running virtual machine, like using VirtualBox

17:13

<josibake> here we are specifying to make sure we can easily clean up later and that we also don't interfere with your regular bitcoin setup

17:14

<sugarjig> svav You could also run the new version inside of a Docker container

17:14

<josibake> svav: if you setup the custom data directory, it won't interfere with your existing setup!

17:14

<josibake> you can also do a VM, as others are suggesting

17:15

<raj> I have ran basic build and tests for rc2. But would have to go through the manual testing of each sections, and thats gonna take some time. Not sure if I can complete it within a session of a review club.

17:15

<josibake> does everyone have their release candidate?

17:15

<emzy> svav: -datadir=/tmp/22-rc-test is used in the Testing-Guide

17:16

<josibake> raj: no worries! the goal is to get people started and help address any issues people might have while working through the guide. unlikely we will get through all of it in one hour

17:17

<Talkless> raj: test meaning unit test with make check, or also functional tests?

17:17

<janb> josibake: yes got the RC :)

17:17

<raj> svav, you can always run a node in regtest/signet mode in your laptop, and that wont take up much disk space. Its better to have a bitcoind in your local work machine, than try it in your dedicated full node.

17:17

<darius27> i have the RC too

17:17

<josibake> for the upcoming 22.0 release, some of the major highlights are no more Tor v2, new I2P connections, and more support for external signers! these are the main sections in the guide

17:17

<Talkless> yes, I am currenlty on the step with hw wallet.

17:18

<josibake> there is also a section at the end about the new guix build system! that has it's own guide (linked in the testing guide)

17:18

<raj> I need to setup an emulator, can anyone suggest which one (trezor/coldcard) is easier?

17:19

<josibake> raj: coldcard emulator is macOnly. i setup the trezor emulator on linux and got it working

17:19

<hernanmarino> raj: coldcard emulator works only on Mac, afaik

17:19

<Talkless> raj: just did trezor, ColdCard is for macos only?

17:19

<raj> josibake, Oh. I missed that..

17:20

<emzy> I'm doing a fresh guix build right now.

17:20

<josibake> for the tor and i2p sections, does anyone have ideas on other ways we could have tested this? or other features we could have tested?

17:22

<janb> josibake: just by selfdiscovery ?

17:22

<michaelfolkson> Testing I2P nodes behave the same as clearnet nodes and Tor nodes?

17:23

<michaelfolkson> Whether a I2P node can be a block relay node etc, whether the I2P seeds work etc

17:23

<josibake> janb: correct! we could have not provided any manual peers

17:23

<josibake> michaelfolkson: absolutely. I2P seeds is another great thing to test

17:24

<emzy> just for info. My I2P seed has 7 incoming I2P connections.

17:25

<Talkless> "IP2 seeds" ?

17:25

<michaelfolkson> There must be some more edge cases to test with low numbers of I2P nodes currently on the network. Though maybe DoS testing would be harsh :)

17:25

<josibake> emzy: awesome! if you post your address, maybe others can try to connecting to you using addnode :)

17:26

<emzy> that's mine: gehtac45oaghz54ypyopim64mql7oad2bqclla74l6tfeolzmodq.b32.i2p

17:26

<janb> emzy: mainnet or signet ?

17:26

<josibake> Talkless: i2p seeds, referring to the hardcoded dnsseeds servers

17:26

<Talkless> josibake: thanks

17:26

<josibake> this is so a brand new node on a network (i2p, tor, ipv4 etc) has at least one trusted peer to start with

17:27

<emzy> there is no dnsseed feature for i2p (only). So If you need some hardcodes i2p nodes to bootstrap.

17:28

<josibake> emzy: good call-out, i had thought there was (or that it was being worked on)

17:28

<emzy> There AFAK is no way, because there is no DNS in I2P

17:28

<emzy> btw. the list of hardcodes nodes is here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/fd9c22ca69d814815554bfe8acf995cc30afdc2e/contrib/seeds/nodes_main.txt

17:29

<janb> emzy: ty !

17:29

<michaelfolkson> (at the bottom of emzy's link)

17:29

<emzy> ipv4, ipv6 and tor nodes are every time picked new from the dnsseed nodes. I2P is manual added.

17:30

<josibake> emzy: i added you using addnode, you should see a connection from bucvabwhehqwt53yhsp6evdcirigjqa6xjljul6wzxors7ccjv7q.b32.i2p

17:30

<emzy> josibake: I do \o/

17:31

<emzy> in i2p 786 168130 24 52 56 54891 bucvabwhehqwt53yhsp6evdcirigjqa6xjljul6wzxors7ccjv7q.b32.i2p:0 70016/Satoshi:22.0.0/

17:31

<michaelfolkson> You're on your temporary release testing node though right josibake? Would be good to get some more persistent connections :)

17:32

<josibake> michaelfolkson: correct! just the one for this guide. i am planning to upgrade my raspi to 22.0rc2 this weekend

17:32

<josibake> unless someone finds a terrible bug during this review session ;)

17:32

<michaelfolkson> Haha. Hard to judge how reckless that is

17:32

<josibake> if other people want to try adding emzy or myself, you can use this command:

100

17:33

<josibake> bitcoin-cli -datadir=<datadir> addnode bucvabwhehqwt53yhsp6evdcirigjqa6xjljul6wzxors7ccjv7q.b32.i2p add

101

17:33

<michaelfolkson> Splitting between persistent full node for testing and persistent full node for verifying real money transactions is a good idea I think. You'd be more conservative with your node verifying real money transactions

102

17:33

<josibake> did anyone have any questions/issues with the Tor section?

103

17:34

<josibake> michaelfolkson: agreed! having a machine dedicated to running new releases is another great way people can help out with reporting bugs, etc

104

17:35

<josibake> emzy: invisible internet pals!

105

17:35

<emzy> :)

106

17:36

<michaelfolkson> Is it impossible to maintain a connection to a Tor v2 node now?

107

17:36

<michaelfolkson> This release ignores them

108

17:36

<Talkless> my local: c44qol5cgfost64wch7q5dxsj3sf3urk6qi3mrhvbm6jqzbinlaq.b32.i2p

109

17:37

<michaelfolkson> "but we are still able to connect to them for IBD" ah interesting

110

17:37

<josibake> michaelfolkson: that's a good question :) any ideas on how we could test that?

111

17:37

<michaelfolkson> Try to make a connection to a Tor v2 address :)

112

17:37

<Talkless> michaelfolkson: yeah I've thought there was a bug in "-netinfo", got headers but "zero" connections :) . Theyr'e not displayed in -netinfo

113

17:39

<josibake> afaik, even using addnode will still ignore a tor v2 (i think i tested this awhile back)

114

17:39

<josibake> the problem with testing this is a lot of tor v2 peers are starting to go offlline

115

17:40

<michaelfolkson> Obviously if you are running an older version of Core you are still connected to Tor v2 nodes (unless they go offline)

116

17:40

<michaelfolkson> But I think Tor is trying to get everyone to upgrade to v3 so yeah makes sense there are fewer and fewer

117

17:41

<michaelfolkson> Network partition between Tor v2 nodes and Tor v3 nodes :)

118

17:42

<raj> If you can't find a tor peer, you can try connecting to your existing full node's tor address. It could be a v2.

119

17:43

<michaelfolkson> raj: Yeah setting up your own node for testing that is always an option

120

17:43

<emzy> if you need tor v2 nodes. For now there are these: https://github.com/bisq-network/bisq/blob/04294a4691f437778b472e340301ab8a0813b8f4/core/src/main/java/bisq/core/btc/nodes/BtcNodes.java#L51

121

17:43

<emzy> Bisq still needs them. So they will be up.

122

17:44

<michaelfolkson> Why does Bisq still need them?

123

17:44

<Talkless> I wonder why there's no "i2p" column in "-netinfo" ? It displays i2p local address, ipv4/6/onion/total.

124

17:44

<emzy> in short bitcoinj

125

17:44

<josibake> emzy: thanks for the list! if someone is able to test manually connecting to a tor v2 node, give a shout in the chat

126

17:44

<janb> josibake: is there an IRC channel for bitcoin testing questions (or to find some ppl the coordinate some testing) ?

127

17:45

<michaelfolkson> emzy: Impossible to get a merge into bitcoinj?

128

17:45

<emzy> Talkless: I think the column is only visable if there is more then 0.

129

17:45

<janb> Talkless: there is an I2p colomn

130

17:45

<michaelfolkson> I think it is strongly recommended not to use Tor v2 now

131

17:46

<michaelfolkson> janb: This IRC channel works for PR review or testing questions

132

17:46

<emzy> michaelfolkson: no. Next version will have v3 onions. Already all in bitcoinj. But dev. on bisq is slow.

133

17:46

<josibake> janb: not a dedicated irc channel for testing, no

134

17:46

<michaelfolkson> emzy: Fair enough

135

17:46

<janb> tnx michaelfolkson

136

17:46

<janb> josibake: tnx

137

17:47

<michaelfolkson> I think at least a couple of the Lightning implementations have upgraded to Tor v3

138

17:47

<josibake> Talkless: you can also use -netinfo 4

139

17:47

<josibake> you should see i2p listed as one of the "net" options

140

17:47

<janb> I2P does some discovery once connected to some I2P nodes :)

141

17:49

<josibake> has anyone been able to get to the hardware wallet section?

142

17:49

<janb> josibake: no sorry

143

17:49

<josibake> even if you haven't been able to the tests yourself, any ideas on other things we could test?

144

17:49

<josibake> janb: no worries! the setup is a bit involved :)

145

17:50

<michaelfolkson> Talkless: netinfo guidance was added here https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/20829

146

17:51

<michaelfolkson> I couldn't decide between using the emulator or using an actual HW wallet and ended up doing neither

147

17:51

<michaelfolkson> Decision paralysis

148

17:51

<Talkless> michaelfolkson: happens

149

17:51

<josibake> michaelfolkson: you still have 9 minutes to decide :)

150

17:51

<michaelfolkson> Wladimir said don't use production HW wallet

151

17:52

<Talkless> wait, these i2p addresses, these are for signet or..?

152

17:52

<Talkless> pasted here

153

17:52

<Talkless> previously

154

17:53

<emzy> michaelfolkson: what about using a different new passphrase on the production HW wallet?

155

17:53

<josibake> Talkless: mainnet , if you were following the guide. the only section of the guide on signet is the HW section

156

17:53

<emzy> Talkless: mainnet.

157

17:53

<emzy> this is my signet one: xdsvygoyhjnepvryvriukmcsljdin6j4lfuxu4vgk6a2gqtwzzsq.b32.i2p

158

17:53

<josibake> emzy: thats possible, but in general if you have any real funds on a hw, its best to keep it as far away from a computer as possible

159

17:54

<emzy> yes, best to use a test HW wallet.

160

17:54

<josibake> fwiw, i did use an empty coldcard when i was testing and used it on testnet. i think trezor and coldcard both support being used on testnet

161

17:55

<Talkless> emzy: thanks, connected!

162

17:55

<emzy> Talkless: yes there is a new incoming connetion.

163

17:55

<michaelfolkson> I just think keep anything to do with real funds on separate machine/HW wallet to dev/testing. Don't want to do any dumb stuff (or forget whether you are in mainnet VM or testnet/signet VM etc)

164

17:56

<hernanmarino> josiblake: i tested with an actual trezor on signet. Had some difficulties when i had to provide a passphrase

165

17:57

<hernanmarino> but not a bug, just my ignorance on how to provide a passphrase using hwi

166

17:57

<josibake> hernanmarino: gotcha, when i used the emulator i didn't set it up with a passphrase.

167

17:58

<Talkless> if were'e speaking about wallet emulators, I get this in bitcoin-qt after clicking "Create a new wallet" while emulator and bridge are running:

168

17:58

<Talkless> "'/home/vincas/code/bitcoin/HWI.git/hwi.py' error: Could not open client or get fingerprint information: Unsupported device"

169

17:58

<emzy> I think Trezor one is the only HW wallet that get the passphrase from the host.

170

17:58

<emzy> Oh maybe also Ledger

171

17:58

<Talkless> no, sorry, bridge not running...

172

17:59

<josibake> Talkless: did you install the correct udev?

173

17:59

<michaelfolkson> Ledger doesn't support testnet/signet right?

174

17:59

<Talkless> emzy: Ledger has second pin for passthraze, idk if there's mode to enter passphraze every time after tunring on

175

18:00

<josibake> lastly, any thoughts or questions on GUIX builds? (no worries if you didnt get that far)

176

18:00

<Talkless> josibake: Trezor desktop app worked without udev, and sudo ./hwi.py.. failed due to missing imports

177

18:00

<Talkless> (because .hwi installed in local user while sudo runs as root..?)

178

18:00

<emzy> josibake: GUIX build is still runing. And looks good on Debian 11.

179

18:01

<Talkless> "sudo ./hwi.py installudevrules" works now :|

180

18:01

<josibake> emzy: nice! thanks for running it

181

18:01

<Talkless> idk what was wrong

182

18:01

<josibake> also, we are at time!

183

18:01

<josibake> #stopmeeting

184

18:01

<hernanmarino> Also, i couldn't find a way to provide my passphrase through bitcoin core. But I think that situation is expected in the current release, and we must interact through hwi before using core, right ??

185

18:01

<janb> josibake: thanks for hosting

186

18:01

<josibake> big thanks to everyone for joining and taking time to help test bitcoin core!

187

18:01

<jnewbery> thanks josibake!

188

18:01

<schmidty> thanks josibake!

189

18:01

<emzy> btw. For GUIX builds there is an IRC channel: #bitcoin-core-builds

190

18:01

<Talkless> thans josibake :)

191

18:02

<Talkless> thanks

192

18:02

<josibake> don't forget to update the testing ticket! especially if you found something interesting

193

18:02

<theStack> thanks josibake

194

18:02

<hernanmarino> thanks josiebake

195

18:02

<emzy> thanks josibake!

196

18:02

<darius27> thanks for hosting josibake! and the testing guide is great

197

18:02

<michaelfolkson> Thanks josibake, awesome release testing notes too. Made me think about what I should be doing in PR testing generally :)

198

18:02

<josibake> hernanmarino: this is a pretty new feature, so afaik, hwi is the only hardware wallet interface that exists right now. in theory, anyone can write one tho

199

18:03

<hernanmarino> josibake: thanks

200

18:03

<josibake> michaelfolkson: thanks! gotta give credit to jarolrod, tho. i mostly copied his 0.21 testing guide