Help Updating from Alpha to Beta 1

Do I just run

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get update

or is anything else needed?

You can read

About Upgrading.

Oh yeah my bad.

Had an error but I was in the wrong folder

cd ~/zcash

git fetch origin
git checkout v0.11.2.z9
./zcutil/fetch-params.sh

does upgrading require recompile?

1 Like

But it’s still z9, right?

For now we are still on z9, update is likely to be out today

We’ll post a blog post today explaining the beta and how to use it. The RPC is much different now!

Please let us know when the beta guide at [removed for now] is correct and ready. It just puts me back on z9 chain as Shawn indicated. Also, newcomers upgradiing need to know zcash and .zcash/testenet3 need deleting before upgrading. If you’re keeping the z9 keys they should not delete .zcash-params to save a lot of downloading. And to be clear, I would mention it also still needs compiling.

1 Like

I found the instructions that Austin Williams put together for the public alpha a little more supportive for new users https://github.com/Austin-Williams/zcash-guides/wiki/Guide-to-Solo-Mining-Zcash

Apart from the upgrade instructions, there were some really helpful clarifications such as the process of setting up a Config file.

Are we still supposed to have the testnet in the Beta set to addnode=alphatestnet.z.cash or should this now be betatestnet?

What does it mean in the Beta guide when it says:

Since z9 resets the testnet block chain, you will also need to recursively delete your testnet3 directory.

Do we need to delete the whole testnet3 directory in .zcash and .zcash-params?

That Beta Guide is not complete yet, it’s just a rough draft and not to be used. @zawy can you please remove the link until it is ready.

I seem to be running beta version no problems…

./src/zcash-cli getinfo
{
“version” : 1000000,
“protocolversion” : 170002,
“walletversion” : 60000,
“balance” : 0.00000000,
“blocks” : 43,
“timeoffset” : 0,
“connections” : 1,
“proxy” : “”,
“difficulty” : 1.18633015,
“testnet” : true,
“keypoololdest” : 1473438686,
“keypoolsize” : 101,
“paytxfee” : 0.00000000,
“relayfee” : 0.00005000,
“errors” : “This is a pre-release test build - use at your own risk - do not use for mining or merchant applications”
}

Beta is now Live! Thanks @zawy

Home · zcash/zcash Wiki · GitHub

1 Like

@Shawn and @zawy Can you please clarify what it means in the Beta guide under Upgrading when it says:

Since z9 resets the testnet block chain, you will also need to recursively delete your testnet3 directory.

Do we need to delete the whole testnet3 directory in both .zcash and .zcash-params?

I always delete all of the folders and re-compile, just to be sure I don’t leave anything in a hidden folder somewhere.

use this before starting

rm -rf .zcash/testnet3

do not delete the .zcash-params because it will save you a lot of time downloading.

Another “gotcha” for non-linux people is if you’re upgrading instead of installing new is to change to the zcash directory before doing the upgrade instructions.

2 Likes

Thanks for the speedy response. Hopefully my questions help clean up some questions for other new zcash users and help add some detail to the Beta guide.

@zawy when you say to use the recursive delete before “starting” do you mean starting to compile, starting the tests or starting the daemon?

Also, can you clarify the “gotcha”? When upgrading, how does the zcash directory needs to be changed?

You better start the guide from the beginning. It doesn’t take long. Begin with

rm -rf .zcash/testnet3
rm -rf zcash

Then follow the guide.

Concerning upgrading the gotcha, if you just blindly run the upgrade commands it does not work because it assumes you’re already in the zcash folder.

I install on several computers with a bash file. You could save the bash code below as install.sh and run it with bash install.sh, assuming you are in your home folder. This will work for a new install or upgrade. The main benefit of an upgrade is really just keeping your zcash-params folder.

This does it all: from installing, setting up the configuration file to mine, running it.

# Install Beta, end with mining, start logging coin collection
set -x
rm -rf .zcash/testnet3
rm -rf zcash
mkdir .zcash
echo "testnet=1
addnode=betatestnet.z.cash
rpcuser=username
rpcpassword=password
gen=1
genproclimit=4" > .zcash/zcash.conf
# the 4 above is for 4 mining threads
sudo apt-get install build-essential pkg-config libc6-dev m4 g++-multilib autoconf libtool ncurses-dev unzip git python zlib1g-dev wget bsdmainutils automake
git clone https://github.com/zcash/zcash.git
cd zcash
git checkout v1.0.0-beta1
./zcutil/fetch-params.sh
./zcutil/build.sh -j$(nproc)
cd ..
zcash/src/zcashd -daemon
echo "Zcash should be running now.  Wait 60 seconds and this will run getinfo."
sleep 60
zcash/src/zcash-cli getinfo
2 Likes

This does a log file of time, time since last block, difficulty, block number, and your coins. Prints to the command line 1 line as each block is found and appends to log.txt.

echo "Time, secs since previous block, blocknum, difficulty, my coins" | tee -a log.txt
c=1
prevblock=$(~/zcash/src/zcash-cli getblockcount)
   prevseconds=$(date +"%s") # seconds since 1970
    until [ $c -gt 5760 ]; do # do for 10 days 
        coins=$(~/zcash/src/zcash-cli getbalance)
        coins=${coins:0:6}
        block=$(~/zcash/src/zcash-cli getblockcount)
        if [ $block != $prevblock ]; then
            prevblock=$block
            let c=c+1
            mytime=$(date +"%T")
            myseconds=$(date +"%s") # seconds since 1970
            let myseconds=myseconds-prevseconds # seconds since 1970
            prevseconds=$(date +"%s")
            difficulty=$(~/zcash/src/zcash-cli getdifficulty)
            difficulty=${difficulty:0:5} 
            echo "$mytime $myseconds $block $difficulty $coins" | tee -a log.txt
        fi
        sleep 15 # seconds
    done

Example output last few minutes, before I added the coins collected at the right,

20:58:19 55 328 13.05
21:00:05 106 329 13.17
21:00:55 50 330 13.21
21:02:10 75 331 13.19
21:03:00 50 332 13.35
21:04:55 115 333 13.45
2 Likes