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authorGavin Andresen <gavinandresen@gmail.com>2011-10-25 12:09:08 -0400
committerGavin Andresen <gavinandresen@gmail.com>2011-10-25 12:09:08 -0400
commit7ec064b88eac84234776c9cf43f60b2efd0d1d6a (patch)
tree48344220c4aa877e622841e2951598df6aa60619 /doc/README
parent472bbb750c298cb73f93798c8391ddcb19b953af (diff)
Update documentation to reflect reality (no win32 gitian builds, new Mac process)
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/README')
-rw-r--r--doc/README95
1 files changed, 4 insertions, 91 deletions
diff --git a/doc/README b/doc/README
index 789cc9fb87..01b1d40050 100644
--- a/doc/README
+++ b/doc/README
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-Bitcoin 0.4.1 BETA
+Bitcoin 0.5.0 BETA
Copyright (c) 2009-2011 Bitcoin Developers
Distributed under the MIT/X11 software license, see the accompanying
@@ -19,99 +19,12 @@ with each other, with the help of a P2P network to check for double-spending.
Setup
-----
Unpack the files into a directory and run:
- bin/32/bitcoin (GUI, 32-bit)
+ bin/32/bitcoin-qt (GUI, 32-bit)
bin/32/bitcoind (headless, 32-bit)
- bin/64/bitcoin (GUI, 64-bit)
+ bin/64/bitcoin-qt (GUI, 64-bit)
bin/64/bitcoind (headless, 64-bit)
-Wallet Encryption
------------------
-Bitcoin supports native wallet encryption so that people who steal your
-wallet file don't automatically get access to all of your Bitcoins.
-In order to enable this feature, chose "Encrypt Wallet" from the
-Options menu. You will be prompted to enter a passphrase, which
-will be used as the key to encrypt your wallet and will be needed
-every time you wish to send Bitcoins. If you lose this passphrase,
-you will lose access to spend all of the bitcoins in your wallet,
-no one, not even the Bitcoin developers can recover your Bitcoins.
-This means you are responsible for your own security, store your
-passphrase in a secure location and do not forget it.
-
-Remember that the encryption built into bitcoin only encrypts the
-actual keys which are required to send your bitcoins, not the full
-wallet. This means that someone who steals your wallet file will
-be able to see all the addresses which belong to you, as well as the
-relevant transactions, you are only protected from someone spending
-your coins.
-
-It is recommended that you backup your wallet file before you
-encrypt your wallet. To do this, close the Bitcoin client and
-copy the wallet.dat file from ~/.bitcoin/ on Linux, /Users/(user
-name)/Application Support/Bitcoin/ on Mac OSX, and %APPDATA%/Bitcoin/
-on Windows (that is /Users/(user name)/AppData/Roaming/Bitcoin on
-Windows Vista and 7 and /Documents and Settings/(user name)/Application
-Data/Bitcoin on Windows XP). Once you have copied that file to a
-safe location, reopen the Bitcoin client and Encrypt your wallet.
-If everything goes fine, delete the backup and enjoy your encrypted
-wallet. Note that once you encrypt your wallet, you will never be
-able to go back to a version of the Bitcoin client older than 0.4.
-
-Keep in mind that you are always responsible for your own security.
-All it takes is a slightly more advanced wallet-stealing trojan which
-installs a keylogger to steal your wallet passphrase as you enter it
-in addition to your wallet file and you have lost all your Bitcoins.
-Wallet encryption cannot keep you safe if you do not practice
-good security, such as running up-to-date antivirus software, only
-entering your wallet passphrase in the Bitcoin client and using the
-same passphrase only as your wallet passphrase.
-
-
-Technical details of wallet encryption
---------------------------------------
-Wallet encryption uses AES-256-CBC to encrypt only the private keys
-that are held in a wallet. The keys are encrypted with a master key
-which is entirely random. This master key is then encrypted with
-AES-256-CBC with a key derived from the passphrase using SHA512 and
-OpenSSL's EVP_BytesToKey and a dynamic number of rounds determined by
-the speed of the machine which does the initial encryption (and is
-updated based on the speed of a computer which does a subsequent
-passphrase change). Although the underlying code supports multiple
-encrypted copies of the same master key (and thus multiple passphrases)
-the client does not yet have a method to add additional passphrases.
-
-At runtime, the client loads the wallet as it normally would, however
-the keystore stores the keys in encrypted form. When the passphrase
-is required (to top up keypool or send coins) it will either be queried
-by a GUI prompt, or must first be entered with the walletpassphrase
-RPC command. This will change the wallet to "unlocked" state where the
-unencrypted master key is stored in memory (in the case of GUI, only for
-long enough to complete the requested operation, in RPC, for as long as
-is specified by the second parameter to walletpassphrase). The wallet is
-then locked (or can be manually locked using the walletlock RPC command)
-and the unencrypted master key is removed from memory.
-
-Implementation details of wallet encryption
--------------------------------------------
-When the wallet is locked, calls to sendtoaddress, sendfrom, sendmany,
-and keypoolrefill will return Error -13: "Error: Please enter the wallet
-passphrase with walletpassphrase first."
-
-When the wallet is unlocked, calls to walletpassphrase will fail.
-
-When a wallet is encrypted, the passphrase is required to top up the
-keypool, thus, if the passphrase is rarely entered, it is possible that
-keypool might run out. In this case, the default key will be used as the
-target for payouts for mining, and calls to getnewaddress and getaccount
-address will return an error. In order to prevent such cases, the keypool
-is automatically refilled when walletpassphrase is called with a correct
-passphrase and when topupkeypool is called (while the wallet is unlocked).
-Note that the keypool continues to be topped up on various occasions when
-a new key from pool is used and the wallet is unlocked (or unencrypted).
-
-
-
See the documentation at the bitcoin wiki:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page
-
-... for help and more information.
+for help and more information.