4 *Setup instructions for a Gitian build of Bitcoin using a Debian VM or physical system.*
6 Gitian is the deterministic build process that is used to build the Bitcoin
7 Core executables. It provides a way to be reasonably sure that the
8 executables are really built from the source on GitHub. It also makes sure that
9 the same, tested dependencies are used and statically built into the executable.
11 Multiple developers build the source code by following a specific descriptor
12 ("recipe"), cryptographically sign the result, and upload the resulting signature.
13 These results are compared and only if they match, the build is accepted and uploaded
16 More independent Gitian builders are needed, which is why this guide exists.
17 It is preferred you follow these steps yourself instead of using someone else's
18 VM image to avoid 'contaminating' the build.
23 - [Create a new VirtualBox VM](#create-a-new-virtualbox-vm)
24 - [Connecting to the VM](#connecting-to-the-vm)
25 - [Setting up Debian for Gitian building](#setting-up-debian-for-gitian-building)
26 - [Installing Gitian](#installing-gitian)
27 - [Setting up the Gitian image](#setting-up-the-gitian-image)
28 - [Getting and building the inputs](#getting-and-building-the-inputs)
29 - [Building Bitcoin](#building-bitcoin)
30 - [Building an alternative repository](#building-an-alternative-repository)
31 - [Signing externally](#signing-externally)
32 - [Uploading signatures](#uploading-signatures)
34 Preparing the Gitian builder host
35 ---------------------------------
37 The first step is to prepare the host environment that will be used to perform the Gitian builds.
38 This guide explains how to set up the environment, and how to start the builds.
40 Debian Linux was chosen as the host distribution because it has a lightweight install (in contrast to Ubuntu) and is readily available.
41 Any kind of virtualization can be used, for example:
42 - [VirtualBox](https://www.virtualbox.org/) (covered by this guide)
43 - [KVM](http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Main_Page)
44 - [LXC](https://linuxcontainers.org/), see also [Gitian host docker container](https://github.com/gdm85/tenku/tree/master/docker/gitian-bitcoin-host/README.md).
46 You can also install Gitian on actual hardware instead of using virtualization.
48 Create a new VirtualBox VM
49 ---------------------------
50 In the VirtualBox GUI click "Create" and choose the following parameters in the wizard:
52 ![](gitian-building/create_new_vm.png)
54 - Type: Linux, Debian (64-bit)
56 ![](gitian-building/create_vm_memsize.png)
58 - Memory Size: at least 1024MB, anything less will really slow down the build.
60 ![](gitian-building/create_vm_hard_disk.png)
62 - Hard Disk: Create a virtual hard disk now
64 ![](gitian-building/create_vm_hard_disk_file_type.png)
66 - Hard Disk file type: Use the default, VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image)
68 ![](gitian-building/create_vm_storage_physical_hard_disk.png)
70 - Storage on physical hard disk: Dynamically Allocated
72 ![](gitian-building/create_vm_file_location_size.png)
74 - File location and size: at least 40GB; as low as 20GB *may* be possible, but better to err on the safe side
77 Get the [Debian 8.x net installer](http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/8.3.0/amd64/iso-cd/debian-8.3.0-amd64-netinst.iso) (a more recent minor version should also work, see also [Debian Network installation](https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/)).
78 This DVD image can be validated using a SHA256 hashing tool, for example on
79 Unixy OSes by entering the following in a terminal:
81 echo "dd25bcdde3c6ea5703cc0f313cde621b13d42ff7d252e2538a11663c93bf8654 debian-8.3.0-amd64-netinst.iso" | sha256sum -c
84 After creating the VM, we need to configure it.
86 - Click the `Settings` button, then go to the `Network` tab. Adapter 1 should be attached to `NAT`.
88 ![](gitian-building/network_settings.png)
90 - Click `Advanced`, then `Port Forwarding`. We want to set up a port through which we can reach the VM to get files in and out.
91 - Create a new rule by clicking the plus icon.
93 ![](gitian-building/port_forwarding_rules.png)
95 - Set up the new rule the following way:
100 - Leave Guest IP empty
103 - Click `Ok` twice to save.
105 Then start the VM. On the first launch you will be asked for a CD or DVD image. Choose the downloaded iso.
107 ![](gitian-building/select_startup_disk.png)
112 This section will explain how to install Debian on the newly created VM.
114 - Choose the non-graphical installer. We do not need the graphical environment; it will only increase installation time and disk usage.
116 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_1_boot_menu.png)
118 **Note**: Navigating in the Debian installer:
119 To keep a setting at the default and proceed, just press `Enter`.
120 To select a different button, press `Tab`.
122 - Choose locale and keyboard settings (doesn't matter, you can just go with the defaults or select your own information)
124 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_2_select_a_language.png)
125 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_3_select_location.png)
126 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_4_configure_keyboard.png)
128 - The VM will detect network settings using DHCP, this should all proceed automatically
129 - Configure the network:
131 - Leave domain name empty.
133 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_5_configure_the_network.png)
135 - Choose a root password and enter it twice (remember it for later)
137 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_6a_set_up_root_password.png)
139 - Name the new user `debian` (the full name doesn't matter, you can leave it empty)
140 - Set the account username as `debian`
142 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_7_set_up_user_fullname.png)
143 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_8_set_up_username.png)
145 - Choose a user password and enter it twice (remember it for later)
147 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_9_user_password.png)
149 - The installer will set up the clock using a time server; this process should be automatic
150 - Set up the clock: choose a time zone (depends on the locale settings that you picked earlier; specifics don't matter)
152 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_10_configure_clock.png)
155 - Partitioning method: Guided - Use the entire disk
157 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_11_partition_disks.png)
159 - Select disk to partition: SCSI1 (0,0,0)
161 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_12_choose_disk.png)
163 - Finish partitioning and write changes to disk -> *Yes* (`Tab`, `Enter` to select the `Yes` button)
165 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_14_finish.png)
166 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_15_write_changes.png)
168 - The base system will be installed, this will take a minute or so
169 - Choose a mirror (any will do)
171 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_16_choose_a_mirror.png)
173 - Enter proxy information (unless you are on an intranet, leave this empty)
175 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_18_proxy_settings.png)
177 - Wait a bit while 'Select and install software' runs
178 - Participate in popularity contest -> *No*
179 - Choose software to install. We need just the base system.
180 - Make sure only 'SSH server' and 'Standard System Utilities' are checked
181 - Uncheck 'Debian Desktop Environment' and 'Print Server'
183 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_19_software_selection.png)
185 - Install the GRUB boot loader to the master boot record? -> Yes
187 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_20_install_grub.png)
189 - Device for boot loader installation -> ata-VBOX_HARDDISK
191 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_21_install_grub_bootloader.png)
193 - Installation Complete -> *Continue*
194 - After installation, the VM will reboot and you will have a working Debian VM. Congratulations!
196 ![](gitian-building/debian_install_22_finish_installation.png)
201 The next step in the guide involves logging in as root via SSH.
202 SSH login for root users is disabled by default, so we'll enable that now.
204 Login to the VM using username `root` and the root password you chose earlier.
205 You'll be presented with a screen similar to this.
207 ![](gitian-building/debian_root_login.png)
212 sed -i 's/^PermitRootLogin.*/PermitRootLogin yes/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
214 and press enter. Then,
216 /etc/init.d/ssh restart
218 and enter to restart SSH. Logout by typing 'logout' and pressing 'enter'.
221 ----------------------
223 After the VM has booted you can connect to it using SSH, and files can be copied from and to the VM using a SFTP utility.
224 Connect to `localhost`, port `22222` (or the port configured when installing the VM).
225 On Windows you can use [putty](http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html) and [WinSCP](http://winscp.net/eng/index.php).
227 For example, to connect as `root` from a Linux command prompt use
229 $ ssh root@localhost -p 22222
230 The authenticity of host '[localhost]:22222 ([127.0.0.1]:22222)' can't be established.
231 RSA key fingerprint is ae:f5:c8:9f:17:c6:c7:1b:c2:1b:12:31:1d:bb:d0:c7.
232 Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
233 Warning: Permanently added '[localhost]:22222' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
234 root@localhost's password: (enter root password configured during install)
236 The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
237 the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
238 individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.
240 Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
241 permitted by applicable law.
244 Replace `root` with `debian` to log in as user.
246 Setting up Debian for Gitian building
247 --------------------------------------
249 In this section we will be setting up the Debian installation for Gitian building.
251 First we need to log in as `root` to set up dependencies and make sure that our
252 user can use the sudo command. Type/paste the following in the terminal:
255 apt-get install git ruby sudo apt-cacher-ng qemu-utils debootstrap lxc python-cheetah parted kpartx bridge-utils make ubuntu-archive-keyring curl
259 Then set up LXC and the rest with the following, which is a complex jumble of settings and workarounds:
262 # the version of lxc-start in Debian needs to run as root, so make sure
263 # that the build script can execute it without providing a password
264 echo "%sudo ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/lxc-start" > /etc/sudoers.d/gitian-lxc
265 echo "%sudo ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/lxc-execute" >> /etc/sudoers.d/gitian-lxc
266 # make /etc/rc.local script that sets up bridge between guest and host
267 echo '#!/bin/sh -e' > /etc/rc.local
268 echo 'brctl addbr br0' >> /etc/rc.local
269 echo 'ifconfig br0 10.0.3.2/24 up' >> /etc/rc.local
270 echo 'iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE' >> /etc/rc.local
271 echo 'echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward' >> /etc/rc.local
272 echo 'exit 0' >> /etc/rc.local
273 # make sure that USE_LXC is always set when logging in as debian,
274 # and configure LXC IP addresses
275 echo 'export USE_LXC=1' >> /home/debian/.profile
276 echo 'export GITIAN_HOST_IP=10.0.3.2' >> /home/debian/.profile
277 echo 'export LXC_GUEST_IP=10.0.3.5' >> /home/debian/.profile
281 At the end the VM is rebooted to make sure that the changes take effect. The steps in this
282 section only need to be performed once.
287 Re-login as the user `debian` that was created during installation.
288 The rest of the steps in this guide will be performed as that user.
290 There is no `python-vm-builder` package in Debian, so we need to install it from source ourselves,
293 wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/v/vm-builder/vm-builder_0.12.4+bzr494.orig.tar.gz
294 echo "76cbf8c52c391160b2641e7120dbade5afded713afaa6032f733a261f13e6a8e vm-builder_0.12.4+bzr494.orig.tar.gz" | sha256sum -c
295 # (verification -- must return OK)
296 tar -zxvf vm-builder_0.12.4+bzr494.orig.tar.gz
297 cd vm-builder-0.12.4+bzr494
298 sudo python setup.py install
302 **Note**: When sudo asks for a password, enter the password for the user *debian* not for *root*.
304 Clone the git repositories for bitcoin and Gitian.
307 git clone https://github.com/devrandom/gitian-builder.git
308 git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
309 git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/gitian.sigs.git
312 Setting up the Gitian image
313 -------------------------
315 Gitian needs a virtual image of the operating system to build in.
316 Currently this is Ubuntu Precise x86_64.
317 This image will be copied and used every time that a build is started to
318 make sure that the build is deterministic.
319 Creating the image will take a while, but only has to be done once.
321 Execute the following as user `debian`:
325 bin/make-base-vm --lxc --arch amd64 --suite trusty
328 There will be a lot of warnings printed during the build of the image. These can be ignored.
330 **Note**: When sudo asks for a password, enter the password for the user *debian* not for *root*.
332 Getting and building the inputs
333 --------------------------------
335 Follow the instructions in [doc/release-process.md](release-process.md#fetch-and-build-inputs-first-time-or-when-dependency-versions-change)
336 in the bitcoin repository under 'Fetch and build inputs' to install sources which require
337 manual intervention. Also optionally follow the next step: 'Seed the Gitian sources cache
338 and offline git repositories' which will fetch the remaining files required for building
344 To build Bitcoin (for Linux, OS X and Windows) just follow the steps under 'perform
345 Gitian builds' in [doc/release-process.md](release-process.md#perform-gitian-builds) in the bitcoin repository.
347 This may take some time as it will build all the dependencies needed for each descriptor.
348 These dependencies will be cached after a successful build to avoid rebuilding them when possible.
350 At any time you can check the package installation and build progress with
353 tail -f var/install.log
354 tail -f var/build.log
357 Output from `gbuild` will look something like
359 Initialized empty Git repository in /home/debian/gitian-builder/inputs/bitcoin/.git/
360 remote: Counting objects: 57959, done.
361 remote: Total 57959 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 57958
362 Receiving objects: 100% (57959/57959), 53.76 MiB | 484.00 KiB/s, done.
363 Resolving deltas: 100% (41590/41590), done.
364 From https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
365 ... (new tags, new branch etc)
366 --- Building for precise amd64 ---
367 Stopping target if it is up
368 Making a new image copy
371 Checking if target is up
372 Preparing build environment
373 Updating apt-get repository (log in var/install.log)
374 Installing additional packages (log in var/install.log)
375 Grabbing package manifest
377 Creating build script (var/build-script)
378 lxc-start: Connection refused - inotify event with no name (mask 32768)
379 Running build script (log in var/build.log)
381 Building an alternative repository
382 -----------------------------------
384 If you want to do a test build of a pull on GitHub it can be useful to point
385 the Gitian builder at an alternative repository, using the same descriptors
390 URL=https://github.com/laanwj/bitcoin.git
391 COMMIT=2014_03_windows_unicode_path
392 ./bin/gbuild --commit bitcoin=${COMMIT} --url bitcoin=${URL} ../bitcoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-linux.yml
393 ./bin/gbuild --commit bitcoin=${COMMIT} --url bitcoin=${URL} ../bitcoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-win.yml
394 ./bin/gbuild --commit bitcoin=${COMMIT} --url bitcoin=${URL} ../bitcoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-osx.yml
397 Building fully offline
398 -----------------------
400 For building fully offline including attaching signatures to unsigned builds, the detached-sigs repository
401 and the bitcoin git repository with the desired tag must both be available locally, and then gbuild must be
402 told where to find them. It also requires an apt-cacher-ng which is fully-populated but set to offline mode, or
403 manually disabling gitian-builder's use of apt-get to update the VM build environment.
405 To configure apt-cacher-ng as an offline cacher, you will need to first populate its cache with the relevant
406 files. You must additionally patch target-bin/bootstrap-fixup to set its apt sources to something other than
407 plain archive.ubuntu.com: us.archive.ubuntu.com works.
412 export PATH="$PATH":/path/to/gitian-builder/libexec
414 cd /path/to/gitian-builder
415 ./libexec/make-clean-vm --suite precise --arch amd64
417 LXC_ARCH=amd64 LXC_SUITE=precise on-target -u root apt-get update
418 LXC_ARCH=amd64 LXC_SUITE=precise on-target -u root \
419 -e DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get --no-install-recommends -y install \
420 $( sed -ne '/^packages:/,/[^-] .*/ {/^- .*/{s/"//g;s/- //;p}}' ../bitcoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/*|sort|uniq )
421 LXC_ARCH=amd64 LXC_SUITE=precise on-target -u root apt-get -q -y purge grub
422 LXC_ARCH=amd64 LXC_SUITE=precise on-target -u root -e DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get -y dist-upgrade
425 And then set offline mode for apt-cacher-ng:
428 /etc/apt-cacher-ng/acng.conf
433 service apt-cacher-ng restart
436 Then when building, override the remote URLs that gbuild would otherwise pull from the Gitian descriptors::
440 git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin-detached-sigs.git
442 BTCPATH=/some/root/path/bitcoin.git
443 SIGPATH=/some/root/path/bitcoin-detached-sigs.git
445 ./bin/gbuild --url bitcoin=${BTCPATH},signature=${SIGPATH} ../bitcoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-win-signer.yml
451 If you want to do the PGP signing on another device, that's also possible; just define `SIGNER` as mentioned
452 and follow the steps in the build process as normal.
454 gpg: skipped "laanwj": secret key not available
456 When you execute `gsign` you will get an error from GPG, which can be ignored. Copy the resulting `.assert` files
457 in `gitian.sigs` to your signing machine and do
460 gpg --detach-sign ${VERSION}-linux/${SIGNER}/bitcoin-linux-build.assert
461 gpg --detach-sign ${VERSION}-win/${SIGNER}/bitcoin-win-build.assert
462 gpg --detach-sign ${VERSION}-osx-unsigned/${SIGNER}/bitcoin-osx-build.assert
465 This will create the `.sig` files that can be committed together with the `.assert` files to assert your
469 ---------------------
471 After building and signing you can push your signatures (both the `.assert` and `.assert.sig` files) to the
472 [bitcoin/gitian.sigs](https://github.com/bitcoin/gitian.sigs/) repository, or if that's not possible create a pull
473 request. You can also mail the files to Wladimir (laanwj@gmail.com) and he will commit them.