dogecoin/INSTALL.md
Patrick Lodder 43248c7f17
doc: elaborate release binary integrity checking further
This clarifies:
- what facilities are provided
- where to find code-signing keys
- where attestations can be found
- where to find full documentation for gitian builds
2025-03-12 10:48:02 -04:00

4.9 KiB

Installing Dogecoin Core

Pre-compiled binaries

The easiest way to install the latest version of the Dogecoin Core software is by to download the latest precompiled binaries for your platform from the release page. Currently, binaries are released for the following platforms:

  • Windows, 64-bit and 32-bit
  • Linux, 64-bit and 32-bit
  • MacOS, Intel 64-bit
  • ARM, 64-bit and 32-bit Linux

Minimum Operating System versions

The following versions have been verified to be supported for pre-compiled binaries:

OS/Distro (arch) Minimum version
Windows (x86) Vista
MacOS (x86) Mountain Lion (10.8)
Ubuntu (x86) Trusty (16.04)
Ubuntu (ARM) Focal (20.04)
Debian (x86) Jessie (8)
Debian (ARM) Stretch (9)
CentOS (x86) 7
Fedora (x86) 28

It is possible to run Dogecoin Core on other systems and lower versions when compiling from source, see the chapters below for more information.

Checking binary integrity

Release binaries are created and verified by multiple independent people to ensure honest and malware-free releases. The provided binaries on this repository come with a SHA256SUMS.asc file; a pgp-signed list of each checksum of the released archives. This is only provided to enable people to quickly check the integrity of a downloaded release binary. You can find the pgp key used to sign the file among those listed in contrib/gitian-keys.

To verify the integrity of the SHA256SUMS.asc file, you need gpg, after which you can simply run

gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.asc

And then, verify the binary with the checksum app provided by your OS, eg:

grep x86_64-linux SHA256SUMS.asc | sha256sum -c

Full attestations to release binary integrity can be found at the gitian.sigs repository on GitHub and everyone can run the full release build process themselves to verify the output; resulting binaries are fully deterministic. Please refer to the gitian building documentation for more information regarding that process.

Compiling using packaged dependencies

It is possible to build your own copy of Dogecoin Core with the exact, tested, dependencies, as used for the binary releases, by using the depends system. Please refer to the depends README for instructions to build Dogecoin using these dependencies.

Compiling using system-provided libraries

The following are developer notes on how to build Dogecoin on your native platform, using the dependencies as provided by your system's package manager. Before starting, ensure your system is updated and has the latest security patches. Outdated libraries can render the entire system, including Dogecoin Core, vulnerable. They are not complete guides, but include notes on the necessary libraries, compile flags, etc.

Testing

Unit tests can be compiled and ran with make check. Further details on running and extending unit tests can be found in /src/test/README.md.

There are also regression and integration tests written in Python, that are run automatically on the build server. These tests can be run (if the test dependencies are installed) with: qa/pull-tester/rpc-tests.py

Tips and tricks

compiling for debugging

Run configure with the --enable-debug option, then make. Or run configure with CXXFLAGS="-g -ggdb -O0" or whatever debug flags you need.

debug.log

If the code is behaving strangely, take a look in the debug.log file in the data directory; error and debugging messages are written there.

The -debug=... command-line option controls debugging; running with just -debug will turn on all categories (and give you a very large debug.log file).

The Qt code routes qDebug() output to debug.log under category "qt": run with -debug=qt to see it.

testnet and regtest modes

Run with the -testnet option to run with "play dogecoins" on the test network, if you are testing multi-machine code that needs to operate across the internet.

If you are testing something that can run on one machine, run with the -regtest option. In regression test mode, blocks can be created on-demand; see qa/rpc-tests/ for tests that run in -regtest mode.

DEBUG_LOCKORDER

Dogecoin Core is a multithreaded application, and deadlocks or other multithreading bugs can be very difficult to track down. Compiling with -DDEBUG_LOCKORDER (configure CXXFLAGS="-DDEBUG_LOCKORDER -g") inserts run-time checks to keep track of which locks are held, and adds warnings to the debug.log file if inconsistencies are detected.