Add -chainstatedir and -blocksdir in bitcoin.conf

Janaka-Steph commented at 5:12 pm on October 28, 2018: none

Hello!

I am running a bitcoin core node on my macbook with datadir on an external hard drive. The sync performance wasn’t great so I searched to improve it and I found this thread #10647 (comment)

Peter is suggesting to keep the chainstate on internal disk but only moving blocks on external disk. My question is, is there some plans to let user the possibility to specify that in the config file instead of creating symlink, having chainstatedir and blocksdir parameters in addition to datadir?

Thank you

hebasto commented at 9:02 pm on November 3, 2018: member

-blocksdir option has been already supported by the command line and/or bitcoin.conf file. See: #12653

Janaka-Steph commented at 6:13 pm on November 5, 2018: none

spec: Bitcoin 0.17.0, Mac OSX @hebasto Oh ok I didn’t know that, thank you. However I tried to add blocksdir to my config file and it is not taken into account. I first tried to add blocksdir under sections [main] and [test]. This doesn’t work. And having a global blocksdir doesn’t work either.

I have an additional issue with regtest. I want to keep the default data directory but when I run bitcoind, it will create an empty blocks folder at the root of the bitcoin directory in addition to a blocks folder in the regtest directory. It seems that bitcoind in regtest will first search for a blocks dir as if it was on mainnet. It forces me to plug my external hard drive even if I work on regtest. Specifying datadir or blocksdir in [regtest] to avoid this unwanted behavior doesn’t work.

hebasto commented at 7:49 pm on November 5, 2018: member

@Janaka-Steph

However I tried to add blocksdir to my config file and it is not taken into account. I first tried to add blocksdir under sections [main] and [test]. This doesn’t work. And having a global blocksdir doesn’t work either.

Can you provide your bitcoin.conf file here?

I have an additional issue with regtest. I want to keep the default data directory but when I run bitcoind, it will create an empty blocks folder at the root of the bitcoin directory in addition to a blocks folder in the regtest directory.

The #14409 patch fixes this issue.

Janaka-Steph commented at 9:48 pm on November 5, 2018: none

Here is my bitcoin conf file. blocksdir is commented. I tried different things but can’t have it working.

  0# This config should be placed in following path on Mac OSX:
  1# $HOME/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf
  2
  3###
  4#[core]
  5
  6#regtest=1
  7testnet=1
  8
  9# Maintain a full transaction index, used by the getrawtransaction rpc call.
 10txindex=1
 11
 12# Specify a non-default location to store blockchain and other data.
 13# Default location on Mac OSX: $HOME/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin
 14# Having chainstate on external HD hurts performance badly, see [#10647 (comment)](/bitcoin-bitcoin/10647/#issuecomment-312466993)
 15# datadir=/Volumes/Blockchains/Bitcoin
 16
 17# Configuration file location
 18# conf=/Users/steph/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf
 19
 20# Set database cache size in megabytes; machines sync faster with a larger cache
 21# Recommend setting as high as possible based upon machine's available RAM
 22dbcache=10000
 23
 24# Append comment to the user agent string
 25uacomment=fuckTheBanks
 26
 27
 28###
 29#[zeromq]
 30# Enable publishing of block hashes to <address>.
 31zmqpubhashblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:30001
 32
 33# Enable publishing of transaction hashes to <address>.
 34zmqpubhashtx=tcp://127.0.0.1:30001
 35
 36
 37
 38###
 39#[debug]
 40# Categories: net, tor, mempool, http, bench, zmq, db, rpc, estimatefee, addrman, selectcoins, reindex, cmpctblock, rand, prune, proxy, mempoolrej, libevent, coindb, qt, leveldb
 41debug=1
 42# Log IP Addresses in debug output.
 43logips=1
 44
 45
 46# [network]
 47# Automatically create Tor hidden service
 48# listenonion=0
 49# Use UPnP to map the listening port
 50upnp=1
 51
 52
 53###
 54#[rpc]
 55# Accept command line and JSON-RPC commands.
 56server=1
 57
 58# Accept public REST requests.
 59rest=1
 60
 61# Secure the JSON-RPC api. Deprecated method, use rpcauth instead
 62#rpcuser=user
 63#If no rpcpassword is set, rpc cookie auth is sought
 64#rpcpassword=lulz
 65
 66# Location of the RPC auth cookie
 67#rpccookiefile=/Users/steph/Library/Application\ Support/Bitcoin/regtest/.cookie
 68
 69# Username and hashed password for JSON-RPC connections. <USERNAME>:<SALT>$<HASH>
 70# RPC clients connect using rpcuser=<USERNAME>/rpcpassword=<PASSWORD> arguments.
 71# You can generate this value with the ./share/rpcauth/rpcauth.py script in the Bitcoin Core repository
 72# rpcauth=stephane:c2aab19c89911bdeae44792ad23a8edb$e1057aa437fb1b6466de687f697b6ba8ea6fd3807b9b5bf38e972771ad4c6ce2
 73
 74# Allow JSON-RPC connections from specified source. Valid for <ip> are a single IP (e.g. 1.2.3.4), a network/netmask (e.g. 1.2.3.4/255.255.255.0) or a network/CIDR (e.g. 1.2.3.4/24). This option can be specified multiple times.
 75#rpcallowip=127.0.0.1
 76
 77
 78###
 79# [wallet]
 80# Send transactions with full-RBF (bip125-replaceable), activated by default. Use bumpfee "txid" to replace a tx.
 81walletrbf=1
 82
 83#disablewallet=1
 84
 85
 86
 87###
 88# Network specific sections
 89# https://bitcoin.org/en/release/v0.17.0#configuration-sections-for-testnet-and-regtest
 90[main]
 91#blocksdir=/Volumes/Blockchains/Bitcoin
 92
 93# Bitcoin network protocol listen port (default 8333)
 94#port=8333
 95
 96# RPC connection port (default 8332)
 97#rpcport=8332
 98
 99#mempoolsize=300
100
101
102
103[test]
104#blocksdir=/Volumes/Blockchains/Bitcoin
105
106# Bitcoin network protocol listen port (default 18333)
107port=18401
108
109# RPC connection port (default 18332)
110#rpcport=18332
111
112#mempoolsize=100
113
114# Fees (in BTC/kB) smaller than this are considered zero fee for transaction creation (default: 0.00001)
115mintxfee=0.001
116
117# Fee (in BTC/kB) to add to transactions you send (default: 0.00)
118#paytxfee=0.001
119
120# If paytxfee is not set, include enough fee so transactions begin confirmation on average within n blocks (default: 6)
121txconfirmtarget=1
122
123# Specify a non-default location to store wallet data.
124# walletdir=/Users/steph/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/testnet3/wallet1
125
126
127
128[regtest]
129#blocksdir=/Volumes/Blockchains/Bitcoin
130
131# Bitcoin network protocol listen port (default 18444)
132#port=18444
133
134# RPC connection port (default 18443)
135#rpcport=18443
136
137# Location of the RPC auth cookie
138# rpccookiefile=/Users/steph/Desktop/Bitcoin/Regtest_Server/.cookie
139
140# Set the depth of the work queue to service RPC calls
141rpcworkqueue=32
142
143#mempoolsize=20

hebasto commented at 4:27 pm on November 30, 2018: member

@Janaka-Steph I’ve tested your config file on MacOS 10.13.6:

0...
1testnet=1
2...
3[test]
4#blocksdir=/Volumes/Blockchains/Bitcoin
5blocksdir=/Users/hebasto/Desktop/BLOCKS
6...

It works as expected for me:

0$ ls /Users/hebasto/Desktop/BLOCKS/testnet3/
1blocks

Janaka-Steph commented at 12:15 pm on January 11, 2019: none

Hello, Sorry for the delay. I have tested again the blocksdir option in conf file test section, on Mac 10.14.2 and Core 0.17.1, and it works. Blocks are written on my external HD.

Janaka-Steph closed this on Jan 11, 2019

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Add -chainstatedir and -blocksdir in bitcoin.conf #14595