Add bitcoind and bitcoin-cli to macOS release

Sjors commented at 3:22 pm on June 10, 2024: member

Please describe the feature you’d like to see added.

Currently the macOS downloads only contain bitcoin-qt.

It would be nice to have the other binaries as well, especially bitcoin-cli. Currently the user has to compile these themselves.

E.g. for a Stratum v2 workshop the instructions for macOS have to completely different than for Linux, because the latter can use the command-line. https://github.com/plebhash/sv2-workshop

Describe the solution you’d like

Including them in the normal download zip, perhaps in a folder called “Utilities”, so that it’s visually distinct from the GUI icon.

This would increase the download size, but typically Mac users hang out in high bandwidth environments anyway.

Describe any alternatives you’ve considered

A separate download package. This might make the release process more involved?

Please leave any additional context

I vaguely remember an earlier discussion about this, but can’t find it.

Sjors added the label Feature on Jun 10, 2024

edilmedeiros commented at 1:48 am on June 11, 2024: contributor

I second this, never understood why not expose all the CLI tools in the binaries distribution.

emc99 commented at 6:38 am on June 11, 2024: none

Most macs don’t come with the storage that bitcoin core requires.

I was down in the store the other day having a look and the storage hdd capacity on macOS machines was limited to 256GiB.

So I suppose the only solution is to purchase extra storage @Sjors

Sjors commented at 7:31 am on June 11, 2024: member

macOS machines was limited to 256GiB

You’re confusing the size of the blockchain with the size of the application download. Once you’ve installed Bitcoin Core, you can throw away the downloaded zip file. So if you just use Bitcoin-QT nothing changes.

emc99 commented at 8:36 am on June 12, 2024: none

But bitcoin core won’t function without a copy of the blockchain, which is 550GiB in size

willcl-ark commented at 10:16 am on June 12, 2024: member

@emc99 you can run your node with --prune=1024 which will prune old blocks and undo data from disk, where possible. This will mean that Bitcoin Core will take only 1024MB + UTXO set size (~12.5GB today) = ~13.5GB according to my pruned node.

 0will@ubuntu in ~/replay : 🐍 took 6s
 1₿ /home/will/bitcoin-builds/bitcoin-27.1rc1/bin/bitcoin-cli gettxoutsetinfo
 2{
 3  "height": 847611,
 4  "bestblock": "000000000000000000028f622110a7bcbb76ccf9090aa802927e9468840c30a5",
 5  "txouts": 185213812,
 6  "bogosize": 14249100416,
 7  "hash_serialized_3": "e8d4f9e2633da9d39988697549a0b87415daa1c86ac0250bdec615d9cf0b7a40",
 8  "total_amount": 19711067.99203712,
 9  "transactions": 127348804,
10  "disk_size": 12419818260
11}

Note that with a pruned node you will not be able to serve all historical blocks to bootstrapping nodes, and may need to rescan (i.e. re-download the entire chain, using network bandwidth [but no extra disk space]) in the even that you import addresses into a wallet. @Sjors, the bitcoin-cli utility is included in the macOS tar, e.g.: https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-27.1/test.rc1/bitcoin-27.1rc1-arm64-apple-darwin.tar.gz

I don’t know if there is an easy/native way to install cli tools as part of a .DMG (now .zip) MacOS installation, but I am no expert at MacOS packaging! Is this what you mean in opening this issue?

emc99 commented at 11:12 am on June 12, 2024: none

@Sjors is this what you are doing, running a pruned node?

pinheadmz commented at 11:15 am on June 12, 2024: member

Related #29749 signing the cli tools will likely require updates to the macOS signing tools we use for releases

sipa commented at 11:18 am on June 12, 2024: member

@emc99 This issue is about the discussion of packaging of the bitcoin-cli client with the macOS release. If you have questions about usage of Bitcoin Core, there are other venues like https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com.

emc99 commented at 12:53 pm on June 12, 2024: none

@sipa I don’t see how my questions are off-topic. Why can’t we have a free and open discussion of the issues on here? Isn’t that what github is for?

maflcko commented at 12:59 pm on June 12, 2024: member

Usually the issue tracker is used to track technical issues related to the Bitcoin Core code base.

General bitcoin questions and/or support requests are best directed to the Bitcoin StackExchange or the #bitcoin IRC channel on Libera Chat, or one of the Bitcoin subreddits, or any other place that you feel is well suited.

pinheadmz commented at 1:02 pm on June 12, 2024: member

@emc99 bitcoin development is complicated and busy with hundreds of people focused on different things in harmony. This issue is about macos releases. Your comment is about data usage and therefore does not belong here, in a thread where developers are discussing releases. Sipa has directed you very precisely to the best place to raise your concerns about data usage. If you have any more comments about macOS releases you are in the right place for an organized work as a team.

Further off topic comments may result in a temporary ban. For concerns about “free and open discussions” in general please open an issue in the bitcoin-core/meta repo.

ryanofsky commented at 3:05 pm on June 12, 2024: contributor

re: #30262#issue-2344196072

I vaguely remember an earlier discussion about this, but can’t find it.

I’m not sure if this is is what you were thinking of, but we previously discussed “adding helper applications alongside the main application” in a single DMG on macos in https://github.com/bitcoin-core/gui/pull/414. But these were testnet/regtest versions of the GUI, not command line apps.

achow101 commented at 3:22 pm on June 12, 2024: member

Including them in the normal download zip, perhaps in a folder called “Utilities”, so that it’s visually distinct from the GUI icon.

I think they would still have to be code signed and that could be slightly problematic? AFAIK code signing on MacOS currently requires extra data that exists in the app bundle that would not be available to standalone binaries.

pinheadmz commented at 4:48 pm on June 12, 2024: member

@achow101 binaries like bitcoind can be signed, even detached sigs: #29749 (comment)

Hokulans commented at 10:20 pm on June 12, 2024: none

Going to the police Sent from my iPhone

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But bitcoin core won’t function without a copy of the blockchain, which is 550GiB in size

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Sjors commented at 12:12 pm on June 17, 2024: member

the bitcoin-cli utility is included in the macOS tar

Oh, it’s in the tar but not in the zip. That’s confusing, but a matter of improving documentation.

In that case I’ll close this and will defer to #29749 (assuming we also sign x86 binaries).

cc @plebhash

Sjors closed this on Jun 17, 2024

Add bitcoind and bitcoin-cli to macOS release #30262

Please describe the feature you’d like to see added.

Is your feature related to a problem, if so please describe it.

Describe the solution you’d like

Describe any alternatives you’ve considered

Please leave any additional context