[Pkg-bitcoin-devel] libdb5 and backports

[Scott Howard]

Hello Martin,

On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 7:07 AM, Martin Str|mberg <ams at ludd.ltu.se> wrote:
> Hello.
>
>
> 1. I see that wheeze doesn't have libdb version 4, so you're building
> bitcoind with libdb 5.
>
> I assume the upgrade from db 4 to 5 will just happen when I start
> bitcoind and I have my db 4 wallet in .bitcoin/, right?

(Disclaimer: always backup wallet.dat.)

And as long as the db is detached, it should upgrade automatically.
Bitcoin always detaches wallet.dat automatically, so it should just
upgrade from 4->5 when you start bitcoin. See the bitcoin readme:

"If you were running on Linux with a version that might have been
compiled with a different version of Berkeley DB (for example, if you
were using an Ubuntu PPA version), then run the old version again with
the -detachdb argument and shut it down; if you do not, then the new
version will not be able to read the database files and will exit with
an error. Explanation of -detachdb (and the new "stop true" RPC
command): The Berkeley DB database library stores data in both ".dat"
and "log" files, so the database is always in a consistent state, even
in case of power failure or other sudden shutdown. The format of the
".dat" files is portable between different versions of Berkeley DB,
but the "log" files are not-- even minor version differences may have
incompatible "log" files. The -detachdb option moves any pending
changes from the "log" files to the "blkindex.dat" file for maximum
compatibility, but makes shutdown much slower. Note that the
"wallet.dat" file is always detached, and versions prior to 0.6.0
detached all databases at shutdown."

> Is that a good idea as the wallet db will be incompatible with other
> bitcoin clients?

It's up to you, as long as you have a backup of wallet.dat, you can
always us BDB tools to dump the wallet using the db5.1-utils, db
package. The db5.1_dump command will read a database file and write it
in a format understood by db4.{2..8}_load.

> 2. Is it you that are doing backports to squeeze? If not, who? Because
> that 0.3.24 version is seriously outdated (and DOSable, IIUC), and a
> newer version is needed.

I'm in favor of removing it from squeeze backports. Bitcoin will not
be in wheezy, but a buggy/security vulnerable version is in squeeze
backports, which seems kind of backwards.

Cheers,
Scott