How to deterministically build Bitcoin Core (Gitian)

Creating the environment

The following steps need to be executed just once

1. Clone or download Bitcoin Development Environment

git clone https://github.com/daniel-lima/bitcoin-devenv

2. Move to the base directory

cd bitcoin-devenv

3. Build and start the vagrant machine

export BOX_OPTS="-l bitcoin/Vagrantfile.gitian"

vagrant up bitcoin.gitian

(The first time will take a while)

After booting this machine for the first time, you need to restart it:

 vagrant reload bitcoin.gitian

Building the software

4. Connect to the vagrant (guest) machine

vagrant ssh bitcoin.gitian

The build process happens enterily on the guest machine. More precise and detailed instructions can be found on Bitcoin Core - Gitian building and on Bitcoin Core - Release Process.

The following steps are an adapted version of those instructions:

5. Create a local (non shared) directory

cd ~

mkdir gitian

cd gitian

6. Select a version and a signer

For example:

export VERSION=0.15.0rc3
export SIGNER=signer

7. Get the latest version of the code from GitHub

git clone https://github.com/bitcoin-core/gitian.sigs.git
git clone https://github.com/bitcoin-core/bitcoin-detached-sigs.git
git clone https://github.com/devrandom/gitian-builder.git
git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.git

pushd ./bitcoin
git fetch
git checkout v${VERSION}
popd

pushd ./gitian.sigs
git pull
popd

pushd ./gitian-builder
git pull
popd

8. Set up the Gitian image

 pushd gitian-builder
 bin/make-base-vm --lxc --arch amd64 --suite trusty
 popd

9. Create the build inputs

pushd ./gitian-builder
mkdir -p inputs
wget -P inputs https://bitcoincore.org/cfields/osslsigncode-Backports-to-1.7.1.patch
wget -P inputs http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/osslsigncode/osslsigncode/osslsigncode-1.7.1.tar.gz
popd

10. Seed the Gitian sources

pushd ./gitian-builder
make -C ../bitcoin/depends download SOURCES_PATH=`pwd`/cache/common
popd

11. Build the Bitcoin Core for Linux and Windows

 pushd ./gitian-builder
 
 ./bin/gbuild --num-make 3 --memory 6000 --commit bitcoin=v${VERSION} ../bitcoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-linux.yml

 ./bin/gbuild --num-make 3 --memory 6000 --commit bitcoin=v${VERSION} ../bitcoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-win.yml

 popd

Tips:

To learn how increase the amount of memory and CPU used by this machine, check the recipes;
To check the build status, open a new SSH session to this machine and “tail” the logs at ~/gitian/gitian-builder: var/install.log and var/build.log.

12. Verify gitian builders signature

 gpg --import ./bitcoin/contrib/gitian-keys/*.pgp
 gpg --refresh-keys

 pushd ./gitian-builder
 ./bin/gverify -v -d ../gitian.sigs/ -r ${VERSION}-linux ../bitcoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-linux.yml
 ./bin/gverify -v -d ../gitian.sigs/ -r ${VERSION}-win-unsigned ../bitcoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-win.yml
 popd

Extra commands

To check the machine status (from the host machine):

vagrant status

To stop it:

vagrant halt bitcoin.gitian

To bring it to life again:

vagrant up bitcoin.gitian

To destroy the machine and free the corresponding resources:

vagrant destroy bitcoin.gitian

To rebuild the machine and start everything again, go to step 3