Townforge

Copyright (c) 2019-2023 moneromooo/Crypto City Copyright (c) 2014-2023 The Monero Project.
Portions Copyright (c) 2012-2013 The Cryptonote developers.

Table of Contents

• Development resources
• Vulnerability response
• Introduction
• License
• Contributing
• Compiling Townforge from source
  • Dependencies
• Internationalization
• Using Tor
• Pruning
• Debugging
• Merge mining
• Known issues

Development resources

• Web: www.townforge.net
• Git: https://git.townforge.net/townforge/townforge
• Forum: forum.townforge.net
• IRC: #townforge on Libera.chat

Vulnerability response

• If in Monero, refer to the Monero Vulnerability Response Process
• Otherwise, contact moneromooo on irc.libera.chat IRC.

Introduction

Townforge is a blockchain based game based on the Monero source. Buy land, create buildings and research new technologies.

License

See LICENSE.

Contributing

If you want to help out, see CONTRIBUTING for a set of guidelines.

Compiling Townforge from source

Dependencies

The following table summarizes the tools and libraries required to build. A few of the libraries are also included in this repository (marked as "Vendored"). By default, the build uses the library installed on the system and ignores the vendored sources. However, if no library is found installed on the system, then the vendored source will be built and used. The vendored sources are also used for statically-linked builds because distribution packages often include only shared library binaries (.so) but not static library archives (.a).

Dep	Min. version	Vendored	Debian/Ubuntu pkg	Arch pkg	Void pkg	Fedora pkg	Optional	Purpose
GCC	5	NO	build-essential	base-devel	base-devel	gcc	NO
CMake	3.5	NO	cmake	cmake	cmake	cmake	NO
pkg-config	any	NO	pkg-config	base-devel	base-devel	pkgconf	NO
OpenSSL	basically any	NO	libssl-dev	openssl	libressl-devel	openssl-devel	NO	sha256 sum
libzmq	4.2.0	NO	libzmq3-dev	zeromq	zeromq-devel	zeromq-devel	NO	ZeroMQ library
OpenPGM	?	NO	libpgm-dev	libpgm		openpgm-devel	NO	For ZeroMQ
libnorm[2]	?	NO	libnorm-dev				YES	For ZeroMQ
libunbound	1.4.16	NO	libunbound-dev	unbound	unbound-devel	unbound-devel	NO	DNS resolver
libsodium	?	NO	libsodium-dev	libsodium	libsodium-devel	libsodium-devel	NO	cryptography
libunwind	any	NO	libunwind8-dev	libunwind	libunwind-devel	libunwind-devel	YES	Stack traces
liblzma	any	NO	liblzma-dev	xz	liblzma-devel	xz-devel	YES	For libunwind
libreadline	6.3.0	NO	libreadline6-dev	readline	readline-devel	readline-devel	YES	Input editing
expat	1.1	NO	libexpat1-dev	expat	expat-devel	expat-devel	YES	XML parsing
GTest	1.5	YES	libgtest-dev[1]	gtest	gtest-devel	gtest-devel	YES	Test suite
ccache	any	NO	ccache	ccache	ccache	ccache	YES	Compil. cache
Doxygen	any	NO	doxygen	doxygen	doxygen	doxygen	YES	Documentation
Graphviz	any	NO	graphviz	graphviz	graphviz	graphviz	YES	Documentation
lrelease	?	NO	qttools5-dev-tools	qt5-tools	qt5-tools	qt5-linguist	YES	Translations
libhidapi	?	NO	libhidapi-dev	hidapi	hidapi-devel	hidapi-devel	YES	Hardware wallet
libusb	?	NO	libusb-1.0-0-dev	libusb	libusb-devel	libusbx-devel	YES	Hardware wallet
libprotobuf	?	NO	libprotobuf-dev	protobuf	protobuf-devel	protobuf-devel	YES	Hardware wallet
protoc	?	NO	protobuf-compiler	protobuf	protobuf	protobuf-compiler	YES	Hardware wallet
libudev	?	NO	libudev-dev	systemd	eudev-libudev-devel	systemd-devel	YES	Hardware wallet
OpenGL[3]	?	NO					NO	Graphics API
libudev	?	NO	libudev-dev	systemd	eudev-libudev-devel	systemd-devel	YES	Hardware wallet
flex	?	NO				flex	NO	Script language
bison	?	NO				bison	NO	Script language

[1] On Debian/Ubuntu libgtest-dev only includes sources and headers. You must build the library binary manually. This can be done with the following command sudo apt-get install libgtest-dev && cd /usr/src/gtest && sudo cmake . && sudo make then:

• on Debian: sudo mv libg* /usr/lib/
• on Ubuntu: sudo mv lib/libg* /usr/lib/

[2] libnorm-dev is needed if your zmq library was built with libnorm, and not needed otherwise [3] An OpenGL implementation may be available from your graphics card vendor, or a software implementation exists: MESA

Install all dependencies at once on Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install build-essential cmake pkg-config libssl-dev libzmq3-dev libunbound-dev libsodium-dev libunwind8-dev liblzma-dev libreadline6-dev libldns-dev libexpat1-dev libpgm-dev qttools5-dev-tools libhidapi-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libprotobuf-dev protobuf-compiler libudev-dev libboost-chrono-dev libboost-date-time-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-locale-dev libboost-program-options-dev libboost-regex-dev libboost-serialization-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-thread-dev python3 ccache doxygen graphviz libxinerama-dev libxrender-dev libxext-dev libgl1-mesa-dev xinput

Install all dependencies at once on macOS with the provided Brewfile:

brew update && brew bundle --file=contrib/brew/Brewfile

FreeBSD 12.1 one-liner required to build dependencies:

pkg install git gmake cmake pkgconf boost-libs libzmq4 libsodium unbound

Cloning the repository

Clone recursively to pull-in needed submodule(s):

$ git clone --recursive https://git.townforge.net/townforge/townforge

If you already have a repo cloned, initialize and update:

$ cd townforge && git submodule init && git submodule update

Note: If there are submodule differences between branches, you may need to use git submodule sync && git submodule update after changing branches to build successfully.

Build instructions

Townforge uses the CMake build system and a top-level Makefile that invokes cmake commands as needed.

On Linux and macOS

• Install the dependencies

• Change to the root of the source code directory, change to the most recent release branch, and build:

  cd townforge
  git checkout v0.35.2.1
  make
  

  Optional: If your machine has several cores and enough memory, enable parallel build by running make -j<number of threads> instead of make. For this to be worthwhile, the machine should have one core and about 2GB of RAM available per thread.

  Note: The instructions above will compile the most stable release of the Townforge software. If you would like to use and test the most recent software, use git checkout master. The master branch may contain updates that are both unstable and incompatible with release software, though testing is always encouraged.

• The resulting executables can be found in build/release/bin

• Add PATH="$PATH:$HOME/townforge/build/release/bin" to .profile

• Run the Townforge daemon with townforged --detach

• Optional: build and run the test suite to verify the binaries:

  make release-test
  

  NOTE: core_tests test may take a few hours to complete.

• Optional: to build binaries suitable for debugging:

  make debug
  

• Optional: to build statically-linked binaries:

  make release-static
  

Dependencies need to be built with -fPIC. Static libraries usually aren't, so you may have to build them yourself with -fPIC. Refer to their documentation for how to build them.

• Optional: build documentation in doc/html (omit HAVE_DOT=YES if graphviz is not installed):

  HAVE_DOT=YES doxygen Doxyfile
  

On Windows:

Binaries for Windows are built on Windows using the MinGW toolchain within MSYS2 environment. The MSYS2 environment emulates a POSIX system. The toolchain runs within the environment and cross-compiles binaries that can run outside of the environment as a regular Windows application.

Preparing the build environment

• Download and install the MSYS2 installer, either the 64-bit or the 32-bit package, depending on your system.

• Open the MSYS shell via the MSYS2 Shell shortcut

• Update packages using pacman:

  pacman -Syu
  

• Exit the MSYS shell using Alt+F4

• Edit the properties for the MSYS2 Shell shortcut changing "msys2_shell.bat" to "msys2_shell.cmd -mingw64" for 64-bit builds or "msys2_shell.cmd -mingw32" for 32-bit builds

• Restart MSYS shell via modified shortcut and update packages again using pacman:

  pacman -Syu
  

• Install dependencies:

  To build for 64-bit Windows:

  pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain make mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake mingw-w64-x86_64-boost mingw-w64-x86_64-openssl mingw-w64-x86_64-zeromq mingw-w64-x86_64-libsodium mingw-w64-x86_64-hidapi mingw-w64-x86_64-unbound
  

  To build for 32-bit Windows:

  pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-toolchain make mingw-w64-i686-cmake mingw-w64-i686-boost mingw-w64-i686-openssl mingw-w64-i686-zeromq mingw-w64-i686-libsodium mingw-w64-i686-hidapi mingw-w64-i686-unbound
  

• Open the MingW shell via MinGW-w64-Win64 Shell shortcut on 64-bit Windows or MinGW-w64-Win64 Shell shortcut on 32-bit Windows. Note that if you are running 64-bit Windows, you will have both 64-bit and 32-bit MinGW shells.

Cloning

• To git clone, run:

  git clone --recursive https://git.townforge.net/townforge/townforge
  

Building

• Change to the cloned directory, run:

  cd townforge
  

• If you would like a specific version/tag, do a git checkout for that version. eg. 'v0.35.2.1'. If you don't care about the version and just want binaries from master, skip this step:

  git checkout v0.35.2.1
  

• If you are on a 64-bit system, run:

  make release-static-win64
  

• If you are on a 32-bit system, run:

  make release-static-win32
  

• The resulting executables can be found in build/release/bin

• Optional: to build Windows binaries suitable for debugging on a 64-bit system, run:

  make debug-static-win64
  

• Optional: to build Windows binaries suitable for debugging on a 32-bit system, run:

  make debug-static-win32
  

• The resulting executables can be found in build/debug/bin

On FreeBSD:

The project can be built from scratch by following instructions for Linux above(but use gmake instead of make). If you are running Monero in a jail, you need to add sysvsem="new" to your jail configuration, otherwise lmdb will throw the error message: Failed to open lmdb environment: Function not implemented.

On OpenBSD:

You will need to add a few packages to your system. pkg_add cmake gmake zeromq libiconv boost.

The doxygen and graphviz packages are optional and require the xbase set. Running the test suite also requires py3-requests package.

Build townforge: gmake

Note: you may encounter the following error, when compiling the latest version of Townforge as a normal user:

LLVM ERROR: out of memory
c++: error: unable to execute command: Abort trap (core dumped)

Then you need to increase the data ulimit size to 2GB and try again: ulimit -d 2000000

On NetBSD:

Check that the dependencies are present: pkg_info -c libexecinfo boost-headers boost-libs protobuf readline libusb1 zeromq git-base pkgconf gmake cmake | more, and install any that are reported missing, using pkg_add or from your pkgsrc tree. Readline is optional but worth having.

Third-party dependencies are usually under /usr/pkg/, but if you have a custom setup, adjust the "/usr/pkg" (below) accordingly.

Clone the monero repository recursively and checkout the most recent release as described above. Then build monero: gmake BOOST_ROOT=/usr/pkg LDFLAGS="-Wl,-R/usr/pkg/lib" release. The resulting executables can be found in build/NetBSD/[Release version]/Release/bin/.

On Solaris:

The default Solaris linker can't be used, you have to install GNU ld, then run cmake manually with the path to your copy of GNU ld:

mkdir -p build/release
cd build/release
cmake -DCMAKE_LINKER=/path/to/ld -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ../..
cd ../..

Then you can run make as usual.

On Linux for Android (using docker):

# Build image (for ARM 32-bit)
docker build -f utils/build_scripts/android32.Dockerfile -t townforge-android .
# Build image (for ARM 64-bit)
docker build -f utils/build_scripts/android64.Dockerfile -t townforge-android .
# Create container
docker create -it --name townforge-android townforge-android bash
# Get binaries
docker cp townforge-android:/src/build/release/bin .

Building portable statically linked binaries

By default, in either dynamically or statically linked builds, binaries target the specific host processor on which the build happens and are not portable to other processors. Portable binaries can be built using the following targets:

• make release-static-linux-x86_64 builds binaries on Linux on x86_64 portable across POSIX systems on x86_64 processors
• make release-static-linux-i686 builds binaries on Linux on x86_64 or i686 portable across POSIX systems on i686 processors
• make release-static-linux-armv8 builds binaries on Linux portable across POSIX systems on armv8 processors
• make release-static-linux-armv7 builds binaries on Linux portable across POSIX systems on armv7 processors
• make release-static-linux-armv6 builds binaries on Linux portable across POSIX systems on armv6 processors
• make release-static-win64 builds binaries on 64-bit Windows portable across 64-bit Windows systems
• make release-static-win32 builds binaries on 64-bit or 32-bit Windows portable across 32-bit Windows systems

Cross Compiling

You can also cross-compile static binaries on Linux for Windows and macOS with the depends system.

• make depends target=x86_64-linux-gnu for 64-bit linux binaries.
• make depends target=x86_64-w64-mingw32 for 64-bit windows binaries.
  • Requires: python3 g++-mingw-w64-x86-64 wine1.6 bc
• make depends target=x86_64-apple-darwin11 for macOS binaries.
  • Requires: cmake imagemagick libcap-dev librsvg2-bin libz-dev libbz2-dev libtiff-tools python-dev
• make depends target=i686-linux-gnu for 32-bit linux binaries.
  • Requires: g++-multilib bc
• make depends target=i686-w64-mingw32 for 32-bit windows binaries.
  • Requires: python3 g++-mingw-w64-i686
• make depends target=arm-linux-gnueabihf for armv7 binaries.
  • Requires: g++-arm-linux-gnueabihf
• make depends target=aarch64-linux-gnu for armv8 binaries.
  • Requires: g++-aarch64-linux-gnu
• make depends target=riscv64-linux-gnu for RISC V 64 bit binaries.
  • Requires: g++-riscv64-linux-gnu
• make depends target=x86_64-unknown-freebsd for freebsd binaries.
  • Requires: clang-8
• make depends target=arm-linux-android for 32bit android binaries
• make depends target=aarch64-linux-android for 64bit android binaries

The required packages are the names for each toolchain on apt. Depending on your distro, they may have different names. The depends system has been tested on Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04.

Using depends might also be easier to compile Townforge on Windows than using MSYS. Activate Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) with a distro (for example Ubuntu), install the apt build-essentials and follow the depends steps as depicted above.

The produced binaries still link libc dynamically. If the binary is compiled on a current distribution, it might not run on an older distribution with an older installation of libc. Passing -DBACKCOMPAT=ON to cmake will make sure that the binary will run on systems having at least libc version 2.17.

Running townforged

The build places the binary in bin/ sub-directory within the build directory from which cmake was invoked (repository root by default). To run in the foreground:

./bin/townforged

We are currently still on testnet, so you need to add --testnet if you want to join the public testnet:

./bin/townforged --testnet

To list all available options, run ./bin/townforged --help. Options can be specified either on the command line or in a configuration file passed by the --config-file argument. To specify an option in the configuration file, add a line with the syntax argumentname=value, where argumentname is the name of the argument without the leading dashes, for example, log-level=1.

To run in background:

./bin/townforged --log-file townforged.log --detach

To run as a systemd service, copy townforged.service to /etc/systemd/system/ and townforged.conf to /etc/. The example service assumes that the user townforge exists and its home is the data directory specified in the example config.

If you're on Mac, you may need to add the --max-concurrency 1 option to townforge-wallet-cli, and possibly townforged, if you get crashes refreshing.

running the game

./bin/townforge

or for the current public testnet:

./bin/townforge --testnet

Internationalization

See README.i18n.md.

Using Tor

There is a new, still experimental, integration with Tor. The feature allows connecting over IPv4 and Tor simultaneously - IPv4 is used for relaying blocks and relaying transactions received by peers whereas Tor is used solely for relaying transactions received over local RPC. This provides privacy and better protection against surrounding node (sybil) attacks.

While Townforge isn't made to integrate with Tor, it can be used wrapped with torsocks, by setting the following configuration parameters and environment variables:

• --p2p-bind-ip 127.0.0.1 on the command line or p2p-bind-ip=127.0.0.1 in townforged.conf to disable listening for connections on external interfaces.
• --no-igd on the command line or no-igd=1 in townforged.conf to disable IGD (UPnP port forwarding negotiation), which is pointless with Tor.
• DNS_PUBLIC=tcp or DNS_PUBLIC=tcp://x.x.x.x where x.x.x.x is the IP of the desired DNS server, for DNS requests to go over TCP, so that they are routed through Tor. When IP is not specified, townforged uses the default list of servers defined in src/common/dns_utils.cpp.
• TORSOCKS_ALLOW_INBOUND=1 to tell torsocks to allow townforged to bind to interfaces to accept connections from the wallet. On some Linux systems, torsocks allows binding to localhost by default, so setting this variable is only necessary to allow binding to local LAN/VPN interfaces to allow wallets to connect from remote hosts. On other systems, it may be needed for local wallets as well.
• Do NOT pass --detach when running through torsocks with systemd, (see utils/systemd/townforged.service for details).
• If you use the wallet with a Tor daemon via the loopback IP (eg, 127.0.0.1:9050), then use --untrusted-daemon unless it is your own hidden service.

Example command line to start townforged through Tor:

DNS_PUBLIC=tcp torsocks townforged --p2p-bind-ip 127.0.0.1 --no-igd

A helper script is in contrib/tor/monero-over-tor.sh. It assumes Tor is installed already, and runs Tor and Monero with the right configuration.

Using Tor on Tails

TAILS ships with a very restrictive set of firewall rules. Therefore, you need to add a rule to allow this connection too, in addition to telling torsocks to allow inbound connections. Full example:

sudo iptables -I OUTPUT 2 -p tcp -d 127.0.0.1 -m tcp --dport 18881 -j ACCEPT
DNS_PUBLIC=tcp torsocks ./townforged --p2p-bind-ip 127.0.0.1 --no-igd --rpc-bind-ip 127.0.0.1 \
    --data-dir /home/amnesia/Persistent/your/directory/to/the/blockchain

Pruning

As of April 2022, the full Monero blockchain file is about 130 GB. One can store a pruned blockchain, which is about 45 GB. A pruned blockchain can only serve part of the historical chain data to other peers, but is otherwise identical in functionality to the full blockchain. To use a pruned blockchain, it is best to start the initial sync with --prune-blockchain. However, it is also possible to prune an existing blockchain using the monero-blockchain-prune tool or using the --prune-blockchain monerod option with an existing chain. If an existing chain exists, pruning will temporarily require disk space to store both the full and pruned blockchains.

For more detailed information see the 'Pruning' entry in the Moneropedia

Debugging

This section contains general instructions for debugging failed installs or problems encountered with Townforge. First, ensure you are running the latest version built from the git repo.

Obtaining stack traces and core dumps on Unix systems

We generally use the tool gdb (GNU debugger) to provide stack trace functionality, and ulimit to provide core dumps in builds which crash or segfault.

• To use gdb in order to obtain a stack trace for a build that has stalled:

Run the build.

Once it stalls, enter the following command:

gdb /path/to/townforged `pidof townforged`

Type thread apply all bt within gdb in order to obtain the stack trace

• If however the core dumps or segfaults:

Enter ulimit -c unlimited on the command line to enable unlimited filesizes for core dumps

Enter echo core | sudo tee /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern to stop cores from being hijacked by other tools

Run the build.

When it terminates with an output along the lines of "Segmentation fault (core dumped)", there should be a core dump file in the same directory as townforged. It may be named just core, or core.xxxx with numbers appended.

You can now analyse this core dump with gdb as follows:

gdb /path/to/townforged /path/to/dumpfile`

Print the stack trace with bt

• If a program crashed and cores are managed by systemd, the following can also get a stack trace for that crash:

coredumpctl -1 gdb

To run Townforge within gdb:

Type gdb /path/to/townforged

Pass command-line options with --args followed by the relevant arguments

Type run to run townforged

Analysing memory corruption

There are two tools available:

ASAN

Configure Townforge with the -D SANITIZE=ON cmake flag, eg:

cd build/debug && cmake -D SANITIZE=ON -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ../..

You can then run the townforge tools normally. Performance will typically halve.

valgrind

Install valgrind and run as valgrind /path/to/townforged. It will be very slow.

LMDB

Instructions for debugging suspected blockchain corruption as per @HYC

There is an mdb_stat command in the LMDB source that can print statistics about the database but it's not routinely built. This can be built with the following command:

cd ~/townforge/external/db_drivers/liblmdb && make

The output of mdb_stat -ea <path to blockchain dir> will indicate inconsistencies in the blocks, block_heights and block_info table.

The output of mdb_dump -s blocks <path to blockchain dir> and mdb_dump -s block_info <path to blockchain dir> is useful for indicating whether blocks and block_info contain the same keys.

These records are dumped as hex data, where the first line is the key and the second line is the data.

Merge mining

Townforge can be merge mined with Monero. Merge mining is a way to mine two blockchains with the same proof of work algorithm at the same time without using extra hash power. It benefits both chains, since each ends up protected by the work done for the other as well as the work done for itself.

Merge mining Townforge is very simple, thanks to a proxy server (townforge-merge-mining-proxy) which does all the nitty gritty transparently: this proxy acts like a Monero daemon, proxying RPC to the real Monero daemon, and also connects to a Townforge daemon so it can update the Monero block templates to allow merge mining. The downstream miner does not need to know about the changes and can mine as usual.

Consider a setup where xmrig is being used to mine Monero:

monerod --rpc-bind-port 18081
xmrig --coin monero --url 127.0.0.1:18081 --daemon --user 4....

Merge mining needs the Townforge daemon to run, and the Townforge merge mining proxy to connect both daemons. xmrig can then mine to the proxy:

monerod --rpc-bind-port 18083
townforged --rpc-bind-port 18881
townforge-merge-mining-proxy --rpc-bind-port 18081 --monero-daemon-address 127.0.0.1:18083 --aux-daemon-address 127.0.0.1:18881 --aux-wallet-address TF1....
xmrig --coin monero --url 127.0.0.1:18081 --daemon --user 4....

Here, xmrig will talk to the proxy, which is configured to merge mining Townforge to the address TF1.... Note how the xmrig command line did not change.

Known Issues

Protocols

Socket-based

Because of the nature of the socket-based protocols that drive townforge, certain protocol weaknesses are somewhat unavoidable at this time. While these weaknesses can theoretically be fully mitigated, the effort required (the means) may not justify the ends. As such, please consider taking the following precautions if you are a townforge node operator:

• Run townforged on a "secured" machine. If operational security is not your forte, at a very minimum, have a dedicated a computer running townforged and do not browse the web, use email clients, or use any other potentially harmful apps on your townforged machine. Do not click links or load URL/MUA content on the same machine. Doing so may potentially exploit weaknesses in commands which accept "localhost" and "127.0.0.1".
• If you plan on hosting a public "remote" node, start townforged with --restricted-rpc. This is a must.

Blockchain-based

Certain blockchain "features" can be considered "bugs" if misused correctly. Consequently, please consider the following:

• When receiving monero currency, be aware that it may be locked for an arbitrary time if the sender elected to, preventing you from spending that currency until the lock time expires. You may want to hold off acting upon such a transaction until the unlock time lapses. To get a sense of that time, you can consider the remaining blocktime until unlock as seen in the show_transfers command.