Getting Started

Zclassic 1.0 User Guide - Getting Started

Welcome! This guide is intended to get you running on the official Zclassic network. Zclassic currently has some limitations: it only officially supports Linux, requires 64-bit, and in some situations requires heavy memory and CPU consumption to create transactions.

Please let us know if you run into snags. We plan to make it less memory/CPU intensive and support more architectures and operating systems in the future.

Upgrading?

If you are upgrading from one of our previous releases, you can update your local snapshot of our code:

git fetch origin
git checkout master
make clean
./zcutil/fetch-params.sh
./zcutil/build.sh -j$(nproc)

A quick note about terminology

Zclassic supports two different kinds of addresses, a z-addr (which begins with a z) is an address that uses zero-knowledge proofs and other cryptography to protect user privacy. There are also t-addrs (which begin with a t) that are similar to Bitcoin's addresses.

Requirements

Currently, you will need:

Linux (easiest with a Debian-based distribution)
64-bit
4GB of free memory

The interfaces are a commandline client (zcash-cli) and a Remote Procedure Call (RPC) interface, which is documented here:

https://github.com/zcash/zcash/blob/v1.0.1/doc/payment-api.md

Security

Before installing, upgrading, or running Zclassic, ensure you have checked for any security issues. Please See our Security page:

https://z.cash/support/security.html

Get started

On Ubuntu/Debian-based systems:

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install \
      build-essential pkg-config libc6-dev m4 g++-multilib \
      autoconf libtool ncurses-dev unzip git python \
      zlib1g-dev wget bsdmainutils automake

On Fedora-based systems:

$ sudo dnf install \
      git pkgconfig automake autoconf ncurses-devel python wget \
      gtest-devel gcc gcc-c++ libtool patch

Fetch our repository with git and run fetch-params.sh like so:

$ git clone https://github.com/z-classic/zclassic.git
$ cd zclassic/
$ git checkout master
$ ./zcutil/fetch-params.sh

This will fetch our Sprout proving and verifying keys (the final ones created in the Parameter Generation Ceremony), and place them into ~/.zcash-params/. These keys are just under 911MB in size, so it may take some time to download them.

Compiling

Ensure you have successfully installed all system package dependencies as described above. Then run the build, e.g.:

$ ./zcutil/build.sh -j$(nproc)

This should compile our dependencies and build zcashd. (Note: if you don't have nproc, then substitute the number of your processors.)

Configuration

Create the ~/.zclassic directory and place a configuration file at ~/.zclassic/zclassic.conf using the following commands:

mkdir -p ~/.zclassic
echo "addnode=dnsseed.zclassic.org" > ~/.zclassic/zclassic.conf
echo "addnode=dnsseed.rotorproject.org" >> ~/.zclassic/zclassic.conf
echo "rpcuser=username" >> ~/.zclassic/zclassic.conf
echo "rpcpassword=`head -c 32 /dev/urandom | base64`" >> ~/.zclassic/zclassic.conf

Note that this will overwrite any zclassic.conf settings you may have added previously. We strongly recommend that you use a random password to avoid potential security issues with access to the RPC interface.

Enabling CPU mining:

If you want to enable CPU mining, run these commands:

$ echo 'gen=1' >> ~/.zclassic/zclassic.conf
$ echo "genproclimit=$(nproc)" >> ~/.zclassic/zclassic.conf

The default miner is not efficient, but has been well reviewed. To use a much more efficient but unreviewed solver, you can run this command:

$ echo 'equihashsolver=tromp' >> ~/.zclassic/zclassic.conf

Running Zcash:

Now, run zcashd!

$ ./src/zcashd

To run it in the background (without the node metrics screen that is normally displayed) use ./src/zcashd --daemon.

NOTE: If you would like to support the Zclassic network you can run a full node with ./src/zcashd -txindex, this will maintain a full transaction index. Note that if you were previously synced to the network you will have to rebuild the blockchain index once with ./src/zcashd -txindex -reindex.

NOTE: If you are behind a firewall/NAT you will have to open/map TCP Port 8133 so that other peers are able to establish incoming connections.

You should be able to use the RPC interface after it finishes loading. Here's a quick way to test:

$ ./src/zcash-cli getinfo

NOTE: If you are familiar with bitcoind's RPC interface, you can use many of those calls to send ZCL between t-addr addresses. We do not support the 'Accounts' feature (which has also been deprecated in bitcoind) — only the empty string "" can be used as an account name.

To see the peers you are connected to:

$ ./src/zcash-cli getpeerinfo

Using Zclassic

First, you want to obtain Zclassic. You can purchase them from an exchange, from other users, or sell goods and services for them! Exactly how to obtain Zclassic (safely) is not in scope for this document, but you should be careful. Avoid scams!

Generating a t-addr

Let's generate a t-addr first.

$ ./src/zcash-cli getnewaddress
tb4oHp2v54vfmdgQ3v3SNuQga8JKHTNi2a1

Receiving Zclassic with a z-addr

Now let's generate a z-addr.

$ ./src/zcash-cli z_getnewaddress
ztbqWB8VDjVER7uLKb4oHp2v54v2a1jKd9o4FY7mdgQ3gDfG8MiZLvdQga8JK3t58yjXGjQHzMzkGUxSguSs6ZzqpgTNiZG

This creates a private address and stores its key in your local wallet file. Give this address to the sender!

A z-addr is pretty large, so it's easy to make mistakes with them. Let's put it in an environment variable to avoid mistakes:

$ ZADDR='ztbqWB8VDjVER7uLKb4oHp2v54v2a1jKd9o4FY7mdgQ3gDfG8MiZLvdQga8JK3t58yjXGjQHzMzkGUxSguSs6ZzqpgTNiZG'

To get a list of all addresses in your wallet for which you have a spending key, run this command:

$ ./src/zcash-cli z_listaddresses

You should see something like:

[
    "zta6qngiR3U7HxYopyTWkaDLwYBd83D5MT7Jb9gpgTzPLMZytzRbtdPP1Syv4RvRgHeoZrJWSask3DyfwXG9DGPMWMvX7aC",
    "ztbqWB8VDjVER7uLKb4oHp2v54v2a1jKd9o4FY7mdgQ3gDfG8MiZLvdQga8JK3t58yjXGjQHzMzkGUxSguSs6ZzqpgTNiZG"
]

Great! Now, send your z-addr to the sender. You should eventually see their transaction when checking:

$ ./src/zcash-cli z_listreceivedbyaddress "$ZADDR"

[
    {
        "txid" : "af1665b317abe538148114a45322f28151925501c081949cc7a5207ef21cb750",
        "amount" : 1.23,
        "memo" : "48656c6c6f20ceb2210000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
    }
]

Sending coins with your z-addr

If someone gives you their z-addr...

$ FRIEND='ztcDe8krwEt1ozWmGZhBDWrcUfmK3Ue5D5z1f6u2EZLLCjQq7mBRkaAPb45FUH4Tca91rF4R1vf983ukR71kHyXeED4quGV'

You can send 0.8 ZCL by doing...

$ ./src/zcash-cli z_sendmany "$ZADDR" "[{\"amount\": 0.8, \"address\": \"$FRIEND\"}]"

After waiting about a minute, you can check to see if the operation has finished and produced a result:

$ ./src/zcash-cli z_getoperationresult

[
    {
        "id" : "opid-4eafcaf3-b028-40e0-9c29-137da5612f63",
        "status" : "success",
        "creation_time" : 1473439760,
        "result" : {
            "txid" : "3b85cab48629713cc0caae99a49557d7b906c52a4ade97b944f57b81d9b0852d"
        },
        "execution_secs" : 51.64785629
    }
]

Known Security Issues

Each release contains a ./doc/security-warnings.md document describing security issues known to affect that release. You can find the most recent version of this document here:

https://github.com/zcash/zcash/blob/master/doc/security-warnings.md

Please also see our security page for recent notifications and other resources: