Algorand BetaNet 2.7.1

Highlights

This is a minor fix to ensure consistency in algod and indexer outputs before the protocol switch.

Summary

1. REST API
   • Bug Fix - make extra-program-pages and apps-total-extra-pages optional in order to do not exposing them before the protocol switch.

Protocol Upgrade

This release does not contain a protocol upgrade.

Additional Resources

• Algorand Forum
• Developer Documentation

Algorand BetaNet 2.7.0

Protocol Upgrade

This release will require a protocol upgrade.
This release contains a consensus protocol upgrade, which implements the following spec:
https://github.com/algorandfoundation/specs/tree/65b4ab3266c52c56a0fa7d591754887d68faad0a

Spec PR: #2286

Highlights

This release represents a major milestone in smart contract functionality, as well as serves as a vote for the future of governance on chain.

In this release:

• Governance vote - see https://algorand.foundation/news/algorand-governance-referendum
• Algorand Virtual Machine (AVM) v0.9
  • Control Flow
    • New OpCodes: callsub, retsub
    • Allow backward jumps or indirect jumps
    • Dynamic cost accounting
  • Opcodes: Math related
    • New OpCodes: shl, shr, divmodw, exp, expw, sqrt, log2
    • Byteslice arithmetic
  • Contract-to-contract composability - allow contracts to share scratch space in a transaction group
  • Createable IDs in gtxns (they are not really deterministic, but rather new app/asset idx are available for subsequent apps within a transaction group)
  • Increased Program Limits
    • Ability to pay for extra pages
    • Pool fees - as long as fees in a covered in a gtxn, allow 0 fee txns
    • Increase ASA URL size from 32 bytes to 96 bytes (better IPFS support for NFTs)
    • Combine clear and approval limits
    • Combine schema key/value sizes
  • Optimize int/byte constant in assembly
• Participation key registration improvements (e.g. check valid ranges)
• Miscellaneous optimizations and test improvements

Changes

1. AVM
   • New Features
     • Control flow (callsub, retsub; backward/indirect jumps; dynamic cost accounting)
     • New math opcodes (shl, shr, divmodw, exp, expw, sqrt, log2) and byteslice-oriented math
     • Add ability to pay for more program space
     • Allow future app call transactions to read the scratch space of previous transactions in the same transaction group for contract to contract composability
     • Combine Clear and Approval Program size limits
     • Combine app state key/value size limits
     • Expose creatable IDs to AVM code within the same group
     • Pool fees in a transaction group and allow one user to pay all fees
   • Enhancements
     • Allow AVM code to access a max number of foreign refs
     • Increase ASA URL size from 32 bytes to 96 bytes to support NFTs with longer IPFS URLs
     • Optimize constant assembly
     • Regularize access to "foreign" references
   • Bug Fix - check setbyte length properly
2. REST API
   • New Feature - add the AppsTotalExtraPages account field to the response returned by the /v2/accounts/{addr} endpoint
   • Enhancement - make account endpoint produce deterministic JSON
3. Agreement
   • Bug Fix - bug fix for proposal for a future round failing to be relayed
4. Catchup
   • Enhancement - catchup: speedup initial node DNS bootstrap time
5. Goal
   • Bug Fix - clean up goal wallet new output
6. Network
   • Enhancement - start network only after handlers registration is complete
   • Bug Fix - fix go vet error for string(int) conversion in TestWebsocketNetworkCancel
7. Node
   • Enhancement - improve fresh node startup time
   • Bug Fix - ensure stopping a node always stops KMD
8. Tools
   • Enhancements - deprecate auction code
   • Improve carpenter by adding timestamp
9. Tests
   • New Feature - integrate with codecov.io to attach coverage reports to PRs
   • Enhancements
     • Add PeerSelector and Catchup service tests
     • Add missing test for universalFetcher.go
     • Bandwidth stats for cluster tests
     • Disable compact certs and auction tests
     • Disable goal expect tests
     • Improve AVM tests
     • Improve TestRewardUnitThreshold predicate
     • Increase catchupaccessor code coverage
     • Temporarily disable TestBasicCatchpointCatchup test and reset timeouts
     • Temporarily disable TestPeriodicSync test
     • Use gotestsum instead of logfilter for test formatting
     • e2e sub assets-app speedup
     • sectok e2e faster
   • Bug Fixes
     • Fix asynchronous startup case for rekey upgrade test
     • Fix bug in TestApplicationsUpgradeOverREST
     • Fix data race accessing messagesOfInterest during network shutdown
     • Fix random TestAccountInformationV2 test failures by refreshing wallet handle
     • Fix random failure in TestConsensusVersion
     • Fixing a bug in eval and TestOnSwitchToUnSupportedProtocol
     • Protocol upgrade tests - AgreementFilterTimeout was not set correctly
     • Fix TestRekeyUpgrade when round=0
10. Other
    • New Feature - initial support for building CentOS Stream 8 RPM (still need publishing work)
    • Enhancements
      • Add mention of install_buildtools.sh to README
      • Fix docker builds after refactor: skip make deps
      • Modify build_release to match build_pr and remove ARM Deploy
      • Re-enable gofmt check during travis build
      • Refactor code generation verification
      • Remove ci-deps and update GOPROXY in Dockerfiles
      • Use minimal travis container since we install go ourselves
    • Bug Fixes
      • Fix incorrect gaid and gaids docs
      • Fix nightly test genesis file issue
      • If the branch is rel/nightly set channel to nightly
      • Fix crash that should be a clean error report for using substring wrong

Additional Resources

• Algorand Forum
• Developer Documentation

Algorand 2.6.0

Highlights

• Increased Test Coverage: including adding NFT support for pingpong
• Logging: reduced verbosity
• TEAL: TEAL 3 Refactoring and new features in tealdbg
• Catchup and Catchpoint enhancements
• BugFixes: Update.sh script, GOPROXY, REST API, Nil Check, KMD for Windows, netgoal

Changelog

1. General/Other
   • New Feature
     • Add support for Arch Linux
   • Enhancement
     • Expand /metrics to show per-message-tag stats on number of messages and amount of bytes moved.
     • Cache docker images in Travis and re-load them
     • Copy database files generation in create_and_deploy_recipe.sh to nodes
     • Improve handling of ledger falling behind agreement
     • Report algod panic in algoh
     • BlockService will redirect when it does not have the round
     • Efficiency Improvement: Avoid compact cert validation on non-validate/non-generate path
   • BugFix
     • Fix bug with updater not restarting services with systemctl
     • Update GOPROXY: Deal with deprecated gocenter.io GOPROXY
     • Pipeline - don't reset CHANNEL if defined
     • skip printing the logs when program is in terminated state.
     • nil check fix
     • Push docker tag to betanet
     • Fix requestNonce alignment on arm32
     • rollback config v17 into v16
     • Fixes for KMD on Windows
2. Teal
   • Enhancement
     • Cleanup and re-factor of TEAL 3 code
     • adding extra docs for pushbytes and pushint
   • Tealdbg:
     • Check compile and dryrun programs against consensus limits
     • Better support for TEAL 3 in tealdbg
     • Allow tealdbg to listen on specified address
     • Removes program version assumption
3. REST API
   • Bug Fix
     • Add swagger response annotations so a valid swagger doc gets generated
     • Fix parameter check in abort procedure
     • Fixes for pending transaction endpoint
     • Return an empty string instead of null when making a proof for transaction with no siblings.
4. Tests
   • Enhancement
     • algofix - Allow struct field to be sync.Mutex if tagged algofix:"allow sync.Mutex"
     • Add DisableLocalhostConnectionRateLimit configuration option
     • Fix/improve kmd speed in test
     • Add pingpong mode to create NFTs for testing
     • script to watch algod heap
     • Improve TestCompactCerts error testing
     • Bandwidth watch
     • Unit test demonstrating high memory consumption
     • Catchup: Add deep block validation support
     • Add performance metrics for account updates
     • Add tests for ledger/compactcert.go
     • test coverage for ledger/eval.go funcs
     • Filter out verbosed output from automated testing
   • Bug Fix
     • Fix parameter check in abort procedure
     • Fix testing bug : avoid datarace on a node crash during e2e test
     • logfilter: exit with non-zero when test fails
     • Node Controller: delete pid file on killing process
     • Fix node shutdown on the wrong node directory
5. Catchup and Catchpoint
   • Enhancement
     • Support for catching up from http or ws fetchers
     • Reduce memory utilization during accounts update init by reconstructing balances db from blocks
     • Extend catchpointdump utility to verify merkle trie
     • Fine tune catchup peer selection logic
     • Add cross-verify for genesis.json hash
   • Bug Fix
     • catchpoint: truncate output file
6. Ledger
   • Enhancement
     • Preload account data in parallel on the evaluator
     • Improve ConsensusVersion error messages
     • Disable minimum balance check when not validating or generating
     • Split committed round range by consensus protocol version
   • Bug Fix
     • Fix consensus version to flush correctly
7. Network
   • Enhancement
     • Improve ConsensusVersion error messages
     • Add peer functions to network interface to associate data with a peer to be garbage collected when peer goes away
     • Add networking infrastructure for cancelling sends
8. Goal
   • Enhancement
     • Add comments to disassembly of constant load lines to show constant
     • add support for a single node private network
     • Improve waitForCommit logic
     • Refactor waitForCommit
   • Bug Fix
     • Fix goal node restart message when node already started
9. Transactions
   • Enhancement
     • Transaction Sync: Optimize bloom filter memory allocations
   • Bug Fix
     • txpool: Fix incorrect datatype checking in recomputeBlockEvaluator
10. Logger
    • Enhancement
      • Make deadlockLogger thread-safe
      • Reduce verbosity of logged messages
      • Print out intermediate decoding errors
      • logfilter: provide proper handling for panicking unit tests
    • Bug Fix
      • logfilter bug when running test without -v
11. netgoal
    • Enhancement
      • Add pre-generated network support
    • Bug Fix
      • Fix insufficient account with preloaded db files
      • Resolve netgoal errors when bootstrap files are missing
      • Fixup small amounts of float64 roundoff
12. Participation Keys
    • Enhancement
      • Refactor participation keys management
      • Add support for overlapping participation keys
      • Ensure the participation key database is being correctly closed after being installed
      • Add ParticipationKeysRefreshInterval to the node config

Protocol Upgrade

This release does not contain a protocol upgrade.

Additional Resources

• Algorand Forum
• Developer Documentation

Algorand BetaNet 2.6.0

Highlights

• Increased Test Coverage: including adding NFT support for pingpong
• Logging: reduced verbosity
• TEAL: TEAL 3 Refactoring and new features in tealdbg
• Catchup and Catchpoint enhancements
• BugFixes: Update.sh script, GOPROXY, REST API, Nil Check, KMD for Windows, netgoal

Changelog

1. General/Other
   • New Feature
     • Add support for Arch Linux
   • Enhancement
     • Expand /metrics to show per-message-tag stats on number of messages and amount of bytes moved.
     • Cache docker images in Travis and re-load them
     • Copy database files generation in create_and_deploy_recipe.sh to nodes
     • Improve handling of ledger falling behind agreement
     • Report algod panic in algoh
     • BlockService will redirect when it does not have the round
     • Efficiency Improvement: Avoid compact cert validation on non-validate/non-generate path
   • BugFix
     • Fix bug with updater not restarting services with systemctl
     • Update GOPROXY: Deal with deprecated gocenter.io GOPROXY
     • Pipeline - don't reset CHANNEL if defined
     • skip printing the logs when program is in terminated state.
     • nil check fix
     • Push docker tag to betanet
     • Fix requestNonce alignment on arm32
     • rollback config v17 into v16
     • Fixes for KMD on Windows
2. Teal
   • Enhancement
     • Cleanup and re-factor of TEAL 3 code
     • adding extra docs for pushbytes and pushint
   • Tealdbg:
     • Check compile and dryrun programs against consensus limits
     • Better support for TEAL 3 in tealdbg
     • Allow tealdbg to listen on specified address
     • Removes program version assumption
3. REST API
   • Bug Fix
     • Add swagger response annotations so a valid swagger doc gets generated
     • Fix parameter check in abort procedure
     • Fixes for pending transaction endpoint
     • Return an empty string instead of null when making a proof for transaction with no siblings.
4. Tests
   • Enhancement
     • algofix - Allow struct field to be sync.Mutex if tagged algofix:"allow sync.Mutex"
     • Add DisableLocalhostConnectionRateLimit configuration option
     • Fix/improve kmd speed in test
     • Add pingpong mode to create NFTs for testing
     • script to watch algod heap
     • Improve TestCompactCerts error testing
     • Bandwidth watch
     • Unit test demonstrating high memory consumption
     • Catchup: Add deep block validation support
     • Add performance metrics for account updates
     • Add tests for ledger/compactcert.go
     • test coverage for ledger/eval.go funcs
     • Filter out verbosed output from automated testing
   • Bug Fix
     • Fix parameter check in abort procedure
     • Fix testing bug : avoid datarace on a node crash during e2e test
     • logfilter: exit with non-zero when test fails
     • Node Controller: delete pid file on killing process
     • Fix node shutdown on the wrong node directory
5. Catchup and Catchpoint
   • Enhancement
     • Support for catching up from http or ws fetchers
     • Reduce memory utilization during accounts update init by reconstructing balances db from blocks
     • Extend catchpointdump utility to verify merkle trie
     • Fine tune catchup peer selection logic
     • Add cross-verify for genesis.json hash
   • Bug Fix
     • catchpoint: truncate output file
6. Ledger
   • Enhancement
     • Preload account data in parallel on the evaluator
     • Improve ConsensusVersion error messages
     • Disable minimum balance check when not validating or generating
     • Split committed round range by consensus protocol version
   • Bug Fix
     • Fix consensus version to flush correctly
7. Network
   • Enhancement
     • Improve ConsensusVersion error messages
     • Add peer functions to network interface to associate data with a peer to be garbage collected when peer goes away
     • Add networking infrastructure for cancelling sends
8. Goal
   • Enhancement
     • Add comments to disassembly of constant load lines to show constant
     • add support for a single node private network
     • Improve waitForCommit logic
     • Refactor waitForCommit
   • Bug Fix
     • Fix goal node restart message when node already started
9. Transactions
   • Enhancement
     • Transaction Sync: Optimize bloom filter memory allocations
   • Bug Fix
     • txpool: Fix incorrect datatype checking in recomputeBlockEvaluator
10. Logger
    • Enhancement
      • Make deadlockLogger thread-safe
      • Reduce verbosity of logged messages
      • Print out intermediate decoding errors
      • logfilter: provide proper handling for panicking unit tests
    • Bug Fix
      • logfilter bug when running test without -v
11. netgoal
    • Enhancement
      • Add pre-generated network support
    • Bug Fix
      • Fix insufficient account with preloaded db files
      • Resolve netgoal errors when bootstrap files are missing
      • Fixup small amounts of float64 roundoff
12. Participation Keys
    • Enhancement
      • Refactor participation keys management
      • Add support for overlapping participation keys
      • Ensure the participation key database is being correctly closed after being installed
      • Add ParticipationKeysRefreshInterval to the node config

Protocol Upgrade

This release does not contain a protocol upgrade.

Additional Resources

• Algorand Forum
• Developer Documentation

Algorand 2.5.6

This release will require a protocol upgrade.
This release contains a consensus protocol upgrade, which implements the following spec:
https://github.com/algorandfoundation/specs/tree/d050b3cade6d5c664df8bd729bf219f179812595

Please note that the consensus upgrade window for this release is 60,000 rounds, instead of 140,000. This means that once approved, the upgrade will take effect in a shorter time frame than a week.

Changes

1. General
   • Bug Fix - Fix accessing int64 atomic variables on arm32 which was causing a panic on startup on ARM32
2. Ledger
   • Bug Fixes
     • Ensure local delta does not have entries with empty key-value stores
     • Prevent storing empty accounts in DB after opting out from an app
     • DB data migration for empty accounts
     • compatibility mode for account index calculation in eval delta

Additional Resources

• Algorand Forum
• Developer Documentation

Algorand BetaNet 2.5.6

This release will require a protocol upgrade.
This release contains a consensus protocol upgrade, which implements the following spec:
https://github.com/algorandfoundation/specs/tree/d050b3cade6d5c664df8bd729bf219f179812595

Changes

1. General
   • Bug Fix - Fix accessing int64 atomic variables on arm32 which was causing a panic on startup on ARM32
2. Ledger
   • Bug Fixes
     • Ensure local delta does not have entries with empty key-value stores
     • Prevent storing empty accounts in DB after opting out from an app
     • DB data migration for empty accounts
     • compatibility mode for account index calculation in eval delta

Additional Resources

• Algorand Forum
• Developer Documentation

Algorand 2.5.5

This release will NOT require a protocol upgrade.

Changes

1. Bug Fix - proposal propagation logic to reduce occasional block latency increase.

Protocol Upgrade

This release does not contain a protocol upgrade.

Additional Resources

• Algorand Forum
• Developer Documentation

Algorand BetaNet 2.5.5

Highlights

An optimization to propagate block proposals early caused latencies to occasionally occur. This release reverts that change.

Changes

1. Agreement
   • Bug Fix - roll back early proposal propagation changes

Protocol Upgrade

This release does not contain a protocol upgrade.

Additional Resources

• Algorand Forum
• Developer Documentation

Algorand v2.5.4

Protocol Upgrade

This release will require a protocol upgrade.
This release contains a consensus protocol upgrade, which implements the following spec:
https://github.com/algorandfoundation/specs/tree/ac2255d586c4474d4ebcf3809acccb59b7ef34ff

Highlights

Support for TEAL 3

• Added support for the following new opcodes:
  • assert
  • min_balance
  • getbit
  • setbit
  • getbyte
  • setbyte
  • swap
  • select
  • dig
  • stxn
  • stxna
  • pushbytes
  • pushint
• Added support for the following txn fields:
  • ForeignAssets
  • NumForeignAssets
  • ForeignApps
  • NumForeignApps
  • GlobalStateInts
  • GlobalStateByteslices
  • LocalStateInts
  • LocalStateByteslices
• Added support for new global field:
  • CreatorAddress

This release also contains performance improvements as well as lays the groundwork for future features.

• Re-factoring and re-organization of code to improve performance
• Minor improvement to memory utilization on relays
• Initial groundwork for future compact certificate support
• Pre-requisite work for co-chain support
• Core block archiver support
• Added AssetClosingAmount to ApplyData

Changelog

1. Agreement
   • New Feature - add a Merkle commitment to transactions in block header
   • Enhancement - propagate block proposals before transaction validation
   • Bug Fixes
     • Fix initial rewards rate calculation for new networks
     • Increase pending proposals queue
     • FilterTimeout is using binary ConsensusCurrentVersion instead of current protocol version
2. Ledger
   • New Features
     • Add asset close to amount field to transaction
     • Top-level compact certificate support
   • Enhancements
     • Trim StateDelta fields before storing
     • Improve memory allocations in cloneAssetHoldings and cloneAssetParams
     • Precise calculation of paysetHint for block eval
     • App refactoring
     • Change block header to allow for multiple compact certs in the future
     • Implement base round account caching
     • Improve speed of BlockEvaluator eval() by pre-fetching account data, decreasing latency at various points during block accounting
     • Move ledger.dbPair to db.Pair
     • Remove all cow.mods usages outside of cow type
     • Replace accountDelta by basics.AccountData in ledger
     • Restructure ledger package: ledger/ledgercore
     • Switch from map of modified accounts to an array
     • Drop support for old-style Merkle txn root commitment
     • Faster computation of transaction ID and length
     • More precise CompactCertWeightThreshold
     • Speed up merklearray
   • Bug Fixes
     • Fix for empty local state key value map assignment
     • Fix ClearState program applying when it errs
     • Ensure loading of a merkle trie deferred page during commit
3. Network
   • New Feature - add core networking support for archivers
   • Enhancements
     • Improve network package error handling
     • Move peer.PrepareURL to net.SubstituteGenesisID
     • Optimize LimitedReaderSlurper memory utilization to improve relay memory usage
     • Adjust the network outgoing buffer sizes
     • Network: refactor broadcastThread
     • Remove the network v1 fetcher via websocket connections
     • Deprecate support of reverse catchup protocol ( part 2 )
     • Deprecate support of reverse catchup protocol ( part 3 )
4. Teal
   • New Feature - TEAL 3 support (see Highlights)
   • Bug Fix - copy byteslices that will be modified by opcode
5. REST API
   • Bug Fix - fix omitempty for AssetCloseAmount
6. Catchup
   • Enhancement - implement peer selector logic for catchup
7. Config
   • Enhancement - create new consensus upgrade for AssetCloseAmount
8. Goal
   • Enhancement - better missing argument error message for "goal asset destroy"
   • Bug Fixes
     • Avoid creating invalid consensus.json file
     • Fix insufficient fee error message formatting
9. Node
   • Bug Fix: Fix node panicing during shutdown
10. Logging
    • Enhancement - do not use deadlock.Mutex in logging
    • Bug Fixes
      • Handle #pragma errors more like all others
      • Prevent misleading agreement error message
11. Tools
    • Enhancements
      • add appeal to kindness to dispenser to help prevent abuse
      • Implement a transaction load generator
      • Added Repeat configuration flag to support single invocation of load generator
      • Support large integers in tealdbg
    • Bug Fixes
      • Improvements/bugfixes for tealdbg to improve Chrome DevTools support
      • Fix tealdbg Accounts array
12. Tests
    • Enhancements
      • Put some unicode in an AsssetName to help test Indexer
      • Improve the reliability of the TestApplicationsUpgradeOverGossip e2e test by using a specific historical protocols and avoiding dynamically modifying current and/or future protocols.
      • Remove GOPATH dependencies in integration tests
      • Remove data directory from start/stop network expect tests
      • Add BenchmarkWritingRandomBalancesDisk
      • Add BenchmarkVariableTransactionMessageBlockSizes
      • Add e2e test with some interesting state for Indexer tests.
      • Improve TestAccountsCanSendMoney e2e test
      • Indexer state test for keys creation/deletion
      • Add a non-utf8 Note test
      • Asset-close test case to tickle indexer
      • Close after rekey test data
      • Non-utf8 app value keys for test
      • Testing: make e2e_client_runner more robust
      • Tests for the compactcert package
    • Bug Fixes
      • Adjust timeouts in assets-app.sh/sectok-app.sh tests
      • Fix regression in BenchmarkReadingAllBalancesRAM and BenchmarkReadingAllBalancesDisk
13. Other
    • New Feature - systemd - run algod as a user service
    • Enhancements
      • Build - fix deprecation warning on sortition compilation
      • Build - new recipe for Devnet network
      • Use msgp 1.1.47
      • Clarify account status meaning in code-comment
      • Integrate package signing into CI pipeline
      • Make github templates friendlier
      • Add comment details on format of Transaction for kmd
    • Bug Fixes
      • Upgrade the websocket library to use version 1.4.2
      • Pipeline - move check_golang_version check to fix deploying in travis
      • Pipeline - remove jq from check golang version script to fix deploy jobs in Travis
      • Fix few minor log string formatting
      • Fix few minor typos

Additional Resources

• Algorand Forum
• Developer Documentation

Algorand BetaNet 2.5.4

Highlights

Bug fix release

• Fast catchup on TestNet was erroring using new code
• Other miscellaneous fixes

Changelog

1. Ledger
   • Bug Fixes
     • Fix for empty local state key value map assignment
     • Fix ClearState program applying when it errs
     • Ensure loading of a merkle trie deferred page during commit
2. Node
   • Bug Fix: Fix node panicing during shutdown

Protocol Upgrade

This release does not contain a protocol upgrade.

Additional Resources

• Algorand Forum
• Developer Documentation