1 release (0 unstable)
1.0.0-beta.29 | Oct 17, 2023 |
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#16 in #zebra
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Contents
About
Zebra is the Zcash Foundation's independent, consensus-compatible implementation of a Zcash node.
Zebra's network stack is interoperable with zcashd
, and Zebra implements all
the features required to reach Zcash network consensus, including the validation
of all the consensus rules for the NU5 network upgrade.
Here are some
benefits of Zebra.
Zebra validates blocks and transactions, but needs extra software to generate them:
- To generate transactions, run Zebra with
lightwalletd
. - To generate blocks, enable mining support, and use a mining pool or miner with Zebra's mining JSON-RPCs. Mining support is currently incomplete, experimental, and off by default.
Please join us on Discord if you'd like to find out more or get involved!
Getting Started
You can run Zebra using our Docker image or you can build it manually. Please see the System Requirements section in the Zebra book for system requirements.
Docker
This command will run our latest release, and sync it to the tip:
docker run zfnd/zebra:latest
For more information, read our Docker documentation.
Building Zebra
Building Zebra requires Rust, libclang, pkg-config, and a C++ compiler.
Zebra is tested with the latest stable
Rust version. Earlier versions are not
supported or tested. Any Zebra release can start depending on new features in the
latest stable Rust.
Every few weeks, we release a new Zebra version.
Below are quick summaries for installing the dependencies on your machine.
General instructions for installing dependencies
-
Install
cargo
andrustc
. -
Install Zebra's build dependencies:
- libclang is a library that might have different names depending on your
package manager. Typical names are
libclang
,libclang-dev
,llvm
, orllvm-dev
. - clang or another C++ compiler:
g++
(all platforms) orXcode
(macOS). - pkg-config
- libclang is a library that might have different names depending on your
package manager. Typical names are
Dependencies on Arch
sudo pacman -S rust clang pkgconf
Note that the package clang
includes libclang
as well as the C++ compiler.
Once the dependencies are in place, you can build and install Zebra:
cargo install --locked zebrad
You can start Zebra by
zebrad start
See the Installing Zebra and Running Zebra sections in the book for more details.
Optional Configs & Features
Configuring Progress Bars
Configure tracing.progress_bar
in your zebrad.toml
to
show key metrics in the terminal using progress bars.
When progress bars are active, Zebra automatically sends logs to a file.
In future releases, the progress_bar = "summary"
config will show a few key metrics,
and the "detailed" config will show all available metrics. Please let us know which metrics are
important to you!
Custom Build Features
You can also build Zebra with additional Cargo features:
getblocktemplate-rpcs
for mining supportprometheus
for Prometheus metricssentry
for Sentry monitoringelasticsearch
for experimental Elasticsearch support
You can combine multiple features by listing them as parameters of the --features
flag:
cargo install --features="<feature1> <feature2> ..." ...
Our full list of experimental and developer features is in the API documentation.
Some debugging and monitoring features are disabled in release builds to increase performance.
Known Issues
There are a few bugs in Zebra that we're still working on fixing:
-
Zebra currently gossips and connects to private IP addresses, we want to disable private IPs but provide a config (#3117) in an upcoming release
-
If Zebra fails downloading the Zcash parameters, use the Zcash parameters download script instead.
-
Block download and verification sometimes times out during Zebra's initial sync #5709. The full sync still finishes reasonably quickly.
-
Rust 1.70 causes crashes during shutdown on macOS x86_64 (#6812). The state cache should stay valid despite the crash.
-
No Windows support #3801. We used to test with Windows Server 2019, but not any more; see the issue for details.
-
Experimental Tor support is disabled until Zebra upgrades to the latest
arti-client
. This happened due to a Rust dependency conflict, which could only be resolved byarti
upgrading to a version ofx25519-dalek
with the dependency fix.
Future Work
We will continue to add new features as part of future network upgrades, and in response to community feedback.
Documentation
The Zebra website contains user documentation, such as how to run or configure Zebra, set up metrics integrations, etc., as well as developer documentation, such as design documents. We also render API documentation for the external API of our crates, as well as internal documentation for private APIs.
User support
For bug reports please open a bug report ticket in the Zebra repository.
Alternatively by chat, Join the Zcash Foundation Discord Server and find the #zebra-support channel.
Security
Zebra has a responsible disclosure policy, which we encourage security researchers to follow.
License
Zebra is distributed under the terms of both the MIT license and the Apache License (Version 2.0).
See LICENSE-APACHE and LICENSE-MIT.
Some Zebra crates are distributed under the MIT license only, because some of their code was originally from MIT-licensed projects. See each crate's directory for details.