v0.8.2.1: (Still) Scaling the Ethereum Blockchain

This is a point release, with a single change: it makes large-channels compatible with Eclair (and, incompatible with v0.8.2 c-lightning), as reported by @mb300sd in #3703.

• If you never enabled large-channels in your configuration file, this is exactly the same as v0.8.2.
• If you did, you won't be able to open any channels with large-channel-supporting Eclair node (e.g. Bitrefill) using v0.8.2: they will get an error when they try to announce. You need to upgrade to v0.8.2.1.
• If you already have large channels (i.e. between c-lightning nodes), they'll continue to work just fine.

We apologize for the mistake, and we are (too slowly) developing protocol tests to ensure this kind of issue does not occur in future.

v0.8.2

v0.8.2 Scaling the Ethereum Blockchain

We're pleased to announce the 0.8.2 release of c-lightning, named by @arowser.

This is a minor release and includes a few new and experimental features, as well as bug-fixes and performance wins.

Highlights for Users

• New config option --large-channels (also known as 'wumbo') which enables opening channels of any size. (Note that your peer must also support large channels.)
• This release includes a keysend plugin, which will enable receiving 'keysend' payments, as first introduced by Lightning Labs. Note that the included keysend plugin is receive only for this release. Nodes which do not want the hassle of spontaneous unrequested payments should add 'disable-plugin=keysend' to their config!
• We'll now announce multiple connection endpoints for a single 'type', e.g. multiple IPv4 addresses.
• A new FAQ!
• Big performance improvment in the pay command (~1s speedup on average)

Highlights for the Network

• c-lightning nodes can now participate in creating larger channels (with the --large-channel config option).
• We now wait until the first payment through a channel before updating the feerate; this should help with some spurious closures at channel open or re-connect that were occurring against older versions of other implementations.

Highlights for Developers

• A new command getsharedsecret for getting the BOLT-compliant shared secret finding for a node and a point.
• The API for the 'Bitcoin backend' plugin infrastructure has been documented!
• Facilities for building rendez-vous compatible onions has been added to the onion devtool
• Plugin options will now respect the type they were given in the manifest.
• Fixes with plugin cleanups and hangs.
• Python2 has been removed as a dependence.

More details can be found at https:/ElementsProject/lightning/blob/v0.8.2/CHANGELOG.md

Thanks to everyone for their contributions and bug reports; please keep them coming.

Since 0.8.1, we've had 236 commits from 10 different authors, with 2 first time contributors:

• Dr. Maxim Orlovsky @dr-orlovsky
• Dave Scotese @dscotese

Cheers,

Lisa, Christian, Rusty, and ZmnSCPxj

v0.8.1: Channel to the Moon

We're pleased to announce 0.8.1, named by @vasild (who last release was a new committer!)

Despite the holiday break and Rusty's month off, commit numbers are only down 20%!

Highlights for Users

• We now support gifting msat to the peer when opening a channel, via push_msat, providing a brand new way to lose money!
• Invoice routehints can be overridden using exposeprivatechannels: try setting to [] to eliminate all of them to fit your invoice in twitter messages!
• Wallet withdraw transactions now set nLocktime, making them blend in more with other wallets.
• Preliminary support for plugins hooks which can replace the default bitcoin-cli with other blockchain querying methods (API may change in future releases though!).
• listforwards now records the outgoing short_channel_id, even if it wasn't possible to start forwarding.

Highlights for the Network

• Plugins can set additional feature bits, for more experimentation.
• More than one plugin can register for the htlc_accepted hook: others will become multi-user in future releases.
• Documentation updates, which had lagged recent changes.
• Prevent a case where grossly unbalanced channels could become unusable.

More details can be found in https:/ElementsProject/lightning/blob/v0.8.1/CHANGELOG.md

Thanks to everyone for their contributions and bug reports; please keep them coming!

Since 0.8.0 we've had 257 commits from 17 different authors, with 5 first-time contributors!

• Niklas Claesson @NickeZ
• @minidisk1147
• Ken Sedgwick @ksedgwic
• Zoe Faltibà @zoedberg
• Glen Cooper @GlenCooper

Cheers,
Rusty, Lisa, Christian, and ZmnSCPxj.

v0.8.0: Blockchain Good, Orange Coin Bad

We're pleased to announce 0.8.0, named by m-schmoock

Time to move to the real world, by making Bitcoin mainnet the default network.

Highlights for Users

⚠️ The default network and the default location of the lightning home directory changed. Please make sure that the configuration, key file and database are moved into the network-specific subdirectory. ⚠️

• We now support receiving multi-part payments, a first step towards a more unified user experience, allowing users to bundle their channel capacities, and generally care less about whom to peer with. Support for sending is currently manual only: pay won't do it yet.
• Bitcoin mainnet is now the default network, no more --network=bitcoin needed for all you reckless users 😉
• Nodes will now use a network-dependent subdirectory, so you can run nodes for multiple networks without having to specify different --lightning-dirs.
  • Existing nodes should automatically move existing databases and hsm_secret files into the correct subdirectory. If the node does not appear to load correctly please ensure that the move was performed
    correctly.
• Config files can now be structured into multiple files using the include statement. This allows reusing common configuration options across multiple nodes.
• The rpc_command hook allows intercepting JSON-RPC requests, and arbitrarily modify them. For example this can be used to authenticate an incoming RPC request before executing it.

Highlights for the Network

• If you are a developer you might want to check out the new createonion and sendonion RPC calls which will allow you to build custom protocol extensions on top of c-lightning
• The newer TLV style payloads in the routing onions are now stable and can be used both for classical payments as well as in custom onions created by createonion.
• Invoices now add an s field for a "payment secret" which can avoid some payment probing attacks, and the pay command now uses that field if present.
• We now send what networks we support on connection: this detects accidentally connecting mainnet and testnet node (harmless, but useless).

More details can be found in https:/ElementsProject/lightning/blob/v0.8.0/CHANGELOG.md

Thanks to everyone for their contributions and bug reports; please keep them coming!

Since 0.7.3 we've had 305 commits from 16 different authors, with 6 first-time contributors!

• Michael Schmoock @m-schmoock
• Gorazd Kovacic @gorazdko
• Richard Myers @RichardMyers
• Vasil Dimov @vasild
• Sebastian Geisler @sgeisler
• Jarret Dyrbye @jarret

Cheers,
Lisa, Rusty, Christian, and ZmnSCPxj.

v0.7.3: Bitcoin's Proof of Stake

We're pleased to announce 0.7.3, named by @trueptolemy

Note: new dependency gettext is now required when building from source.

[Note2: This release incorrectly discards many node_announcements: the script insert-unknown-nodes.sh fixes this with the help of node-announces.tar.xz]

Highlights for Users

• lightningd now supports different SQL backends. This release includes a PostgresSQL driver, in addition to the default sqlite3 driver.
• Ability to supply a Bitcoin address to close a channel to. Note that if you've set an upfront-shutdown script, it'll need to be the same script.
• New plugin notifications: sendpay_success and sendpay_failure
• Encryption of the BIP32 master seed is now available.
• UTXO selection is provided for withdraw and txprepare, which allows you to finely control which lightningd wallet UTXOs are spent or used.
• Our Bolt11 tools now parse feature bits
• Adds the ability to exclude nodes from route consideration in getroute

Please note that the deprecated RPC call listpayments has been removed; you want listpays.

Highlights for the Network

• Elements support. lightningd can now be made to support L-BTC.
• c-lightning nodes now announce features in node_announcement broadcasts.
• Further on the feature bits front, we've consolidated them -- all bits are now advertised in both global + local feature fields
• Support for gossip_queries_ex, for finer grained gossip control
• Tighter gossip bandwidth usage. We now take advantage of gossip queries and peer rotation to narrow the number of peers that we gossip with and the amount of gossip we're requesting.
• In further gossip news, we now no longer ask for initial_routing_sync.

More details can be found in https:/ElementsProject/lightning/blob/v0.7.3/CHANGELOG.md

Contributions

Thanks to everyone for their contributions and bug reports; please keep them coming!

Since 0.7.2.1 we've had 522 commits from 18 different authors, with 5 first-time contributors!

• Luca Ambrosini
• Yash Bhutwala
• @willcl-ark
• Jacob Rapoport
• @fiatjaf

Cheers,
Lisa, Rusty, Christian, and ZmnSCPxj.

v0.7.2: Nakamoto's Pre-approval by US Congress

We're pleased to announce c-lightning 0.7.2, named by @darosior.

Note: new dependency python3-mako required when building from source!
(Also: note git tag is v0.7.2.1, due to last-minute build and packaging fixes)

Highlights for Users

• Dynamic plugin support: add and remove without restarting lightningd.
• We now ignore sync error which lnd sends if we're too slow, instead of freaking out and closing the channel.
• close defaults change: now unilterally closes after 48 hours if peer unreachable/uncooperative.
• A few operations are restricted if we're not yet synced with the bitcoin network on startup.
• contrib/bootstrap-node.sh script to help connect your new node to the network.
• Signet support: overzealously merged before bitcoind did, but now we're owning it.
• Bugfixes and more plugin hooks for plugin authors.

Highlights for the network

• We now notice if old channels (before this node existed) close, and won't spam them in gossip.
• We correctly ignore unknown odd-numbered messages, as per the specification.
• We space out reconnection on startup if there are more than 5 channels.

More details can be found in https:/ElementsProject/lightning/blob/v0.7.2.1/CHANGELOG.md.

Contributions

Thanks to everyone for their contributions and bug reports: please keep them coming!

Since 0.7.1 we've had 334 commits from 18 different authors, with 6 first-time contributors!

• Karl-Johan Alm
• @tasoshi
• @sskender
• Nicola Squartini
• Juraj Bednar
• Chirimen-Jako

Cheers,
Rusty, Christian, ZmnSCPxj and Lisa.

v0.7.1: The Unfailing Twitter Consensus Algorithm

We're pleased to announce c-lightning 0.7.1, named by new C-Lightning Core Team member Lisa Neigut.

Highlights for Users

• Gossip (both serving to others and listchannels) is much faster and uses much less memory.
• Infrastructure to fund a channel from an external wallet (probably needs a plugin to make it user friendly).
• listpeers now show how many confirms until channel is open.
• Ability to set a minimum channel size to accept.
• Invoices now default to 7 days, rather than 1 hour.
• fundchannel can now specify exactly what utxos to use, if you want coin control.
• Various JSON API corner cases and bugs have been removed, more information added.
• Lots of new plugin hooks to play with; we expect some more impressive plugins soon!

Highlights for the network

• We no longer ask every peer for all the gossip which ever happened!
• We respect and enforce option_upfront_shutdown_script (mainly for Eclair)
• We no longer allow tiny 1000 satoshi channels: default minimum is now 10,000 satoshis.
• Improved compatibility with corner cases for both lnd (esp. older versions) and Eclair.

More details can be found in https:/ElementsProject/lightning/blob/v0.7.1/CHANGELOG.md.

Contributions

We've seen a lot more contributions and bug reports coming in: please keep them coming!

Since 0.7.0 we've had 591 commits from 31 different authors, with a record 12 first-time contributors!

• @trueptolemy
• @darosior
• @andrewtoth
• Joe Netti
• Jeff Vandrew Jr
• Billy Garrison
• @thestick613
• Lawrence Nahum
• Kristaps Kaupe
• Hampus Sjöberg
• @dlogemann
• Atis Elsts

Cheers,
Rusty, Christian, ZmnSCPxj and Lisa.

v0.7.0: Actually an Altcoin

We're pleased to announce c-lightning 0.7, named by Mark Beckwith.

Highlights for Users

• Plugins are here, with frameworks for C, Python and Go! Write your own cool extensions!
• Much better pay implementation (a plugin!) will folllow route hints, give ongoing paystatus.
• All amount parameters take 'msat', 'sat', or 'btc' to avoid satoshi/millisatoshi confusion.
• If your node ran out of memory with gossipd consuming 100% CPU, that and several other crashes are fixed!
• Reproducible builds for Ubuntu, based on Ubuntu 18.04.1.

Highlights for the network

• option_dataloss_protect fixed and reenabled for everyone.
• We accept some known lnd protocol oddities rather than spitting the dummy and closing the channel.
• You can no longer make unpayable "wumbo" invoices.

More details can be found in the https:/ElementsProject/lightning/blob/v0.7.0/CHANGELOG.md:

Contributions

We're grateful for all the bug reports and suggestions and your patience as we sometimes struggled to address them: please keep them coming!

Since 0.6.3 we've had 284 commits from 16 different authors, 5 of whom were first-time c-lightning contributors:

• Alekos Filini
• fanquake
• Michael Schmoock
• Rene Pickhardt
• @wailo

That's comparable with the last release, but in 7 weeks instead of 10: kudos!

Cheers,
Rusty, Christian and ZmnSCPxj.

v0.6.3: The Smallblock Conspiracy

We're pleased to announce c-lightning 0.6.3, named by @molxyz and @ctrlbreak.

We highly recommend you upgrade to this release soon; it fixes a crashing bug which has been plaguing multiple users (reproduced and verified fixed by our intrepid release-namers above).

Highlights for Users

• Private channel creation support.
• option_dataloss_protect temporarily disabled, as it seems incompatible with lnd in some cases.
• Better handling of less common BOLT11 invoices.
• Less crashy!
• Alpha release of plugin support (use ./configure --enable-plugins), so you can extend your node's capabilities (see https:/ElementsProject/lightning/blob/master/doc/plugins.md)

Highlights for the network

• We no longer send invalid error messages if you get a peer id wrong.
• We allow update_fee before funding_locked which lnd sometimes does (we used to close channel!).

More details can be found in the https:/ElementsProject/lightning/blob/v0.6.3/CHANGELOG.md:

Contributions

We're grateful for all the bug reports and suggestions and your patience as we sometimes struggled to address them: please keep them coming!

Since 0.6.2 we've had 314 commits from 18 different authors, 5 of whom were first-time c-lightning contributors:

• Conor Scott @conscott
• Franck Royer @D4nte
• Michael Hawkins @runcrypto-michael
• Richard Bondi @rsbondi

This is up from last release, despite the holiday break!

Cheers,
Rusty, Christian and ZmnSCPxj.

0.6.2: The Consensus Loving Nasal Daemon

We're pleased to announce c-lightning 0.6.2, named by @practicalswift.

We highly recommend you upgrade to this release soon; it will improve overall network health!

Highlights for c-lightning users:

• Invoices now contain an hint on a good incoming channel to use, for more reliable payments ("RouteBoost").
• listforwards command to show all forwarded HTLCs, and getinfo shows total fees (both only from upgrade only)
• Reduced logging spam at debug level.
• A multitude of bugfixes which make things generally much nicer.

Highlights for the network

• We no longer spam our peers with dead channels.
• Redundant gossip updates are completely eliminated.
• We advertise htlc_maximum_msat for our channels as per recent BOLT update.

Internal Improvements

• Significant optimization in JSON command response.
• connectd and hsmd are now part of the growing literate documentation effort.
• Testsuite now uses flask to override bitcoind responses for testing.

More details can be found in the CHANGELOG:

https:/ElementsProject/lightning/blob/v0.6.2/CHANGELOG.md

Contributions

We're grateful for all the bug reports and suggestions and your patience as we sometimes struggled to address them: please keep them coming!

Since 0.6.1 we've had 239 commits from 13 different authors, 3 of whom were first-time c-lightning contributors:

• @alan8325
• Amin Shah Gilani
• @trueserve

This is down from last release, but it was a much shorter timeline too!

Cheers,
Rusty, Christian and ZmnSCPxj.