We are only a few days before the launch of “Frontier”, the first milestone of the release of the Ethereum project. Frontier will be followed by “Homestead”, “Metropolis” and “Serenity” throughout the coming year, each adding new features and improving the conviviality and security of the platform.
What is the border?
Frontier is a live implementation but naked by the Ethereum project. It is intended for technical users, in particular developers. During the border version, we expect the adopters and applicants of applications to establish communities and begin to form a live ecosystem. Like their counterparts during the American border, these settlers will be presented with large opportunities, but will also be confronted with many dangers. If construction from source interfaces and control lines is not your tea cup, we strongly encourage you to wait a more friendly version of Ethereum software before diving.
When will Frontier live?
Frontier is now complete and its code base has been frozen for two weeks. As a team, we are currently examining the last stages of the press release, not all technical. There will be no countdown – Ethereum is not something that is “launched”, but rather emerges from consensus. Users will have to voluntarily download and execute a specific version of the software, then generate and load the Genesis block to reach the official project network. The details of this process will be published soon.
What can we expect in Frontier?
Initial “thaw”: gas limits during the first days
The first software version of Frontier will have a tough -coded gas limit per block of 5,000 gases. Unlike the normal gas parameter by block, this special limit will not develop proportionately to the use of the network – effectively preventing the transaction during the first days. This “thaw” period will allow minors to start their operations and the first adopters to install their customers without having to “rush”. After a few days (probably 3-4, but that could change), we will publish a small software update that all customers will have to install. This update will see the gas limit per block increased to 3 million, an initial number from which it will develop or contract according to the default minor parameters.
Bogues, problems and complications
We are very satisfied with how the “Olympic” test phase of Ethereum Testnet has taken shape. That said, work on Frontier software is far from over. Expect weekly updates that will give you access to better more stable customers. Many planned border gatchas (which included a chain reset to Homestead, limiting mining rewards to 10% and the centralized control point) were deemed unnecessary. However, there are still large differences between the border and the property. In Frontier, we will have problems, we will have updates and there will be bugs – users will take their chance when using the software. There will be large (large) warning messages before the developers can even install it. At the border, the documentation is limited and the tools provided require advanced technical skills.
Canari contracts
Canary contracts are simple switches containing a value equal to 0 or 1. Each contract is controlled by a different member of the ETH / DEV team and will be updated to “ 1 ‘if the internal reversal team after border disaster signals a consensus problem, as a fork.
In each frontier client, a check is made after each block against 4 contracts. If two of these out of four contracts have a value spent from 0 to 1, the mining and an exhorting message the user to update his client is displayed. It is a question of preventing minors from “fire and forgetting” from preventing an upgrade of the chain.
This process is centralized and will only work for the duration of the border. It helps prevent the risk of an extended period (24 hours +) of breakdown.
Badblock statistics, statutes and websites
You probably already know our network statistics instructor, https://stats.ethdev.com/. It gives a quick overview of network health, block resolution time and gas statistics. If you want to explore it more, I made a brief video explaining the different kpi. Do not forget that participation in the statistics page is voluntary and that the nodes must be added Before they appear on the panel.
In addition to the statistics page, we will have a status page to (No link because the site is not yet live) which will give a concise overview of any problem that could affect the border. Use it as the first call port if you think something might not be fair.
Finally, if one of the customers receives an unlikely block, they will refuse to process it on the Bad Block website (alias “Sentinel”). It could mean a bug, or something more serious, like a fork. In any case, this process will alert our developers to potential problems on the network. The website itself is public and available to (currently operating on the testnet).
A clean test
Over the past two months, the Ethereum test network has been pushed to its limits in order to test scalability and propagation times. As part of this test, we encouraged users to spam the network with transactions, a contract creation code and a call for contracts, sometimes reaching more than 25 transactions per second. This has led the test network to reach a fairly heavy size, which makes it difficult for new users to catch up. For this reason, and shortly after the frontier release, there will be a new test network according to the same rules as Frontier.
Distribution of Olympic awards
During the Olympic phase, there were a number of awards for various achievements, including mining prowess. Many of you have participated and gained rewards – a special mention goes to Phist90, Dino and Samuel Lavery for helping during stress tests. Note that the rewards will not be part of the Genesis Frontier block, but will rather be distributed by a foundation bot during the weeks which followed the press release.
How to start with Frontier?
Tools
Frontier and all of its outbuildings will be available as an installation program in a single line on our website in https://www.ethereum.org/. A single line installer will be provided for OSX, Linux and Windows. Of course, more advanced users can always install everything sourceor use a binary construction from our Automated construction bots.
Once the border is installed on their machines, users will have to generate the Genesis block themselves, then load it in their frontier customers. A script and instructions on how to proceed will be provided as part of the new Ethereum website, as well as our different Wikis.
We are often asked how existing users will go from the test network to the live network: this will be done via a switch to the Geth console (–Networkid). By default, the new version will aim to connect to the live network, to return to the test network, you will simply indicate a network ID of “0”.
Documentation
To start with Ethereum, the best place is our official Gitbook. After consulting the Gitbook, you can dig into the official Solidity tutorial. For more in -depth information, please consult the main wiki,, Go Wiki Customer And Customer Wiki C ++. Finally, if it is the mining that you would like to know more about, a FAQ and mining guide are regularly updated on our forums.
Get help
Ethereum is an open source software project and, as such, all the help is provided by community channels. If you encounter problems, the first call for call should be our forumsfollowed by our Ethereum cat Canals. If you are on the other hand, encounter specific problems for your ether sales portfolio, such as not being able to load your purchase before sale, the assistance Will continue to operate throughout the border (and probably beyond).
And of course, you can also find help locally in one of our 115 meetings All over the world – if your city is not listed, we encourage you to create a.
