[Electrum-discuss] [server] Broadcasting tx without bitcoind patch

[slush <sl...@ce...>]

Hi all,

one of the most ugly thing in server installation process is that
patch of bitcoind for sending transactions to bitcoin network.
Although it's quite easy for us, experienced bitcoin hackers to patch
bitcoind and recompile it, I feel it might be a problem for many
people wanted to run their own Electrum server.

I have working pure-python code for broadcasting transactions directly
to some bitcoin node, using P2P connection on port 8333, instead of
current "importtransaction" RPC call. I prepared it for my Stratum
server implementation and it works great, however it depends on
Twisted framework. I know Thomas was against Twisted in the Electrum
server implementation, but I have working solution and I don't have a
time to rewrite it to non-Twisted version.

For this reason I'm offering my version "as is" and it's up to core
developers (currently I don't know who it is) if you'll use my
proposal or you stick with current solution using bitcoind patch.

"Fixing" send_tx is really easy now, because I released that library
as PYPI module "sendtx". Eveyrthing you need to change in Electrum
server to get it working is:

a) Add "easy_install sendtx" to server installation guide
b) Add "self.bitcoind_host = config.get('bitcoind','host')" to
backends/Abe/__init__.py:AbeStore.__init__()
c) Replace send_tx() method with following code:
    def send_tx(self,tx):
        import sendtx
        return sendtx.process(self.bitcoind_host, tx)

My Electrum node at california.stratum.bitcoin.cz is already using
this patch, so you can try that it is really working :-).

Best,
slush