BATN.2 marks the second major release of Archain’s Backer Alpha Test Network and represents a significant update to the features of our test network. This release, critically, now supports archiving of the internet for the first time — yet another significant milestone on our journey towards a permanent, immutable paranet.

Release notes for BATN.2

Client-Side

As previously mentioned, those of you with test wallets — distributed to backers at developer tier or higher — will now be able to begin archiving internet pages. The archiving web extension will updated soon. Your test wallets will contain the same amount of AR as your main net wallets will have upon final release. However, given that we remain in an alpha stage, we will only support the archiving of text and any and all archiving will cost exactly 1 AR. Please note that this is not reflective of our final release and your real, non test-net wallets will remain entirely unaffected. This said, we look forward to seeing what you choose to archive on BATN.2!

Server-Side

The BATN.2 release also introduces a number of key features and developments to maximise stability and client accessibility. Archain now has support for systems without port forwarding by means of a block polling system. We have vastly improved the way nodes join the network and recover from blockweave forks and through radical code optimisation increased node stability and responsiveness on the network. We can also count at least eight major bug fixes since the release of BATN.1 among our commits. You can check these out yourself on our github.

Debian and Ubuntu Linux Easy Launch

As part of our aim to make Archain as easy for you to use, we have written a script to install and launch the Archain codebase, all necessary dependencies and automatically begin mining for you. From your Debian or Ubuntu installation it’s as easy as copying and pasting into your terminal the following command:

curl https://gist.githubusercontent.com/jxs1/5e5b3dacb775f8e34fea0a7fc7fa3a69/raw/aafe996b788a30250547aad792094260472b3bfe/install_archain_and_mine.sh | bash && cd archain && ./archain-server peer XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX mine

Don’t forget to change xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx to the IP address you should have received in the backer email you received on November the 7th.

If you want to know exactly what this is doing you can see in the gist below.

SHA256 of script:

3b946e6619bde7c430e3cee3efd44574d00aa8c03af4ec38b15d5c3be674b963

Look forward to similar scripts for other platforms in the future.

As always, you can find us on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook or email the team.

-archain-team