Next step - registering a domain

[philip_rhoades]

People,

Now that I can see .bit sites and everything seems to be working (Fedora x86_64 + Firefox), I want to register a domain name so I try:

/home/phil/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx/extensions/convergence@dot-bit.org/daemons/namecoind/linux/x64/namecoind name_new d/yyyyy

but I get:

error: couldn't connect to server

I have restarted Firefox with no improvement and I notice that the "getinfo" command also gives this result. I have Googled around a bit but can't find a fix . .

Anyone?

Thanks,
Phil.

[phelix]

Did you start namecoin as a daemon first?

[biolizard89]

People,

Now that I can see .bit sites and everything seems to be working (Fedora x86_64 + Firefox), I want to register a domain name so I try:

/home/phil/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx/extensions/convergence@dot-bit.org/daemons/namecoind/linux/x64/namecoind name_new d/yyyyy

but I get:

error: couldn't connect to server

I have restarted Firefox with no improvement and I notice that the "getinfo" command also gives this result. I have Googled around a bit but can't find a fix . .

Anyone?

Thanks,
Phil.

Hi!

First off, I would recommend using Namecoin-Qt (download at https://namecoin.org) to register names rather than the namecoind bundled with FreeSpeechMe. Using the namecoind from FSM *might* be safe, but it's not a common use case, so we haven't thoroughly tested it. Since it uses a hardcoded password, anyone who can issue RPC commands to the FSM namecoind could issue wallet commands, which may or may not be a problem given your situation. The most recent public release of FSM needs Firefox to be closed before you can run Namecoin-Qt, but other than that there's no conflict (the latest code in GitHub fixes that issue).

If you really want to use the FSM-provided namecoind, then I think the issue you're encountering is that FSM configures namecoind to use a non-default port and login details. Try this:

Code: Select all

namecoind -rpcuser=convergence -rpcpassword=convergence -rpcport=18835 getinfo

And, as phelix says, make sure that Firefox is open and that .bit resolution works (if it doesn't, then that means the daemon isn't running, so it wouldn't be able to connect).

[philip_rhoades]

phelix,

Yes the daemon is running - I periodically look at the tailed debug log to see what the latest "height" is . .

biolizard89,

It looks like the Linux build is for Ubuntu (I use Fedora) - anyone thinking about building an RPM? I will have to look at the building later when I have more time.

Both of you seemed to have missed what I said in the first line of the original post: "Now that I can see .bit sites and everything seems to be working (Fedora x86_64 + Firefox)" . .

Thanks,

Phil.

[cassini]

Both of you seemed to have missed what I said in the first line of the original post

Could be, or maybe not. In the past I had created broken setups on my machine that run "half a namecoind", i.e. the .bit resolving works but namecoind doesn't accept RPC commands (e.g. name_new or getinfo) from a terminal window. This causes the couldn't connect to server error even with a properly synchronized namecoind.

Let's have a look at the networking situation of your namecoind. Please enter this console command:

Code: Select all

/usr/sbin/lsof -n -a -i 4 -c namecoind

(see http://linuxmanpages.net/manpages/fedor ... SOF.8.html)

It should display a list of at least eight ESTABLISHED and two LISTEN connections, e.g.:

Code: Select all

COMMAND    PID USER   FD   TYPE         DEVICE  NODE NAME
namecoind  703   me   14u  IPv4 0xd44cc2e4bb61   TCP *:8334 (LISTEN)
namecoind  703   me   23u  IPv4 0xd44cce85b821   TCP 127.0.0.1:8336 (LISTEN)
namecoind  703   me   36u  IPv4 0xd44cce87c9c1   TCP 10.5.0.100:58356->46.18.181.134:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind  703   me   47u  IPv4 0xd44cce82c0f1   TCP 10.5.0.100:58361->104.140.11.120:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind  703   me   57u  IPv4 0xd44cc2e1b291   TCP 10.5.0.100:58362->65.130.141.114:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind  703   me   69u  IPv4 0xd44cd2e974e1   TCP 10.5.0.100:58364->72.198.98.176:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind  703   me   70u  IPv4 0xd44cbf804b61   TCP 10.5.0.100:58381->85.114.151.186:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind  703   me   71u  IPv4 0xd44cc2fb7821   TCP 10.5.0.100:58366->55.189.139.127:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind  703   me   72u  IPv4 0xd44cc2f289c1   TCP 10.5.0.100:58383->166.187.85.137:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind  703   me   73u  IPv4 0xd44cc2e48681   TCP 10.5.0.100:58375->181.110.113.165:8334 (ESTABLISHED)

Please post your console output here (the LISTEN entries are of particular interest) and also the contents of your .conf file (after obfuscating username and password, of course). @biolizard89: Where is the .conf file located in an FSM installation?

[biolizard89]

I think the namecoin.conf file in FSM is either in the "daemons" folder of the extension's directory in the Firefox profile, or in the ~/.convergence-namecoin folder. I don't remember which one offhand. The port/login info is set by command line arguments, not by the namecoin.conf file.

[philip_rhoades]

Could be, or maybe not. In the past I had created broken setups on my machine that run "half a namecoind", i.e. the .bit resolving works but namecoind doesn't accept RPC commands (e.g. name_new or getinfo) from a terminal window. This causes the couldn't connect to server error even with a properly synchronized namecoind.

Hmm . . OK . .

I went to make sure that I could still get access to the .bit domains that worked before - and got errors. I found namecoind wasn't running anymore - so I just started it with:

/home/phil/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxxxx/extensions/convergence@dot-bit.org/daemons/namecoind/linux/x64/namecoind

and, indeed I found a growing list of lines from your lsof command. So I wondered why the namecoind had stopped before, so I killed all processes that had a "namecoind" in them, exited out of FF and waited till all its processes had stopped and then restarted FF. There were now a few processes that had "namecoind" in them but your lsof command only ever gave this:

COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
namecoind 10551 phil 6u IPv4 23540381 0t0 TCP *:8334 (LISTEN)
namecoind 10551 phil 31u IPv4 23541389 0t0 TCP 127.0.0.1:37106 (LISTEN)

So I manually killed all the "namecoind" processes again and did my manual start as before and now I get:

COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
namecoind 11768 phil 5u IPv4 23551834 0t0 TCP *:8334 (LISTEN)
namecoind 11768 phil 14u IPv4 23543752 0t0 TCP 127.0.0.1:8336 (LISTEN)
namecoind 11768 phil 16u IPv4 23543764 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:35646->173.246.103.92:ircu-3 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 17u IPv4 23553286 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:41769->192.184.93.146:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 18u IPv4 23554181 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:54337->108.28.9.234:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 19u IPv4 23552799 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:60763->104.131.119.211:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 21u IPv4 23552803 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:40690->103.254.153.237:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 22u IPv4 23552808 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:58215->72.198.98.176:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 23u IPv4 23552820 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:47632->5.166.108.239:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 24u IPv4 23552875 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:52761->212.51.147.153:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 25u IPv4 23553576 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:46569->24.206.227.86:8334 (ESTABLISHED)

So now I am confused: why is the automatic start not seemingly doing the right thing but the manual start is? However, still no access to any of the .bit sites that I could see before though . .

Thanks.

[biolizard89]

Could be, or maybe not. In the past I had created broken setups on my machine that run "half a namecoind", i.e. the .bit resolving works but namecoind doesn't accept RPC commands (e.g. name_new or getinfo) from a terminal window. This causes the couldn't connect to server error even with a properly synchronized namecoind.

Hmm . . OK . .

I went to make sure that I could still get access to the .bit domains that worked before - and got errors. I found namecoind wasn't running anymore - so I just started it with:

/home/phil/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxxxx/extensions/convergence@dot-bit.org/daemons/namecoind/linux/x64/namecoind

and, indeed I found a growing list of lines from your lsof command. So I wondered why the namecoind had stopped before, so I killed all processes that had a "namecoind" in them, exited out of FF and waited till all its processes had stopped and then restarted FF. There were now a few processes that had "namecoind" in them but your lsof command only ever gave this:

COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
namecoind 10551 phil 6u IPv4 23540381 0t0 TCP *:8334 (LISTEN)
namecoind 10551 phil 31u IPv4 23541389 0t0 TCP 127.0.0.1:37106 (LISTEN)

So I manually killed all the "namecoind" processes again and did my manual start as before and now I get:

COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
namecoind 11768 phil 5u IPv4 23551834 0t0 TCP *:8334 (LISTEN)
namecoind 11768 phil 14u IPv4 23543752 0t0 TCP 127.0.0.1:8336 (LISTEN)
namecoind 11768 phil 16u IPv4 23543764 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:35646->173.246.103.92:ircu-3 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 17u IPv4 23553286 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:41769->192.184.93.146:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 18u IPv4 23554181 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:54337->108.28.9.234:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 19u IPv4 23552799 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:60763->104.131.119.211:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 21u IPv4 23552803 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:40690->103.254.153.237:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 22u IPv4 23552808 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:58215->72.198.98.176:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 23u IPv4 23552820 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:47632->5.166.108.239:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 24u IPv4 23552875 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:52761->212.51.147.153:8334 (ESTABLISHED)
namecoind 11768 phil 25u IPv4 23553576 0t0 TCP 192.168.1.10:46569->24.206.227.86:8334 (ESTABLISHED)

So now I am confused: why is the automatic start not seemingly doing the right thing but the manual start is? However, still no access to any of the .bit sites that I could see before though . .

Thanks.

Starting namecoind from the terminal will yield different results from what FreeSpeechMe does, because FreeSpeechMe uses a bunch of command line arguments when it runs namecoind. I assume that's related to what you're seeing.

[philip_rhoades]

Starting namecoind from the terminal will yield different results from what FreeSpeechMe does, because FreeSpeechMe uses a bunch of command line arguments when it runs namecoind. I assume that's related to what you're seeing.

Yes, of course - the point I was trying to make was that the normal start up process didn't seem to be working and the manual one (with no switches) was - to some extent at least . .

Anyway, that particular issue is academic now - after some time and a few reboots (for other reasons) later, the normal start up seems to be working again and from tailing the debug log again I can see that more "heights" are being added continuously. SO - back to the original problem:

if I do:

/home/phil/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx/extensions/convergence@dot-bit.org/daemons/namecoind/linux/x64/namecoind name_show d/philiprhoades

I get:

error: couldn't connect to server

Now apparently this can be done more easily by downloading and using Namecoin-Qt but if try to click on the Fedora icon at the bottom of:

https://namecoin.org/?p=download

. . nothing happens . . I tried it in Chrome as well just to be sure and nothing happened there either . .

When I do:

/home/phil/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxxxx/extensions/convergence@dot-bit.org/daemons/namecoind/linux/x64/namecoind -rpcuser=convergence -rpcpassword=convergence -rpcport=18835 getinfo

I get:

{
"version" : 37200,
"balance" : 0.00000000,
"blocks" : 225016,
"timeoffset" : 0,
"connections" : 8,
"proxy" : "",
"generate" : false,
"genproclimit" : -1,
"difficulty" : 16527985062.68603134,
"hashespersec" : 0,
"testnet" : false,
"keypoololdest" : 1426924666,
"keypoolsize" : 101,
"paytxfee" : 0.00000000,
"mininput" : 0.00010000,
"errors" : ""
}

So, where to from here?

Thanks,

Phil.

[biolizard89]

Starting namecoind from the terminal will yield different results from what FreeSpeechMe does, because FreeSpeechMe uses a bunch of command line arguments when it runs namecoind. I assume that's related to what you're seeing.

Yes, of course - the point I was trying to make was that the normal start up process didn't seem to be working and the manual one (with no switches) was - to some extent at least . .

Anyway, that particular issue is academic now - after some time and a few reboots (for other reasons) later, the normal start up seems to be working again and from tailing the debug log again I can see that more "heights" are being added continuously. SO - back to the original problem:

if I do:

/home/phil/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx/extensions/convergence@dot-bit.org/daemons/namecoind/linux/x64/namecoind name_show d/philiprhoades

I get:

error: couldn't connect to server

Now apparently this can be done more easily by downloading and using Namecoin-Qt but if try to click on the Fedora icon at the bottom of:

https://namecoin.org/?p=download

. . nothing happens . . I tried it in Chrome as well just to be sure and nothing happened there either . .

See https://forum.namecoin.info/viewtopic.p ... 523#p14523 ; it's broken on OBS's end, but there is a workaround at that link.

When I do:

/home/phil/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxxxx/extensions/convergence@dot-bit.org/daemons/namecoind/linux/x64/namecoind -rpcuser=convergence -rpcpassword=convergence -rpcport=18835 getinfo

I get:

{
"version" : 37200,
"balance" : 0.00000000,
"blocks" : 225016,
"timeoffset" : 0,
"connections" : 8,
"proxy" : "",
"generate" : false,
"genproclimit" : -1,
"difficulty" : 16527985062.68603134,
"hashespersec" : 0,
"testnet" : false,
"keypoololdest" : 1426924666,
"keypoolsize" : 101,
"paytxfee" : 0.00000000,
"mininput" : 0.00010000,
"errors" : ""
}

So, where to from here?

Thanks,

Phil.

Okay, so getinfo works when you include the command line options for the port and login. You can substitute other commands for "getinfo", e.g.:

Code: Select all

/home/phil/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxxxx/extensions/convergence@dot-bit.org/daemons/namecoind/linux/x64/namecoind -rpcuser=convergence -rpcpassword=convergence -rpcport=18835 name_show d/philiprhoades

To reiterate, I do not recommend using the built-in FreeSpeechMe namecoind to register names, because the login info for that namecoind cannot be changed easily, which would create a potential security issue. But, if you insist on doing so, it should be possible if you adapt the above code example.