Qortal Auto-Update Publisher Scripts

This toolkit modernizes and automates the Qortal auto-update process. It includes:

A Bash script (build-auto-update.sh) to build and push the update
A Python script (publish-auto-update.py) to publish the auto-update transaction
Full support for dry-run mode, interactive or scripted use, and secure key input

🧰 Prerequisites

You must be a non-admin member of the Qortal dev group
A Qortal core node must be running locally (default API port: 12391)
You need the latest version of the qortal repo cloned locally

🚀 Workflow Overview

1. Run the Build Script

This script:

Auto-increments the version in pom.xml
Rebuilds the JAR file
XORs it into a .update file
Creates a new auto-update-<hash> branch with only the update
Pushes it to the repo

./tools/auto-update-scripts/build-auto-update.sh

You'll be prompted to:

Confirm or modify the version number
Push the version tag and update branch, and final commit.
Optionally run the publisher script at the end

✅ Dry-run mode is supported to preview the full process.

2. Publish the Auto-Update

You can either:

Let the build script call it for you
Or run it manually:

# Run manually with interactive key prompt and auto-detected latest update:
python3 tools/auto-update-scripts/publish-auto-update.py

# Or specify a commit hash:
python3 tools/auto-update-scripts/publish-auto-update.py 0b37666d

# Or pass both from another script:
python3 tools/auto-update-scripts/publish-auto-update.py <privkey> <commit_hash>

🔐 Private key is always prompted securely unless passed explicitly (e.g. from automation).

This script will:

Detect the latest auto-update-<hash> branch (or use the one you specify)
Validate that the commit exists
Restore the .update file if missing
Compute its SHA256 hash
Build and sign the transaction
Submit it to your local node

✅ --dry-run is supported to show what would happen without sending anything.

🛠 Advanced Options

Log files are created in ~/qortal-auto-update-logs by default
You can override the log directory interactively
Branch naming is standardized: auto-update-<short-commit-hash>
The .update file is XOR-obfuscated using Qortal’s built-in logic
Your commit must already exist on the main repo (e.g. via push or PR merge)

📌 Notes

Do not use Git LFS — Qortal nodes download .update files using raw HTTP from GitHub We may build LFS support in the future, but for now it is NOT utilized, and will NOT work. (Other locations for the publish of the .update file will be utilized in the future, preferably utilizing QDN via gateway nodes, until auto-update setup can be re-written to leverage QDN directly.)
GitHub will warn if .update files exceed 50MB, but auto-update still works. (In the past there HAVE been issues with accounts getting banned due to publish of .update file, however, as of recently (April 2025) it seems they are only warning, and not banning. But we will be modifying the need for this in the future anyway.)
Update mirrors will be added in the future, and others can be added in settings as well.

✅ Example End-to-End (Manual)

cd ~/git-repos/qortal
./tools/auto-update-scripts/build-auto-update.sh
# follow prompts...

# then manually publish:
python3 tools/auto-update-scripts/publish-auto-update.py

🧪 Test Without Sending

./build-auto-update.sh   # enable dry-run when prompted
# OR
python3 publish-auto-update.py 0b37666d --dry-run

🙌 Contributors

Modernization by @crowetic Based on original Perl scripts by Qortal core devs, specifically @catbref.

Questions or issues? Drop into the Qortal Dev group on Discord, Q-Chat, or reach out directly via Q-Mail to 'crowetic'.

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