In today’s post we’d like to update you on the next release of the Steem software (v0.19.10) which includes two major changes that we’re really excited about: AppBase and RocksDB. In addition to the AppBase and RocksDB changes, release 19.10 also contains several additional exciting changes that we will describe below.

Release 19.10 is a non-consensus change, and therefore will not require a hardfork.

AppBase

AppBase provides a robust foundation for meeting all of our future scaling needs. AppBase will allow the platform to grow while managing the resource requirements of third-party application developers, witnesses, and exchanges.

Four months ago, we announced that AppBase release candidate v0.19.4rc1 was ready for community testing. After several months of extensive testing, we are excited to announce that the release is officially ready!

RocksDB

As described in our recent blockchain update post, we updated the account history plugin to use RocksDB – a fast-on-disk data store with an advanced caching layer, which will greatly improve the efficiency of the Steem blockchain.

Release 19.10 will contain the RocksDB version of the account history plugin, so that node operators can start to benefit from the performance improvements that RocksDB offers.

Changes for developers and steemd node operators

As mentioned in the previous AppBase post, there are some minor changes required for developers who are interfacing directly with the steemd APIs, as well as for node operators who are running instances of steemd.

Please be sure to read all of the details in the release notes, as well as the previous announcement post.

Additional Changes

Auto-scaling of shared memory file size

Node operators will be happy to know that we added an option that will allow the shared memory file size to automatically increase once it reaches the configured limit. This will allow node operators to deal with increasing shared memory file sizes without having to restart their nodes.

The new options that are available in the config.ini file are:

# A 2-precision percentage (0-10000) that defines the threshold for when to autoscale the shared memory file. Setting this to 0 disables autoscaling. The recommended value for consensus node is 9500 (95%). Full node is 9900 (99%).
shared-file-full-threshold = 0

# A 2-precision percentage (0-10000) that defines how quickly to scale the shared memory file. When autoscaling occurs, the file's size will be increased by this percentage. Setting this to 0 disables autoscaling. The recommended value is between 1000 and 2000 (10-20%).
shared-file-scale-rate = 0

New location for blockchain data files

Node operators should be aware that the default directory for the blockchain data files has changed from $PWD/witness_node_data_dir to $HOME/.steemd. It is still possible to override the default directory and specify a location for the data files using the --data-dir= command line argument.

Unlimited content editing (past seven days)

The release will include a change to allow unlimited content editing (beyond seven days)!

Once the 19.10 release is deployed to production nodes (by the witnesses and RPC node operators), the blockchain will allow changes past the seven-day threshold. After that, it will be up to individual UIs to support unlimited content (or not).

Steemit has already created pull request 2826 to update condenser to allow unlimited content editing, which will be deployed to steemit.com after a sufficient number of witnesses have updated.

What’s Next?

Our primary focus will continue to be Hardfork 20, which will include the complete overhaul of the bandwidth formula to use the new Resource Credits system. We look forward to providing more updates on Hardfork 20 soon.

Steem on,

The Steemit Blockchain Team