doc: Add historical release notes for 0.15.1

Tree-SHA512: 83d1b5c392ada61c846ece98e5060ead8b79989a024d241ade20b607af3651a832f59adc73d34771b4e9ec573315cb19ea20743d7d7d88dbbec0e60b2ca81729

Author: laanwj

doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.15.1.md

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+Bitcoin Core version *0.15.1* is now available from:
+
+  <https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.15.1/>
+
+or
+
+  <https://bitcoin.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.15.1/>
+
+This is a new minor version release, including various bugfixes and
+performance improvements, as well as updated translations.
+
+Please report bugs using the issue tracker at GitHub:
+
+  <https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues>
+
+To receive security and update notifications, please subscribe to:
+
+  <https://bitcoincore.org/en/list/announcements/join/>
+
+How to Upgrade
+==============
+
+If you are running an older version, shut it down. Wait until it has completely
+shut down (which might take a few minutes for older versions), then run the 
+installer (on Windows) or just copy over `/Applications/Bitcoin-Qt` (on Mac)
+or `bitcoind`/`bitcoin-qt` (on Linux).
+
+The first time you run version 0.15.0 or higher, your chainstate database will
+be converted to a new format, which will take anywhere from a few minutes to
+half an hour, depending on the speed of your machine.
+
+The file format of `fee_estimates.dat` changed in version 0.15.0. Hence, a
+downgrade from version 0.15 or upgrade to version 0.15 will cause all fee
+estimates to be discarded.
+
+Note that the block database format also changed in version 0.8.0 and there is no
+automatic upgrade code from before version 0.8 to version 0.15.0. Upgrading
+directly from 0.7.x and earlier without redownloading the blockchain is not supported.
+However, as usual, old wallet versions are still supported.
+
+Downgrading warning
+-------------------
+
+The chainstate database for this release is not compatible with previous
+releases, so if you run 0.15 and then decide to switch back to any
+older version, you will need to run the old release with the `-reindex-chainstate`
+option to rebuild the chainstate data structures in the old format.
+
+If your node has pruning enabled, this will entail re-downloading and
+processing the entire blockchain.
+
+Compatibility
+==============
+
+Bitcoin Core is extensively tested on multiple operating systems using
+the Linux kernel, macOS 10.8+, and Windows Vista and later. Windows XP is not supported.
+
+Bitcoin Core should also work on most other Unix-like systems but is not
+frequently tested on them.
+
+
+Notable changes
+===============
+
+Network fork safety enhancements
+--------------------------------
+
+A number of changes to the way Bitcoin Core deals with peer connections and invalid blocks
+have been made, as a safety precaution against blockchain forks and misbehaving peers.
+
+- Unrequested blocks with less work than the minimum-chain-work are now no longer processed even
+if they have more work than the tip (a potential issue during IBD where the tip may have low-work).
+This prevents peers wasting the resources of a node. 
+
+- Peers which provide a chain with less work than the minimum-chain-work during IBD will now be disconnected.
+
+- For a given outbound peer, we now check whether their best known block has at least as much work as our tip. If it
+doesn't, and if we still haven't heard about a block with sufficient work after a 20 minute timeout, then we send
+a single getheaders message, and wait 2 more minutes. If after two minutes their best known block has insufficient
+work, we disconnect that peer. We protect 4 of our outbound peers from being disconnected by this logic to prevent
+excessive network topology changes as a result of this algorithm, while still ensuring that we have a reasonable
+number of nodes not known to be on bogus chains.
+
+- Outbound (non-manual) peers that serve us block headers that are already known to be invalid (other than compact
+block announcements, because BIP 152 explicitly permits nodes to relay compact blocks before fully validating them)
+will now be disconnected.
+
+- If the chain tip has not been advanced for over 30 minutes, we now assume the tip may be stale and will try to connect
+to an additional outbound peer. A periodic check ensures that if this extra peer connection is in use, we will disconnect
+the peer that least recently announced a new block.
+
+- The set of all known invalid-themselves blocks (i.e. blocks which we attempted to connect but which were found to be
+invalid) are now tracked and used to check if new headers build on an invalid chain. This ensures that everything that
+descends from an invalid block is marked as such.
+
+
+Miner block size limiting deprecated
+------------------------------------
+
+Though blockmaxweight has been preferred for limiting the size of blocks returned by
+getblocktemplate since 0.13.0, blockmaxsize remained as an option for those who wished
+to limit their block size directly. Using this option resulted in a few UI issues as
+well as non-optimal fee selection and ever-so-slightly worse performance, and has thus
+now been deprecated. Further, the blockmaxsize option is now used only to calculate an
+implied blockmaxweight, instead of limiting block size directly. Any miners who wish
+to limit their blocks by size, instead of by weight, will have to do so manually by
+removing transactions from their block template directly.
+
+
+GUI settings backed up on reset
+-------------------------------
+
+The GUI settings will now be written to `guisettings.ini.bak` in the data directory before wiping them when
+the `-resetguisettings` argument is used. This can be used to retroactively troubleshoot issues due to the
+GUI settings.
+
+
+Duplicate wallets disallowed
+----------------------------
+
+Previously, it was possible to open the same wallet twice by manually copying the wallet file, causing
+issues when both were opened simultaneously. It is no longer possible to open copies of the same wallet.
+
+
+Debug `-minimumchainwork` argument added
+----------------------------------------
+
+A hidden debug argument `-minimumchainwork` has been added to allow a custom minimum work value to be used
+when validating a chain.
+
+
+Low-level RPC changes
+----------------------
+
+- The "currentblocksize" value in getmininginfo has been removed.
+
+- `dumpwallet` no longer allows overwriting files. This is a security measure
+  as well as prevents dangerous user mistakes.
+
+- `backupwallet` will now fail when attempting to backup to source file, rather than
+  destroying the wallet.
+
+- `listsinceblock` will now throw an error if an unknown `blockhash` argument
+  value is passed, instead of returning a list of all wallet transactions since
+  the genesis block. The behaviour is unchanged when an empty string is provided.
+
+0.15.1 Change log
+=================
+
+### Mining
+- #11100 `7871a7d` Fix confusing blockmax{size,weight} options, dont default to throwing away money (TheBlueMatt)
+
+### RPC and other APIs
+- #10859 `2a5d099` gettxout: Slightly improve doc and tests (jtimon)
+- #11267 `b1a6c94` update cli for estimate\*fee argument rename (laanwj)
+- #11483 `20cdc2b` Fix importmulti bug when importing an already imported key (pedrobranco)
+- #9937 `a43be5b` Prevent `dumpwallet` from overwriting files (laanwj)
+- #11465 `405e069` Update named args documentation for importprivkey (dusty-wil)
+- #11131 `b278a43` Write authcookie atomically (laanwj)
+- #11565 `7d4546f` Make listsinceblock refuse unknown block hash (ryanofsky)
+- #11593 `8195cb0` Work-around an upstream libevent bug (theuni)
+
+### P2P protocol and network code
+- #11397 `27e861a` Improve and document SOCKS code (laanwj)
+- #11252 `0fe2a9a` When clearing addrman clear mapInfo and mapAddr (instagibbs)
+- #11527 `a2bd86a` Remove my testnet DNS seed (schildbach)
+- #10756 `0a5477c` net processing: swap out signals for an interface class (theuni)
+- #11531 `55b7abf` Check that new headers are not a descendant of an invalid block (more effeciently) (TheBlueMatt)
+- #11560 `49bf090` Connect to a new outbound peer if our tip is stale (sdaftuar)
+- #11568 `fc966bb` Disconnect outbound peers on invalid chains (sdaftuar)
+- #11578 `ec8dedf` Add missing lock in ProcessHeadersMessage(...) (practicalswift)
+- #11456 `6f27965` Replace relevant services logic with a function suite (TheBlueMatt)
+- #11490 `bf191a7` Disconnect from outbound peers with bad headers chains (sdaftuar)
+
+### Validation
+- #10357 `da4908c` Allow setting nMinimumChainWork on command line (sdaftuar)
+- #11458 `2df65ee` Don't process unrequested, low-work blocks (sdaftuar)
+
+### Build system
+- #11440 `b6c0209` Fix validationinterface build on super old boost/clang (TheBlueMatt)
+- #11530 `265bb21` Add share/rpcuser to dist. source code archive (MarcoFalke)
+
+### GUI
+- #11334 `19d63e8` Remove custom fee radio group and remove nCustomFeeRadio setting (achow101)
+- #11198 `7310f1f` Fix display of package name on 'open config file' tooltip (esotericnonsense)
+- #11015 `6642558` Add delay before filtering transactions (lclc)
+- #11338 `6a62c74` Backup former GUI settings on `-resetguisettings` (laanwj)
+- #11335 `8d13b42` Replace save|restoreWindowGeometry with Qt functions (MeshCollider)
+- #11237 `2e31b1d` Fixing division by zero in time remaining (MeshCollider)
+- #11247 `47c02a8` Use IsMine to validate custom change address (MarcoFalke)
+
+### Wallet
+- #11017 `9e8aae3` Close DB on error (kallewoof)
+- #11225 `6b4d9f2` Update stored witness in AddToWallet (sdaftuar)
+- #11126 `2cb720a` Acquire cs_main lock before cs_wallet during wallet initialization (ryanofsky)
+- #11476 `9c8006d` Avoid opening copied wallet databases simultaneously (ryanofsky)
+- #11492 `de7053f` Fix leak in CDB constructor (promag)
+- #11376 `fd79ed6` Ensure backupwallet fails when attempting to backup to source file (tomasvdw)
+- #11326 `d570aa4` Fix crash on shutdown with invalid wallet (MeshCollider)
+
+### Tests and QA
+- #11399 `a825d4a` Fix bip68-sequence rpc test (jl2012)
+- #11150 `847c75e` Add getmininginfo test (mess110)
+- #11407 `806c78f` add functional test for mempoolreplacement command line arg (instagibbs)
+- #11433 `e169349` Restore bitcoin-util-test py2 compatibility (MarcoFalke)
+- #11308 `2e1ac70` zapwallettxes: Wait up to 3s for mempool reload (MarcoFalke)
+- #10798 `716066d` test bitcoin-cli (jnewbery)
+- #11443 `019c492` Allow "make cov" out-of-tree; Fix rpc mapping check (MarcoFalke)
+- #11445 `51bad91` 0.15.1 Backports (MarcoFalke)
+- #11319 `2f0b30a` Fix error introduced into p2p-segwit.py, and prevent future similar errors (sdaftuar)
+- #10552 `e4605d9` Tests for zmqpubrawtx and zmqpubrawblock (achow101)
+- #11067 `eeb24a3` TestNode: Add wait_until_stopped helper method (MarcoFalke)
+- #11068 `5398f20` Move wait_until to util (MarcoFalke)
+- #11125 `812c870` Add bitcoin-cli -stdin and -stdinrpcpass functional tests (promag)
+- #11077 `1d80d1e` fix timeout issues from TestNode (jnewbery)
+- #11078 `f1ced0d` Make p2p-leaktests.py more robust (jnewbery)
+- #11210 `f3f7891` Stop test_bitcoin-qt touching ~/.bitcoin (MeshCollider)
+- #11234 `f0b6795` Remove redundant testutil.cpp|h files (MeshCollider)
+- #11215 `cef0319` fixups from set_test_params() (jnewbery)
+- #11345 `f9cf7b5` Check connectivity before sending in assumevalid.py (jnewbery)
+- #11091 `c276c1e` Increase initial RPC timeout to 60 seconds (laanwj)
+- #10711 `fc2aa09` Introduce TestNode (jnewbery)
+- #11230 `d8dd8e7` Fixup dbcrash interaction with add_nodes() (jnewbery)
+- #11241 `4424176` Improve signmessages functional test (mess110)
+- #11116 `2c4ff35` Unit tests for script/standard and IsMine functions (jimpo)
+- #11422 `a36f332` Verify DBWrapper iterators are taking snapshots (TheBlueMatt)
+- #11121 `bb5e7cb` TestNode tidyups (jnewbery)
+- #11521 `ca0f3f7` travis: move back to the minimal image (theuni)
+- #11538 `adbc9d1` Fix race condition failures in replace-by-fee.py, sendheaders.py (sdaftuar)
+- #11472 `4108879` Make tmpdir option an absolute path, misc cleanup (MarcoFalke)
+- #10853 `5b728c8` Fix RPC failure testing (again) (jnewbery)
+- #11310 `b6468d3` Test listwallets RPC (mess110)
+
+### Miscellaneous
+- #11377 `75997c3` Disallow uncompressed pubkeys in bitcoin-tx [multisig] output adds (TheBlueMatt)
+- #11437 `dea3b87` [Docs] Update Windows build instructions for using WSL and Ubuntu 17.04 (fanquake)
+- #11318 `8b61aee` Put back inadvertently removed copyright notices (gmaxwell)
+- #11442 `cf18f42` [Docs] Update OpenBSD Build Instructions for OpenBSD 6.2 (fanquake)
+- #10957 `50bd3f6` Avoid returning a BIP9Stats object with uninitialized values (practicalswift)
+- #11539 `01223a0` [verify-commits] Allow revoked keys to expire (TheBlueMatt)
+
+
+Credits
+=======
+
+Thanks to everyone who directly contributed to this release:
+
+- Andreas Schildbach
+- Andrew Chow
+- Chris Moore
+- Cory Fields
+- Cristian Mircea Messel
+- Daniel Edgecumbe
+- Donal OConnor
+- Dusty Williams
+- fanquake
+- Gregory Sanders
+- Jim Posen
+- John Newbery
+- Johnson Lau
+- João Barbosa
+- Jorge Timón
+- Karl-Johan Alm
+- Lucas Betschart
+- MarcoFalke
+- Matt Corallo
+- Paul Berg
+- Pedro Branco
+- Pieter Wuille
+- practicalswift
+- Russell Yanofsky
+- Samuel Dobson
+- Suhas Daftuar
+- Tomas van der Wansem
+- Wladimir J. van der Laan
+
+As well as everyone that helped translating on [Transifex](https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/bitcoin/).