Running ION

There are two variations of the ION program available; one with a graphical user interface (usually referred to as just ION), and a 'headless' version (called iond). They are completely compatible with each other, and take the same command-line arguments, read the same configuration file, and read and write the same data files. You can run one copy of either ION or iond on your system at a time (if you accidently try to launch another, the copy will let you know that ION or iond is already running and will exit).

Linux Quickstart

The simplest way to start from scratch with the command line client, automatically syncing blockchain and creating a wallet, is to just run this command (without arguments) from the directory containing your iond binary:

./iond

To run with the standard GUI interface:

./ion-qt

Command-line arguments

These commands are accurate as of ION Core version v3.1.99.0-f1309bf.

	Command	Description
	-?	Print this help message and exit
	-version	Print version and exit
	-alertnotify=	Execute command when a relevant alert is received or we see a really long fork (%s in cmd is replaced by message)
	-alerts	Receive and display P2P network alerts (default: 1)
	-blocknotify=	Execute command when the best block changes (%s in cmd is replaced by block hash)
	-checkblocks=	How many blocks to check at startup (default: 500, 0 = all)
	-conf=	Specify configuration file (default: ioncoin.conf)
	-datadir=	Specify data directory
	-dbcache=	Set database cache size in megabytes (4 to 4096, default: 100)
	-loadblock=	Imports blocks from external blk000??.dat file on startup
	-maxreorg=	Set the Maximum reorg depth (default: 100)
	-maxorphantx=	Keep at most unconnectable transactions in memory (default: 100)
	-par=	Set the number of script verification threads (-8 to 16, 0 = auto, <0 = leave that many cores free, default: 0)
	-pid=	Specify pid file (default: iond.pid)
	-reindex	Rebuild block chain index from current blk000??.dat files on startup
	-reindexaccumulators	Reindex the accumulator database on startup
	-reindexmoneysupply	Reindex the ION and xION money supply statistics on startup
	-resync	Delete blockchain folders and resync from scratch on startup
	-sysperms	Create new files with system default permissions, instead of umask 077 (only effective with disabled wallet functionality)
	-txindex	Maintain a full transaction index, used by the getrawtransaction rpc call (default: 1)
	-forcestart	Attempt to force blockchain corruption recovery on startup
Connection options:		;
	-addnode=	Add a node to connect to and attempt to keep the connection open
	-banscore=	Threshold for disconnecting misbehaving peers (default: 100)
	-bantime=	Number of seconds to keep misbehaving peers from reconnecting (default: 86400)
	-bind=	Bind to given address and always listen on it. Use [host]:port notation for IPv6
	-connect=	Connect only to the specified node(s)
	-discover	Discover own IP address (default: 1 when listening and no -externalip)
	-dns	Allow DNS lookups for -addnode, -seednode and -connect (default: 1)
	-dnsseed	Query for peer addresses via DNS lookup, if low on addresses (default: 1 unless -connect)
	-externalip=	Specify your own public address
	-forcednsseed	Always query for peer addresses via DNS lookup (default: 0)
	-listen	Accept connections from outside (default: 1 if no -proxy or -connect)
	-listenonion	Automatically create Tor hidden service (default: 1)
	-maxconnections=	Maintain at most connections to peers (default: 125)
	-maxreceivebuffer=	Maximum per-connection receive buffer, *1000 bytes (default: 5000)
	-maxsendbuffer=	Maximum per-connection send buffer, *1000 bytes (default: 1000)
	-onion=ip:port	Use separate SOCKS5 proxy to reach peers via Tor hidden services (default: -proxy)
	-onlynet=	Only connect to nodes in network (ipv4, ipv6 or onion)
	-permitbaremultisig	Relay non-P2SH multisig (default: 1)
	-peerbloomfilters	Support filtering of blocks and transaction with bloom filters (default: 1)
	-port=	Listen for connections on (default: 12700 or testnet: 27170)
	-proxy=&ltip:port>	Connect through SOCKS5 proxy
	-proxyrandomize	Randomize credentials for every proxy connection. This enables Tor stream isolation (default: 1)
	-seednode=	Connect to a node to retrieve peer addresses, and disconnect
	-timeout=	Specify connection timeout in milliseconds (minimum: 1, default: 5000)
	-torcontrol=ip:port	Tor control port to use if onion listening enabled (default: 127.0.0.1:9051)
	-torpassword=	Tor control port password (default: empty)
	-upnp	Use UPnP to map the listening port (default: 0)
	-whitebind=	Bind to given address and whitelist peers connecting to it. Use [host]:port notation for IPv6
	-whitelist=	Whitelist peers connecting from the given netmask or IP address. Can be specified multiple times. Whitelisted peers cannot be DoS banned and their transactions are always relayed, even if they are already in the mempool, useful e.g. for a gateway
Wallet options:		;
	-createwalletbackups=	Number of automatic wallet backups (default: 10)
	-disablewallet	Do not load the wallet and disable wallet RPC calls
	-keypool=	Set key pool size to (default: 1000)
	-paytxfee=	Fee (in ION/kB) to add to transactions you send (default: 0.0001)
	-rescan	Rescan the block chain for missing wallet transactions on startup
	-salvagewallet	Attempt to recover private keys from a corrupt wallet.dat on startup
	-sendfreetransactions	Send transactions as zero-fee transactions if possible (default: 0)
	-spendzeroconfchange	Spend unconfirmed change when sending transactions (default: 0)
	-disablesystemnotifications	Disable OS notifications for incoming transactions (default: 0)
	-txconfirmtarget=	If paytxfee is not set, include enough fee so transactions begin confirmation on average within n blocks (default: 1)
	-maxtxfee=	Maximum total fees to use in a single wallet transaction, setting too low may abort large transactions (default: 1.00)
	-upgradewallet	Upgrade wallet to latest format on startup
	-wallet=	Specify wallet file (within data directory) (default: wallet.dat)
	-walletnotify=	Execute command when a wallet transaction changes (%s in cmd is replaced by TxID)
	-windowtitle=	Wallet window title
	-zapwallettxes=	Delete all wallet transactions and only recover those parts of the blockchain through -rescan on startup (1 = keep tx meta data e.g. account owner and payment request information, 2 = drop tx meta data)
ZeroMQ notification options:		;
	-zmqpubhashblock=	Enable publish hash block in
	-zmqpubhashtx=	Enable publish hash transaction in
	-zmqpubhashtxlock=	Enable publish hash transaction (locked via SwiftX) in
	-zmqpubrawblock=	Enable publish raw block in
	-zmqpubrawtx=	Enable publish raw transaction in
	-zmqpubrawtxlock=	Enable publish raw transaction (locked via SwiftX) in
Debugging/Testing options:		;
	-debug=	Output debugging information (default: 0, supplying is optional). If is not supplied, output all debugging information. can be: addrman, alert, bench, coindb, db, lock, rand, rpc, selectcoins, tor, mempool, net, proxy, ion, (obfuscation, swiftx, masternode, mnpayments, mnbudget, zero), qt.
	-gen	Generate coins (default: 0)
	-genproclimit	Set the number of threads for coin generation if enabled (-1 = all cores, default: 1)
	-help-debug	Show all debugging options (usage: --help -help-debug)
	-logips	Include IP addresses in debug output (default: 0)
	-logtimestamps	Prepend debug output with timestamp (default: 1)
	-minrelaytxfee=	Fees (in ION/Kb) smaller than this are considered zero fee for relaying (default: 0.0001)
	-printtoconsole	Send trace/debug info to console instead of debug.log file (default: 0)
	-shrinkdebugfile	Shrink debug.log file on client startup (default: 1 when no -debug)
	-testnet	Use the test network
	-litemode=	Disable all ION specific functionality (Masternodes, Zerocoin, SwiftX, Budgeting) (0-1, default: 0)
Staking options:		;
	-staking=	Enable staking functionality (0-1, default: 1)
	-reservebalance=	Keep the specified amount available for spending at all times (default: 0)
Masternode options:		;
	-masternode=	Enable the client to act as a masternode (0-1, default: 0)
	-mnconf=	Specify masternode configuration file (default: masternode.conf)
	-mnconflock=	Lock masternodes from masternode configuration file (default: 1)
	-masternodeprivkey=	Set the masternode private key
	-masternodeaddr=	Set external address:port to get to this masternode (example: 128.127.106.235:12700)
	-budgetvotemode=	Change automatic finalized budget voting behavior. mode=auto: Vote for only exact finalized budget match to my generated budget. (string, default: auto)
Zerocoin options:		;
	-enablezeromint=	Enable automatic Zerocoin minting (0-1, default: 1)
	-zeromintpercentage=	Percentage of automatically minted Zerocoin (10-100, default: 10)
	-preferredDenom=	Preferred Denomination for automatically minted Zerocoin (1/5/10/50/100/500/1000/5000), 0 for no preference. default: 0)
	-backupxion=	Enable automatic wallet backups triggered after each xIon minting (0-1, default: 1)
SwiftX options:		;
	-enableswifttx=	Enable SwiftX, show confirmations for locked transactions (bool, default: true)
	-swifttxdepth=	Show N confirmations for a successfully locked transaction (0-9999, default: 5)
Node relay options:		;
	-datacarrier	Relay and mine data carrier transactions (default: 1)
	-datacarriersize=	Maximum size of data in data carrier transactions we relay and mine (default: 83)
Block creation options:		;
	-blockminsize=	Set minimum block size in bytes (default: 0)
	-blockmaxsize=	Set maximum block size in bytes (default: 750000)
	-blockprioritysize=	Set maximum size of high-priority/low-fee transactions in bytes (default: 50000)
RPC server options:		;
	-server	Accept command line and JSON-RPC commands
	-rest	Accept public REST requests (default: 0)
	-rpcbind=	Bind to given address to listen for JSON-RPC connections. Use [host]:port notation for IPv6. This option can be specified multiple times (default: bind to all interfaces)
	-rpcuser=	Username for JSON-RPC connections
	-rpcpassword=	Password for JSON-RPC connections
	-rpcport=	Listen for JSON-RPC connections on (default: 12705 or testnet: 27171)
	-rpcallowip=	Allow JSON-RPC connections from specified source. Valid for are a single IP (e.g. 1.2.3.4), a network/netmask (e.g. 1.2.3.4/255.255.255.0) or a network/CIDR (e.g. 1.2.3.4/24). This option can be specified multiple times
	-rpcthreads=	Set the number of threads to service RPC calls (default: 4)
	-rpckeepalive	RPC support for HTTP persistent connections (default: 1)
UI Options:		;
	-choosedatadir	Choose data directory on startup (default: 0)
	-lang=	Set language, for example "de_DE" (default: system locale)
	-min	Start minimized
	-rootcertificates=	Set SSL root certificates for payment request (default: -system-)
	-splash	Show splash screen on startup (default: 1)

Many of the boolean options can also be set to off by specifying them with a "no" prefix: e.g. -nodnseed.

Ion.conf Configuration File

All command-line options (except for -conf) may be specified in a configuration file, and all configuration file options may also be specified on the command line. Command-line options override values set in the configuration file.

The configuration file is a list of setting=value pairs, one per line, with optional comments starting with the '#' character.

An empty configuration file is automatically created on first run. By default, ION (or iond) will look for a file named 'ioncoin.conf' in the ION data directory, but both the data directory and the configuration file path may be changed using the -datadir and -conf command-line arguments.

Operating System	Default ION datadir	Typical path to configuration file
Windows	%APPDATA%\Ioncoin\	C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Ioncoin\ioncoin.conf
Linux	$HOME/.ioncoin/	/home/username/.ioncoin/ioncoin.conf
Mac OSX	$HOME/Library/Application Support/Ioncoin/	/Users/username/Library/Application Support/Ioncoin/ioncoin.conf

Note: if running ION in testnet mode, the sub-folder "testnet" will be appended to the data directory automatically.

Sample Ion.conf

See ioncoin.conf examples for an up-to-date sample.

Platforms

Windows

Start automatically

To configure the ION client to start automatically:

You might use the configuration-file, or the GUI-Settings:

Settings -> Options

then mark the checkbox titled:

Start ION on system startup

Batch automation

To work with batch, you have to start the daemon (iond.exe). The iond.exe run with option "-server" will respond with GUI-messages you are not able to process its answers.