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README.md

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+# Electrum Server in Rust
+
+An efficient re-implementation of Electrum Server, inspired by [ElectrumX](https://github.com/kyuupichan/electrumx)
+and [Electrum Personal Server](https://github.com/chris-belcher/electrum-personal-server/).
+
+## Features:
+
+ * Supports Electrum protocol [v1.2](https://electrumx.readthedocs.io/en/latest/protocol.html).
+ * Maintains an index over transaction inputs and outputs, allowing fast balance queries.
+ * Fast synchronization of the Bitcoin blockchain (~5 hours for ~184GB @ June 2018) on modest hardware (without SSD).
+ * Low index storage overhead (~20%), relying on a local full node for actual transaction retrieval.
+ * Efficient mempool tracker (allowing better fee estimation).
+ * Low CPU & memory usage after initial indexing is over.
+ * [`txindex`](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/81069a75bd71f21f9cbab97c68f7347073cc9ae5/src/init.cpp#L406) is not required for the Bitcoin node.
+ * Using a single RocksDB database, for better consistency and crash recovery.
+
+## Usage
+
+Install [latest Rust](https://rustup.rs/) (1.26+) and [latest Bitcoin Core](https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/) (0.16+).
+
+```bash
+$ sudo apt update
+$ sudo apt install clang
+
+# Allow Bitcoin daemon to sync before starting Electrum server
+$ bitcoind -server=1 -daemon=0 -txindex=0 -prune=0
+
+# First build should take ~20 minutes
+$ cargo build --release
+$ cargo run --release -- -v -l debug.log
+Config { log_file: "debug.log", log_level: Debug, network_type: Mainnet, db_path: "./db/mainnet", rpc_addr: V4(127.0.0.1:50001), monitoring_addr: V4(127.0.0.1:42024) }
+BlockchainInfo { chain: "main", blocks: 527673, headers: 527677, bestblockhash: "0000000000000000001134b741f53f4e49e9f8073e41af6d8aaad3b849ebeee4", size_on_disk: 196048138442, pruned: false }
+opening ./db/mainnet with StoreOptions { bulk_import: true }
+applying 0 new headers from height 0
+best=0000000000000000001134b741f53f4e49e9f8073e41af6d8aaad3b849ebeee4 height=527673 @ 2018-06-16T04:03:53Z (527674 left to index)
+# <initial indexing takes a few hours>
+applying 527674 new headers from height 0
+closing ./db/mainnet
+opening ./db/mainnet with StoreOptions { bulk_import: false }
+RPC server running on 127.0.0.1:50001
+
+# The index database is stored here:
+$ du db/
+36G db/mainnet/
+
+# Connect only to the local server, for better privacy
+$ electrum  --oneserver --server=127.0.0.1:50001:t
+```
+
+## Monitoring
+
+Indexing and serving metrics are exported via [Prometheus](https://github.com/pingcap/rust-prometheus):
+
+```bash
+$ sudo apt install prometheus
+$ echo "
+scrape_configs:
+  - job_name: electrs
+    static_configs:
+    - targets: ['localhost:42024']
+" | sudo tee -a /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
+$ sudo systemctl restart prometheus
+$ firefox 'http://localhost:9090/graph?g0.range_input=1h&g0.expr=index_height&g0.tab=0'
+```

README.rst

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-Electrum Server in Rust
-=======================

TODO.rst → TODO.md

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-Electrum
-========
+# Electrum
+
 * Poll mempool after transaction broadcast
 * Snapshot DB after successful indexing - and run queries on the latest snapshot
-* Update height to -1 for txns with any `unconfirmed input <https://electrumx.readthedocs.io/en/latest/protocol-basics.html#status>`_
+* Update height to -1 for txns with any [unconfirmed input](https://electrumx.readthedocs.io/en/latest/protocol-basics.html#status)
+
+# Bitcoind
 
-Bitcoind
-========
-* Use nTx from `getblockheader RPC <https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/13451>`_ for better batching
+* Use nTx from [getblockheader RPC](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/13451) for better batching
 * Handle bitcoind connection failures - instead of crashing
 * Add getrawtransactions() API (for RPC batching)
 
-Performance
-===========
-* Experiment with `sled <https://github.com/spacejam/sled>`_ DB
+# Performance
+
+* Experiment with [sled](https://github.com/spacejam/sled) DB
+
+# Rust
 
-Rust
-====
 * Use Bytes instead of Vec[u8] when possible
 * Return errors instead of panics
 * Use generators instead of vectors