If reading this file within your WebFunds directory, you might like to check the latest version.

Table of Contents

• Current
• Getting it Going
  .. General .. Mac OS .. Unix .. DOS .. Jars List .. 3rd Party Wallets .. Bugs
• Other Components
  .. Java .. Mac OS
• Quick Intro
  .. Setting Up .. Unlimited Transactions .. Messaging .. Troubleshooting
• History

Current

Current Version G3: XX.YY.ZZ: General (Unix, Windows) and also Mac OSX and now, the source :

1.10.7:

• Pumphouse - is now multithreaded, and hey presto - the lockups have disappeared! Reliability has shot up by and order of magnitude.
• Lucaya - Rafi's now handles new messages coming in, and behaves approximately like a chat program. Ignore the addressBook, and use a payment as a shared handle. When a payment in the History is selected, the chat icon comes alive.
• Lucaya - SDP1 is now used to set up a datagram context, and this will be used where available for chat and payments. Speed up of approximately twice is observed, when the context is in place. In current version, it takes several minutes before SDP1 kicks in. Only currently enabled / working on croesus (Pressed Flowers / pints of beer).
• Now compiles and runs with Java 1.5. In theory, Lucaya runs 1.4 as well and G3 and pumphouse run from 1.3-1.5, but older JVM versions are no longer tested.
• 3G - Fixes bugs in Server migration and restarting.
• Compatibility Warning: This version switches over Payments made in 3G with the normal Payment window to Wire format.
  • Some older WebFunds will not be able to take these new payments;
  • If you strikke this issue, use the older format instead.
  • To do that, use the "Special Pay" menu option, and select "SOX2".
  • Such older "SOX2" payments should be settled (deposited) via the old WebFunds programs only. That is, do not deposit old payments into a new WebFunds or do direct payments to older accounts.
  • And, of course, do upgrade the older copies of WebFunds!

As a general notice - current servers (issuance, pumphouse, koalagold) are now much more reliable.

1.10.6: Interim release to get some pumphouse client mods out.

• Started a Client architecture for Pumphouse, currently only stubs and a short similator.
• Fairly mammoth changes to the layout of servers and smart servers, that incorporate the Result architecture. Requests are now matched to responses via a dispatcher based on the token of the RID, and the return from a send call is immediate.
• SDP1 is now used to set up a client - server shared secret. This SS is not used for anything as yet, and is only enabled in servers with v>=4 (none of the public ones).
• Lucaya back and working, although less tested than before. Does payment cycle; the decision making has been moved out of Holding / Transaction up into the DepositPaymentWiz which is where it belongs. Only the App knows what to do with each event; it is the Holding / Transactions job to provide actions and store states, not to initiate actions.
• MsgSender and Poller are now switched off / deprecated. The requirement filled by Poller will be filled by the SDP1 work through the Servers, and the MsgSender work is now the responsibility of the application; see DepositPaymentWiz comment above. Yes, the app has to get its hands dirty.

1.10.5: Back into internal CVS. Minor release not including much functionality.

• Reworked the PumpHouse package to be included in the source zip, and also built by the Unix scripts.
• Some fixes of bitrot in pumphouse, XML-X and the ValueManager.

1.10.4: (Snapshot release only, not in CVS, not supported.)

• Re-added special Mac OSX distro. Might not work. (Does not include Lucaya, see next.)
• Attempt at adding Lucaya (4G) snapshot distro into the main distro (not the OSX one). Examine the Unix script ./lucaya to see how to run it. Over and beyond Webfunds (3G), Lucaya requires
  • java-boot.jar in the boot classpath
  • WebFunds4GLucaya.jar instead of SOX.jar and WebFunds.jar.
  • concurrent.jar
  • Main is webfunds.client4.main.Main
  • only likely to run under a 1.4 JVM.
  There is a better install in the works. These notes apply:
  • Lucaya is definately in alpha mode. The next snapshot will likely not retain the same data structure, and value will be lost.
  • Account creation has no proper state machine (but it does have a proper flow so no problems occur if it fails half way through).
  • Payments state machine is ok when things work, but unable to cope with too many deviations.
  • I've only just added balance counting, and have no idea if it gets it right.
  • The addressbook/chat is a facade only. If you try and send a message, it will crash.
  Do not put value into Lucaya. Let's call this snapshot 4.0.0.
• WebFunds 3G still works fine, although it is on a maintenance track, by default, as all efforts are going into Lucaya.

As a general notice - current issuance servers are only marginally reliable due to their platforms and net connections.

1.10.3: Update of many minor fixes.

• Contracts in UTF8 now have verifiable signature checking. See the Sava-Cheks contract on the example contract page for a demonstration of this; the castellano appears about half way down.
• New payments methods are now made available by default.
• Everything should now be WireObject. Encodable is gone.
• Additional exceptions are now thrown to signal the Sun Cryptography Files bug, where it is encountered.

1.10.2: Lots of work in SOX to prepare the ground for Lucaya.

• Contracts in UTF8 are now viewable with at least castellano characters, but signature checking on these contracts fails. UTF8 has been chosen for the i18n format, and no other will be used, due to severe problems in dealing with different sets. If you can get by without, do so. Otherwise, use UTF8, and hope the other systems support it.
• Addition of new WireObject payment, request, receipt set in sox.pay.
  • Clean WO basic cheque payment set.
  • Addition of new Freeze&Transfer payment, which does an atomic Transfer & Freeze of an subaccount.
  • Token money withdrawal and settlement set, using Random (Big Random Numbers or BRN) as the algorithm. No blinding algorithms as yet.

  Note 1. None of these new payment methods are backward compatible.

  Note 2. Access to the above new transaction methods is only provided in test mode. To use this test mode, either startup webfunds with arguments -test true -save true or edit the file user/props.dat and add the property test.mode=true .

• Many internal structures changed over to WireObject. Encodable is now being phased out.

1.10.1: Substantial changes to mailbox flow in support of Rafi's. This release was the a demo Rafi's: it is now usable but this was a tech demo only. (The real real Rafi's is coming in Lucaya...)

• Message History now has buttons for
  • New Msg
  • Reply
  • Forward
  We still lack a convenient Update method, but it's still only one menu selection on the main page.
• Receipts from both sides now generate, via the MailItem system, requests for addressbook names. This means that it is easy to bootstrap rafi's conversations with only one payment.
• Updates, which get MailItems from the servers, now also popup a display of new incoming messages.
• Subaccounts are created on the server by sending a zero payment on creation. This then permits immediate 3rd party payments into the subaccount (as the servers now only accept the 1st payment from the owner).
• It is now possible to Update an account's worth of contracts, or even the entire SOX wallet, in one click. It was quite amazing the number of unsigned messages I found when I tried it :-)
• Also, new OSX distribution, includes default contracts and has the size shrunk down to reasonable.
• Bug workaround: Under some circumstances not clear, zero amounts for payments in no-decimals contracts were being displayed as 1. This seems to be a problem with Java 1.2 (FreeBSD) only: Java class DecimalFactor returns "1" from double 0.0 (with format "0"). Errors will pop up on console when it is detected, and the correct display will be calculated another way, but please report the event so we can isolate it further.
• Bug: some receipts were being dropped by WebFunds due to incorrect xid treatment by issuance server. Now relabels those under a different incremented xid.

1.10.0:

• Rafi's first cut. This is a new messaging application that delivers messages over SOX. Currently, with only a basic email-style interface, it serves as a testbed for messaging developments.

Go to History on site for earlier changes or this release History to see details of all prior changes to the WebFunds (G3).

A new fourth generation (G4) rewrite of the WebFunds client, called Lucaya, is available only via CVS.

Getting it Going

General Information

In general, you need a JVM program. See Other Components for more help on Java.

Note that the Unix instructions are the only ones tested at the moment. Use the Unix notes as a guide to getting other platforms working.

Unix

      $ cd appl
      $ unzip /tmp/WebFunds.zip
      $ cd WebFunds
    

      export   JDK=/usr/local/jdk1.2.2
    

        $ chmod 755 run
    

      $ cd appl/WebFunds
      $ ./run
    

      $ ./lucaya
    

Mac OSX

OLD, probably out of date.

(Note that these instructions should be the same as for any other Mac OSX application.)

Microsoft

OLD, probably out of date.

This version is only for developer access, there is no support for install wizards from WebFunds.org. The download page on the site might include some hints as to where to get user-friendly downloads.

Jars List

These JARs need to be available:

1. Cryptix Jars (includes OpenPGP):
   1. cryptix-jce-api.jar
   2. cryptix-jce-provider.jar
   3. cryptix-openpgp-provider.jar
   4. cryptix-message-api.jar
   5. cryptix-pki-api.jar
2. Diags: jakarta-log4j.jar
3. TableLayout.jar
4. SOX.jar
5. WebFunds.jar

Check the run* scripts for further hints.

Bugs

When reporting difficulties, bear in mind:

• Try and provide the complete error log which is saved in the file errors.log during every run. (Save that file before restarting WebFunds...)
• You should provide the WebFunds version number, which is located at the top of this file, or as part of the download file name.
• Supply the JVM type (JDK, JRE, Kaffe, etc) and the version number of that JVM (by running the JVM with the -version option).
• If you can reproduce the error, make sure that you turn *off* any JIT that is running for the stack traces. When the JIT is running, stack traces either hide the bug or reveal the wrong bug, so generally reduce any possibility of finding the bug dramatically.
• Remember, this release is primarily for developers, platform issues and user support are generally handled by 3rd party distributors.

Other Components

You need these first:

Java

WebFunds works with Java 2 (a.k.a. JDK 1.3 to JDK 1.5). You need a JDK or JRE. WebFunds is expected to work with any of these distributions:

JDK 1.5

Works on FreeBSD.

JDK 1.4

Works on Mac OSX, Linux, Windows platforms.

JDK 1.3

Deprecated. Support is no longer provided for anything less than 1.4. Lucaya will not work.

You have to obtain these from Javasoft or somewhere similar. JRE's should also work. Nobody has reported it as working with any non-Javasoft sourced JVM.

The legacy generation is WebFunds "3G" (third generation). The forward generation is Lucaya (the fourth generation) and that is written for JDK 1.5 (it is hacked to work on 1.4). You should migrate to JDK 1.5 as a matter of routine.

For MacOS

Mac OSX has Java pre-installed, but it may be old (1.3?).

Quick Intro to WebFunds 3G Usage

Setting Up

Contracts - Lucaya

Select the [Contracts] Tab at the top. The ones already installed will be shown on the left, you can select one, and then use the inner Tabs on the right to examine different aspects of the contracts.

To add a new contract, click on the icon with the big plus and follow the wizard! You can find some contracts on the WebFunds Contracts Repository. Note that these contracts are not issued by WebFunds, and we don't have much to say about how good or bad they are. You have to read them and agree yourself!

Contracts - 3G

Contracts are files with a .asc suffix. Select one. It will appear on the contracts browser in the main box.

On the main box, left-click (double-click for Macs) on the little icon to open it up Then, right-click (option-click) for a pop-up menu Select [add account].

Enter a name, and wait whilst the keys are generated. Then, you can right-click on the account to bring up the account menu. Select Add Contract and choose one.

Accounts

In WebFunds you can create as many accounts as you like. One big difference: In 3G the accounts are actually groups of subaccounts, where each subaccount relates to one contract. But in Lucaya, accounts are called Holdings and are tied to one contract, there are no subaccounts.

Accounts - Lucaya

Select the [Holdings] tab at the top. Click on the new Holding icon which looks like a folder with a star. In the wizard, select an instrument (contract) and follow on. You will need to select a name.

Unlimited Transactions

With no money, you can always do two things to test WebFunds:

• Transfer any amount from one account to itself.
• Transfer a zero payment from any account to any other account.

Payments - Lucaya

Select your Holding on the left, and now select the new Payment and Payment settle icons. Create a payment of any amount, cut and paste it into the [Deposit] box and click.

This form of payment can be sent to anyone in email. (Note - there is no integration between Lucaya outwards to Pumphouse or to 3G at the moment. To be added.)

Click on the [Transactions] tab to see the status.

Payments - 3G

To create a payment, right-click on the contract within the account. On the menu, select payment.

A payment dialog pops up, you can enter a 0 amount, then hit Make Payment. The written payment can be sent by mail to another person with WebFunds.

When you settle (deposit) a payment from another user, WebFunds asks you for a name for this other user's account.

Messaging

When you have exchanged a payment with someone else, WebFunds Lucaya will provide an alpha version of secure SOX chat (this is called Rafi's as a project name). You will now be able to send a secure chat message to your payment counterparty.

To find the payment, go to the [Holdings] tab and select a a Holding. Go to the [Transactions] tab and select a transaction that was exchanged with the person you wanted to talk to.

When you select a settled payment with someone else (not a self-payment), the Chat icon will come alive. Click on it and try a chat session.

Note that Rafi's Chat is very alpha. The chat messages go out via the Ricardo Issuance Server for that contract using datagrams. It takes a while to initiate - like 3-10 minutes (short term version issue). There is no 'presence' so you won't know if anyone is online.

But smileys work and that's the main thing for serious ecommerce.

Troubleshooting

Firewalls

If WebFunds reports that it cannot get through to the servers, it may be that your firewall is blocking outward connections. WebFunds uses HTTP protocols, but is directed to non-HTTP ports by the servers. This is the "correct" thing to do, but may in future also attempt to communicate on the HTTP port 80 in order to bypass firewall checks.

To use the WebFunds 3G proxy feature, pass these arguments on the command line:

             -ph host -pp port   -save true
          

These arguments will be interpreted as Java properties settings, and if the latter pair is added, will be saved for future use.

Or, check with your administrator to see if outward connections get blocked to higher-number ports.

Sun Unlimited Strength Policy Bug

If WebFunds throws exceptions that appear to be coming from the crypto code, it may be that the Sun Unlimited Strength Cryptography Policy Files are not installed in Java.

This is a bug with Sun's Java, and there is a limit to that which the WebFunds team can do to fix this. WebFunds code has already been re-routed to minimise the effect of this bug. In the event that this bug still interferes with your program, here is the basic methodology, with some caveats, for fixing this bug in your installation of Java.

Go to the Sun Java site and search for the Unlimited Strength Cryptography Policy Files . Or, use google, which knows better. Download them and install them as per the instructions found there.

Beware that Sun does not ship these files within any Java distribution, and nor permit them to be shipped or otherwise supplied. Further, the files are deprecated and removed from Sun's site for any version that is about a year old (beyond support date). The upshot of this is that the Sun JCE architecture is no longer supported by Sun for practical usage of cryptography in commercial applications.

History

Activity is now stored in History on site for latest changes or release History to see details of all changes prior to this release.