Created a full node + Lightning node from scratch.

So i created a full node and a lightning node from scratch.

Coming back to bitcoin after few years, i wanted to see what the lightning network was.

So i changed my vps to a dedicated server (to add more storage) and started my journey.

The first thing was to install the full node.
there's some nice ressources to do that, but you have to find them.
I started with https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#other-linux-daemon but the cli instructions are almost non existent.
I then found https://github.com/BlockchainCommons/Learning-Bitcoin-from-the-Command-Line which is great!
Protip: you have to create a config file by yourself.
I created a wallet and waited for the blockchain to finish downloading.

Then i added a lightning node.
I used lnd because i like the go language. The program is great but i found the user documentation lacking.
https://gist.github.com/bretton/0b22a0503a9eba09df86a23f3d625c13 is a nice ressource, but you don't need to set an rpc user, lnd will use the cookie auth automagically if you're running as the same user as bitcoind (and provide bitcoind path probably..?).
Protip: To create a qrcode with your lightning address you can use qrencode:
lncli newaddress p2wkh
qrencode -o address.png 'bitcoin:bc1youraddress...'

Once everything looked to run smoothly i wanted to add funds to my lightning wallet.
Protip: you can directly transfer fund to it. no need to transfer funds in your full node wallet (don't know why i did that..).

I manually opened few channels with other nodes, but using the autopilot feature from lnd seems to work fine.

Lastly, i wanted some sort of dashboard so i added https://github.com/djmelik/lndash because i'm fluent in python , the project is straightforward, read only, and good looking.

You can check my node at https://ln.xec.sh/

If you have any questions or remark, don't hesitate. Hope it can help someone else.

Submitted June 13, 2020 at 02:13PM by wiredmachine https://ift.tt/37sAw6P