Ubuntu
Bitcoin Core
Dependencies
We will install Python 3.12.3.
Versions above 3.12.3 did not work for me. I got errors later with Lightning Network.
Supposing that you have been installed python, build-essential and git you should install the following dependencies:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y \
jq autoconf automake libtool libsqlite3-dev libffi-dev \
net-tools zlib1g-dev libsodium-dev gettext
Installing Bitcoin Core
The easiest way to install Bitcoin Core is using snap.
There is also the option to compile bitcoin core from the source code.
sudo snap install bitcoin-core
# Create a symbolic link to bitcoind and bitcoin-cli from the snap
sudo ln -s /snap/bitcoin-core/current/bin/bitcoin{d,-cli} /usr/local/bin/
We are going to use our Bitcoin node for development purposes, so instead of syncing the entire blockchain, we need to configure a pruned node.
Lets create the config file:
nano ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf
Include the following configuration parameters:
regtest=1
[main]
prune=550
[regtest]
rcpport=18443
rpcuser=foo
rpcpassword=bar
Running Bitcoin for Development
At this point we will open two terminals:
- In the first terminal we are going to run
bitcoind, which will start the Bitcoin node and synchronize the blockchain—well, just a minimal part of it, since we configured a pruned node.
bitcoind
- In the second terminal
bitcoin-cliwhere we going to show the node info.
bitcoin-cli getblockchaininfo
If everything goes well we should see something like this:
{
"chain": "main",
"blocks": 1,
"headers": 1,
"bestblockhash": "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
"difficulty": 1,
"mediantime": 0,
"verificationprogress": 1,
"initialblockdownload": true,
"chainwork": "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
"size_on_disk": 0,
"pruned": true,
"pruneheight": 0,
"automatic_pruning": true,
"prune_target_size": 0,
"softforks": [],
"warnings": ""
}
All requests made with bitcoin-cli will be responded in JSON format.
Go to the terminal where bitcoind is running and cancel it with ctrl + c.
Leaving bitcoind running may take a lot of time or even days to synchronize the whole blockchain.
If you are developing applications only for Bitcoin without touching the Lightning Network, you can skip the rest of this guide. And your next steps will be finishing synchronizing the blockchain with bitcoind and then using bitcoin-cli.
Installing Lightning
Let's download the repository:
git clone https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning.git
cd lightning
We compile and install lightning:
./configure --disable-rust
make -j15
sudo make install
In the command above -j15 we are indicating that we want to use 15 cores to compile the software. If we don't know the number of cores of our pc we can substitute it by make -j$(($(nproc)-1)) to use the cores of our pc leaving one free.
Running Lightning for Development
We run the testnet of lighning (in fact regtest, but I will explain it later in another guide):
. contrib/startup_regtest.sh
The command above is a script that will run bitcoind, bitcion-cli, lightningd and lightning-cli.
And we get the following output with some basic commands.
Useful commands:
start_ln 3: start three nodes, l1, l2, l3
connect 1 2: connect l1 and l2
fund_nodes: connect all nodes with channels, in a row
stop_ln: shutdown
destroy_ln: remove ln directories
The command start_ln will create a pair of nodes in the lightning network (l1 and l2).
start_ln
Also we will get a list of commands to interact with each node:
Bitcoin Core starting
awaiting bitcoind...
Loading "default" bitcoind wallet.
[1] 10459
[2] 10463
Commands:
l1-cli, l1-log,
l2-cli, l2-log,
bt-cli, stop_ln, fund_nodes
timed out parsing log /tmp/l1/log
We get the information of one of the nodes (l1).
l1-cli getinfo
All requests made with lightning will be responded in JSON format.
{
"id": "02d44e9a844e84ab76d412601c8e648ce039b8266874ddfe5b854fb6723096ea06",
"alias": "SLICKERROUTE-v24.11-91-g9e29bde",
"color": "02d44e",
"num_peers": 0,
"num_pending_channels": 0,
"num_active_channels": 0,
"num_inactive_channels": 0,
"address": [],
"binding": [
{
"type": "ipv4",
"address": "127.0.0.1",
"port": 7171
}
],
"version": "v24.11-91-g9e29bde",
"blockheight": 109,
"network": "regtest",
"fees_collected_msat": 0,
"lightning-dir": "/tmp/l1/regtest",
"our_features": {
"init": "8008a0882a8a59a1",
"node": "8088a0882a8a59a1",
"channel": "",
"invoice": "02000002024100"
}
}
Now we are going to add some funds (a few satoshis) to the nodes:
fund_nodes
Awesome!!
bitcoind balance: 447.99999718
Waiting for lightning node funds... found.
Funding channel <-> node 1 to node 2. Waiting for confirmation... done.
We get the funds of the node l1:
l1-cli listfunds
The our_amount_msat property is the amount in satoshis.
{
"outputs": [
{
"txid": "3383b42043c96d072f1a22f11ea1e4039bb93176f13d397178a6eb13cb7113e2",
"output": 1,
"amount_msat": 98999834000,
"scriptpubkey": "51200e98fba542bc6fda8cb83ae930cebd6f6957f3cb5d2eb49e47a6d0f612473efa",
"address": "bcrt1pp6v0hf2zh3ha4r9c8t5npn4ada540u7tt5htf8j85mg0vyj88maq9zy237",
"status": "confirmed",
"blockheight": 111,
"reserved": false
}
],
"channels": [
{
"peer_id": "02fed4dea6a6bc7dcc8d7bb4c88aa452fc4cd3878949851b4c0c23e71eebfc751f",
"connected": true,
"state": "CHANNELD_NORMAL",
"channel_id": "8274abbaeb547055d57f07337965eadea778c7e0344dd6d1b55257746cd85288",
"short_channel_id": "111x1x0",
"our_amount_msat": 1000000000,
"amount_msat": 1100000000,
"funding_txid": "3383b42043c96d072f1a22f11ea1e4039bb93176f13d397178a6eb13cb7113e2",
"funding_output": 0
}
]
}
Congratulations!! Now we can build applications on Bitcoin and Lightning Network. ...well, kind of. Al least we can start experimenting with it.