Raspiscripts

Create and manage your Bitcoin and Lightning Network node, based on Raspibolt, but with scripts.

Why?

I decided to create this project because of some "limitations" that I was encountering with other similar projects:

• Why not Raspibolt? Because I wanted something more automated and faster to use
• Why not Raspiblitz? Beacause I didn't want to be limited by their release schedule and I wanted to tune some things based on my liking, and sometimes the overall architecture was just getting in my way.
• Why not any other plug-and-play software? Because they are usually not Bitcoin specific, plus I wanted something not container based.

Therefore this project is just a bunch of scripts and templates to install and update a Bitcoin Node and its related services.

Services and Features

Here is the list of what is included:

• Bitcoin Core
• Electrs
• Mempool (only mainnet info)
• LND
• RTL (with integrated loop daemon for swaps)
• JoinMarket and the JAM web UI

Network characteristics:

• The Firewall in use is firewalld and only these endpoints are exposed through the public zone with a self-signed certificate:
  • Electrs port: 50002
  • Mempool port 4081
  • RTL port: 4001
  • JAM port: 4020
• Each one of the previous endpoints has its own Tor Hidden Service enabled for external access

CAUTION !!!

!!! This is still in development and not all scripts are already available !!!

Some important things about this project:

• Even though the name contains "Raspi...", do NOT use a Raspberry Pi or other Single Board Computers as they are not that reliable, infact the project has been designed for a Debian 12 x86_64 system. If you want the best experience, please learn about Proxmox, with which you can have multiple Virtual Machines and properly manage Storage and Backups, since this project does not have backups logic.
• As stated before, this project is just a bunch of scripts and templates to automate what you would normally do with Raspibolt, so they are not really tested to be idempotent, so use at your own risk: install services only once and then update them with the specific script.
• This is Highly Experimental and not thoroughly tested, therefore YOU need to watch out for incompatibilities and changes between versions and during updates. I repeat: this is just an automated version of what Raspibolt already offers.
• The scripts have only been tested to work when executed from inside the root folder of the cloned repository.

Requirements

You need to provide:

• A fresh Debian 12 x86_64 machine
• A user with sudo access with your preferred SSH login configuration
• An already available directory where to store the node data

Setup

1. Clone the repo inside your machine:

   cd
   git clone https://github.com/ciori/raspiscripts.git
   cd raspiscripts
   

2. Initialize the node using the init script, which will prepare the machine with some necessary stuff and then install bitcoind and start the blockchain sync:

   ./init.sh
   

3. Then, it is recommended to reboot the system:

   sudo reboot now
   

4. Now wait for the blockchain sync to finish Tick Tock Next Block... and then run the script to update some parameters that were useful only during syncing:

   cd ~/raspiscripts
   ./after_sync.sh
   

5. Finally, install the Bitcoin and LN services you want by using the other scripts, in this order: Electrs -> Mempool -> LND -> loop -> RTL. JoinMarket can be installed right after the blockchain has finished syncing.

   # Example
   cd ~/raspiscripts
   ./services/<SERVICE_NAME>/<SERVICE_NAME>_install.sh
   

Some useful notes:

• All relevant node data will be stored on the directory you specify during the first installation.
• The init script will create an env file inside the repo folder (not the data folder) where it will save some needed environment variables, like the path of the data folder, that will be used by the "install" and "update" scripts.

Updates

The update process should be straightforward:

1. Update your debian system as you normally would.
2. Use the specific update script for the service you want to update:

   # Example
   cd ~/raspiscripts
   ./services/<SERVICE_NAME>/<SERVICE_NAME>_update.sh
   

3. Remember to check for changelogs between versions and update the service config files accordingly, if needed.