Hey If you are here you might be already interested in getting yourself set up on this cool Lightning network mission , I found quite a couple of challenges in getting an easy guide to help me get setup much faster so i decided to write this article. Enjoy!
This guide describes how to build bitcoind (without GUI) and lnd on mac
This is also heavily based on Michael Goldstein article and Bitcoin MacOS Build Guide
Step one
Update your build tools with the following command from your terminal:
xcode-select --install
You can skip it incase you are certain your build tools are up to date
We shall be using brew so ensure you have brew installed on your laptop
To install the Homebrew package manager, see: link
Install Dependencies
Run the following from your terminal:
brew install automake libtool boost pkg-config libevent
Clone Bitcoin repository
On the assumption that you have git installed clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.git
Install additional Dependencies
We shall be using ZMQ
brew install zeromq
ZMQ is automatically compiled in and enabled if the dependency is detected.
For more information on ZMQ,see
Configuring Bitcoin Core
lets now setup the core , from your terminal cd to bitcoin cloned directory
run these two commands
./autogen.sh
./configure --without-wallet --with-gui=no
Compile
After configuration, you are ready to compile. Run the following in your terminal to compile Bitcoin Core:
make # use "-j N" here for N parallel jobs i.e make -j "$(($(sysctl -n hw.physicalcpu)+1))" this gets to speed up the process by usage of the cpu
make check # Run tests if Python 3 is available
Running Bitcoin Core
Before running, you need to create an empty configuration file:
mkdir -p "/Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin"
touch "/Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf"
chmod 600 "/Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf"
Bitcoin Core should be available at ./src/bitcoind
You should be able to also access certain other commands like
./src/bitcoind -daemon # Starts the bitcoin daemon.
./src/bitcoin-cli --help # Outputs a list of command-line options.
./src/bitcoin-cli help # Outputs a list of RPC commands when the daemon is running.
./src/qt/bitcoin-qt -server # Starts the bitcoin-qt server mode, allows bitcoin-cli control
Setting up Bitcoin
Next, you’ll want to create a configuration file bitcoin.conf that goes our created Bitcoin directory in Library:
regtest=1
daemon=1
txindex=1
rpcauth=<rpc auth username and password>
zmqpubrawblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332
zmqpubrawtx=tcp://127.0.0.1:28333
This tells Bitcoin Core to use regtest mode, run as a daemon, and keep an index of all transactions. It also sets up RPC authentication and ZMQ ports for LND to use to communicate with the node. To produce the value to enter for rpcauth, use the script found at ./share/rpcauth/rpcauth.py from the cloned git repository
run the command
python rpcauth.py <<username>> // ensure you're are using python3
copy the rpcauth and password logged we shall use it in our bitcoin.conf file
Make adjustments to your bitcoin.conf file you can either use nano or a text editor to add
rpcauth=#####
rpcuser=<<username>> // the username you used with the script
rpcpassword= ## password generated with the script
In your bitcoin repository directory
lets Go ahead and mine a few blocks
run the command
./src/bitcoin-cli -generate 5
Coins are not spendable by miners until there are 100 confirmations, so let’s speed things along with more blocks.
./src/bitcoin-cli -generate 101
Now you should see a positive balance:
./src/bitcoin-cli getbalance
Bitcoin is up and running!
LND Setup
Let’s make a directory for our LND nodes. Yes, nodes. We’re going to make two of them.
mkdir -p "/Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/Lnd
mkdir -p "/Users/${USER}/Library/Application Support/Lnd2
Now let’s make configuration files. The first node can use default values, so it will be a simpler file. Save it as lnd.conf in the Lnd directory.
[Bitcoin]
bitcoin.active=1
bitcoin.regtest=1
bitcoin.node=bitcoind
[Bitcoind]
bitcoind.rpchost=localhost
bitcoind.rpcuser=<<username>>
bitcoind.rpcpass=<<generated password from the script>>
bitcoind.zmqpubrawblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332
bitcoind.zmqpubrawtx=tcp://127.0.0.1:28333
This tells LND about the Bitcoin node it is using and the RPC and ZMQ details for communicating. Since this is a local test environment, the password is not very secure. If you used a different password in the Bitcoin RPC auth script, be sure to update the value here.
Now we will make lnd.conf in the Lnd2 directory:
[Application Options]
listen=0.0.0.0:9734
rpclisten=localhost:11009
restlisten=0.0.0.0:8180
[Bitcoin]
bitcoin.active=1
bitcoin.regtest=1
bitcoin.node=bitcoind
[Bitcoind]
bitcoind.rpchost=localhost
bitcoind.rpcuser=<<username>>
bitcoind.rpcpass=<<password>>
bitcoind.zmqpubrawblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332
bitcoind.zmqpubrawtx=tcp://127.0.0.1:28333
Dont forget to replace the username and password
run this command in your terminal
export GOPATH=~/go
export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin
Now let’s set up some further aliases on our mac by adding the lines below in our ~/.zshrc file
export LND1_DIR="$HOME/Library/Application\ Support/Lnd"
export LND2_DIR="$HOME/Library/Application\ Support/Lnd2"
alias lnd1="lnd --lnddir=$LND1_DIR";
alias lncli1="lncli -n regtest --lnddir=$LND1_DIR"
alias lnd2="lnd --lnddir=$LND2_DIR";
alias lncli2="lncli -n regtest --lnddir=$LND2_DIR --rpcserver=localhost:11009"
Save the adjustments and run
source ~/.zshrc
To check our lightning Node run this in the terminal
lnd1
once you're good to go follow up Running LND
Hope this is helpful ✨
Do Like ❤️ & Save 🔖
Do Follow me here on dev.to ✅ for more Bitcoin Lightning content 👨💻
Top comments (2)
Follow the step to know, how to buy litecoin: