LnMe - your friendly ⚡ payment page

LnMe is a personal Bitcoin Lightning payment page/widget and self-hosted Lightning Address server.

See it in action: ln.michaelbumann.com - my lightning address: bumi@ln.michaelbumann.com

LnMe focusses on simplicity and ease of deployment. It connects to an existing lightning node (currently LND is supported).

LnMe is one simple executable file that can be deployed anywhere with no dependencies. (on your own node or for example with one click on Heroku)

Features

Embeded payment page - customizable (see demo)
Lightning Address support
WebLN integration - if WebLN is not available a QRcode and the invoice will be shown
JavaScript widget for existing websites
Invoice API - simple REST API to create LN invoices from existing JS code
LNURL-pay support

Installation

LnMe connects to your LND node, so a running LND node is required. LnMe can easily run next to LND on the same system or any other hosting provider.

There are no other dependencies. Simply download the binary and run it!

Download the latest release
Run lnme
Done.

Build from source

$ git clone https://github.com/bumi/lnme.git && cd lnme
$ go install
$ rice embed-go && go build
$ ./lnme

Note: You must have go.rice installed

Configuration

LND configuration

To connect to the lnd node the cert, macaroon and address of the lnd node has to be configured. LnMe uses the LND defaults.

lnd-address: Host and port of the LND gRPC service. default: localhost:10009
lnd-cert-path: Path to the LND TLS cert file. default: ~/.lnd/tls.cert
lnd-macaroon-path: Path to the LND macaroon file. default: ~/.lnd/data/chain/bitcoin/mainnet/invoice.macaroon (invoice.macaroon is recommended)

Instead of the path to the macaroon and cert files you can also provide the hex strings:

lnd-cert: LND TLS cert as HEX string.
lnd-macaroon: LND macaroon HEX string. (invoice.macaroon is recommended)

Other configuration

static-path: Path to a folder that you want to serve with LnMe (e.g. /home/bitcoin/lnme/website). Use this if you want to customize your ⚡website. default: disabled
disable-website: Disable the default LnMe website. Disable the website if you only want to embed the LnMe widget on your existing website.
disable-cors: Disable CORS headers. (default: false)
disable-ln-address: Disable Lightning Address handling.
port: Port to listen on. (default: 1323)
request-limit: Limit the allowed requests per second. (default: 5)

Depending on your deployment needs LnMe can be configured using the following options:

Command line flags
Environment variables
Config TOML file

Examples:

Command line flags:

$ lnme --help
$ lnme --lnd-address=lndhost.com:10009 --port=4711
$ lnme --disable-website

TOML config file

See config.toml.example for an example file.

$ lnme --config=/path/to/config.toml

Environment variables

All environment variables must be prefixed by LNME_ use _ instead of -

$ LNME_LND_ADDRESS=127.0.0.1:10005 lnme

LND Permissions

LnMe needs the following LND permissions:

Read/Write permission for invoices
Write permission for onchain address (if you want to use the onchain option)

Use the LND macaroon bakery to create a new macaroon for LnMe.

To get the HEX versions of the files use xxd -plain e.g. xxd -plain invoice.macaroon | tr -d '\n'

TOR

LnMe can connect to your lightning node through Tor. You need to have Tor installed on your system and then simply provide your LND .onion address (don't forget to specify the port).

Deployment

It is the easiest to run LnMe on the same node as LND. But you can run it anywhere as long as your LND node is accessible. Simply run the binary and make sure the PORT is accessible.

Heroku

One click deployment with Heroku:

You will need your LND address, the LND tls certificate (HEX) and the macaroon (HEX).

When getting the HEX of the TLS certificate, use xxd -plain tls.cert | tr -d '\n'. The TLS cert is located in the lnd directory:

~/umbrel/lnd/tls.cert on Umbrel
/mnt/hdd/lnd/tls.cert on Raspiblitz
Can also be located in ~/.lnd

Here is a Video Demo of the Heroku deployment

In order to run Tor on Heroku, the Heroku deployment includes a non-official buildpack: https://github.com/iamashks/heroku-buildpack-tor-proxy This buildpack can be disabled and removed if not needed or desired, through the Settigns tab on the Heroku dashboard, or by editing app.json and removing the buildpack.

Lastly, using the Heroku deployment, you can link the app to your own domain by following the directions here: https://help.heroku.com/MTG1BIA7/how-do-i-connect-a-domain-to-my-heroku-app

Deployment Notes

To run LnMe as systemd service have a look at the systemd service example config

I am running LnMe behind a reverse proxy using caddy which comes with fully-managed HTTPS via letsencrypt.

Example Caddyfile:

lnme.michaelbumann.com {
  reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:1323
}

$ caddy --config /etc/caddy/Caddyfile

Feature Usage

Lightning Address

The Lightning Address is an Internet Identifier that allows anyone to send you Bitcoin over the Lightning Network. Lightning Address builds on LNURL-pay LnMe handles the necessary requests for you.

For more information check out the website: lightningaddress.com

Your Lightning Address: {anything}@{your domain}

Customize your ⚡ website

LnMe comes with a default website but you can easily configure and build your own using the the LnMe JavaScript widget or JSON API.

Take a look at the embedded default website for an example and use the --static-path option to configure LnMe to serve your static file.

Create a new folder (e.g. /home/satoshi/my-ln-page)
Create your index.html
Run lnme: `lnme --static-path=/home/satoshi/my-ln-page

JavaScript Widget integration

You can integrate the LnMe widget in your existing website.

1. Add the LnMe JavaScript files

<script data-lnme-base-url="https://your-lnme-host.com:1323" src="https://your-lnme-host.com/lnme/lnme.js"></script>

2. Usage

To request a lightning payment simply call request() on a new LnMe({value: value, memo: memo}):

var lnme = new LnMe({ value: 1000, memo: 'high5' });
lnme.request();

Use it from a plain HTML link:

<a href="#" onclick="javascript:new LnMe({ value: 1000, memo: 'high5' }).request();return false;">Tip me</a>

More advanced JS API:

let lnme = new LnMe({ value: 1000, memo: 'high5' });

// get a new invoice and watch for a payment
// promise resolves if the invoice is settled
lnme.requestPayment().then(invoice => {
  alert('YAY, thanks!');
});

// create a new invoice
lnme.addInvoice().then(invoice => {
  console.log(invoice.PaymentRequest)
});

// periodically watch if an invoice is settled
lnme.watchPayment().then(invoice => {
  alert('YAY, thanks!');
});

Motivation

I wanted a simple way for people to send Lightning payments using my own lightning node. BTCPay Server is too big and hard to run for that and I do not need most of its features.

Development

Use go run to ron the service locally:

$ go run lnme.go --address=127.0.0.1:10009 --cert=/home/bitcoin/lightning/tls.cert --macaroon=/home/bitcoin/lightning/invoice.macaroon

Build

LnMe uses go.rice to embed assets (HTML, JS, and CSS files). run rice embed-go (needs to be installed)

$ rice embed-go
$ go build

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/bumi/lnme

License

Available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

GlenCooper/lnme