/raspi4_bitcoin_node_tutorial

Raspberry Pi 4 Bitcoin Full Node tutorial

MIT LicenseMIT

Raspberry Pi 4 Bitcoin Full Node tutorial

Raspi4 A noob-friendly step-by-step guide for selecting the hardware, configuring and running a Raspberry Pi, and configuring and running a Bitcoin full node with a focus on setting it up with enhanced privacy. This is meant for people who have limited or no experience with a Linux/UNIX-style operating system. I do my best to explain what each command is doing and why we're doing it.

Each step is outlined in a short YouTube video. This format allows me to easily insert changes when needed and avoid onerous video editing. The master playlist is here.

This project can be completed in a couple of nights or over a weekend.

Comments, Questions, Suggestions

twitter: @KeithMukai

Introduction to the Hardware

Installing Raspbian OS

main resource: James A Chambers blog: Raspberry Pi 4 USB Boot Config Guide for SSD / Flash Drives

Updating and Securing the Raspi

Installing Bitcoin Core

main resource: Raspnode

Configuring Bitcoin

  • Create the bitcoin.conf file
    • note: The max dbcache might be 1024 so it's probably ignoring any value higher than that.
  • Install Supervisor
  • Configure Supervisor to manage bitcoind
    • UPDATE: no need to capture the stdout logs (what would normally get displayed in the terminal) as all that info is written to ~/.bitcoin/debug.log. So we just write stdout to "/null/dev" which purges it into the abyss.
    • UPDATE: the "-datadir=" is necessary. Without it bitcoind will look for the .bitcoin directory at "/.bitcoin" which would be at the disk root rather than within your user's "/home/youruser/" directory.
    • Configuration file (update youruser accordingly):
        [program:bitcoind]
    user=youruser
    command=bitcoind -datadir=/home/youruser/.bitcoin
    autostart=true
    autorestart=true
    stopwaitsecs=600
    stderr_logfile=/home/youruser/.bitcoin/err.log
    stdout_logfile=/dev/null

Tor Integration

Misc

And we're done!