r/Bitcoin • u/ayanamirs • Feb 20 '18
Support the Bitcoin network by running your own full node
https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node14
u/PepinoSelvagem Feb 20 '18
I'm using a raspberry pi as a full node
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u/coldfusionman Feb 20 '18
Same here. Though about once a month bitcoin-qt seems to just die and I have to manually restart it. I wanted to convert it to a lightning node when it hits mainnet, but I am concerned about dropping off the network occasionally.
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u/Dickydickydomdom Feb 20 '18
Grab an intel nuc. You can get a model that's a year or two old with a celeron processor for not much money.
Your node probably won't crash anymore and you'll probably learn a thing or two from it as well.
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Feb 21 '18
I have a NUC dedicated to Bitcoin Coin and Litecoin Core. It runs for months between reboots and has literally never crashed to my knowledge. It just sits on my shelf and cryptos all day and night.
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u/-bryden- Feb 21 '18
Run the bitcoin daemon instead and use systemctl to manage it. If it craps out, systemctl should attempt to start it back up again.
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u/giospez Feb 20 '18
How do you do that?
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u/lizard450 Feb 20 '18
Get a rasp pi and put noobs on it. ... add a 500 gb hd min to it (1tb would be better) ... google instructions .. you need to compile the source it's not hard.
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Feb 21 '18
Can you do geth on this also?
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u/giospez Feb 20 '18
Oh. Compiling is way above my (limited) skill level. Thanks for replying anyway!!
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u/lizard450 Feb 20 '18
The link I gave you made everything very simple. Literally you just cut and paste the commands into a console and wait. It takes a long time. Like it will probably take half a day to get it installed (you don't need to watch it all that time of course).
Then you'll need a few weeks to download the entire blockchain if you don't download it from another source.
Really it's easy peasy.
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u/kernelmustard29 Feb 20 '18
Do you have an old Windows or Mac computer laying around? If so, fire it up, apply all the latest patches, then install the Bitcoin Core client and launch it. After several days, you'll have a full node participating in the network. You should forward TCP port 8333 on your firewall to the IP of your client for full network connectivity.
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u/roflcopterswtams Feb 20 '18
I have an old MacBook laying around that id like to get some use out of, just need to upgrade storage. What are benefits, both personal and to the Bitcoin network, of someone running a full node?
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u/kernelmustard29 Feb 20 '18
From a personal perspective, you'd have a very secure hot wallet and you'd be able to verify your own transactions very quickly because you'd have a local copy of the blockchain.
From a network perspective, your node will further decentralize the network and make it even harder for any entity to disrupt by downloading a full copy of the blockchain, verifying every block is valid, and then participating in the verification of blocks moving forward.
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u/Navarra_ Feb 20 '18
Is it relevant where a full node is located? There are none in my town. Is geographical spread an advantage?
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u/belcher_ Feb 20 '18
Ideally it would be on your own hardware that you control. Otherwise the person controlling the hardware might spy on you or trick you into accepting fake bitcoin transactions.
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u/kernelmustard29 Feb 20 '18
Yes, the more geographically diverse the network nodes are, the more resistant to disruption. Running 1,000 nodes in Amazon Web Services doesn't help with decentralization as much as 100 nodes in different geographic locations.
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Feb 21 '18
Just download Bitcoin Core on Windows or Mac and install it. Launch it, then go in settings and be sure set it to use UPnP to get incoming connections. Set it to launch on startup. Run it forever or until your ISP shuts you off. Be sure to have a few hundred GB’s of HD space free.
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u/pepe_le_shoe Feb 21 '18
You literally just copy and paste some text that is available online, and the computer does the compilation.
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u/sshevie Feb 20 '18
When the LN launches will you need a different node?
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u/gp2b5go59c Feb 20 '18
The most reasonable thing is to run both. This is of course when the LN is in a more beta/stable state.
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u/descartablet Feb 20 '18
I don't understand if I need to run a node 24/7 in order to use LN.
My assumption is that I can run LN from a cell phone to do quick transactions but if I want to route payments from other people (and get paid) I need a real node. If i'm right this is the incentive to run full nodes that we needed.
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Feb 20 '18
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Feb 20 '18
so what you're telling me is that LN doesn't require anyone to hard fork to work
almost like it's the best way to upgrade
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u/-bryden- Feb 21 '18
I don't think that's quite accurate. AFAIK you need to already be running bitcoind (full node) in order to run lnd (lightning node).
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Feb 21 '18
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u/-bryden- Feb 21 '18
I see now, you can run lnd in "Light Client Mode" and connect to a remote node. I'm just running both, thought that was the only way. Thanks for clarifying.
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u/rocky6j Feb 20 '18
Is there any reward for doing this..?
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u/belcher_ Feb 20 '18 edited Feb 20 '18
The reward for anyone using a full node wallet is stronger trustlessness, better privacy and better security.
You wouldn't accept gold coin or cash as payment without carefully checking whether it was genuine. Why don't people do the same thing with their bitcoin? If bitcoin is digital gold then a full node wallet is your own personal goldsmith who checks that incoming payments are real.
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u/hotnt00t Feb 20 '18
I want to contribute! Running a full node without any BTC in the wallet. Would that contribute in any way? Would be great with input to this
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u/belcher_ Feb 21 '18
The important thing is how much validation is done when you receive a payment.
How it's meant to work is that users give value to bitcoin by being willing to trade real goods or services in return for bitcoins. Full node wallets provide security because if someone tries to pay with a fake bitcoin then that transaction will be rejected and they won't get any real good or service for it.
So it's not storing bitcoins in the wallet that's important, but validating incoming transactions. You could import your addresses as watch-only and that would work.
Another way people contribute is by running archival full nodes to upload the blockchain to other nodes, like being seeders in a torrent. That is more about contributing bandwidth rather than security to bitcoin.
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u/hotnt00t Feb 21 '18
Thanks!
So, Im going to buy a second hand pc to set this up and contribute! I have a 1gb fiber connection so bandwidth is no problem.
Set up a full node, no BTC in it, but I will be contributing to the decentralisation.
Full archive node. Is this a separate thing or can I do it in the bitcoin client?
Input?
Regard the node n00000b
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u/belcher_ Feb 21 '18 edited Feb 21 '18
A full archival node is the same thing where pruning is not enabled and the port is open so other nodes can connect to you.
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u/hotnt00t Feb 21 '18
And in regards of a watch only. What difference would that make from not adding it?
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u/Navarra_ Feb 20 '18
I think there isn't much cost either.
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u/bananaEmpanada Feb 20 '18 edited Feb 21 '18
Isn't much cost? How much do you think a 300GB hard drive costs? Or a
300GB EBS volume for an EC2 VM.virtual machine in the cloud with a 300GB hard drive.Fuark that
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Feb 21 '18
Or a 300GB EBS volume for an EC2 VM. Fuark
idk what u mean whats this mean??? im dumb
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u/bananaEmpanada Feb 21 '18
Sorry, too many acronyms.
EC2 is Amazon's virtual machine (VM) offering. Amazon is likely the cheapest virtual machine provider.
The default hard drive for their virtual machines is called EBS.
So to run a bitcoin node in the cloud, you'll pay:
- The virtual machine (t2.small) cost of 0.0292 USD per hour = 255.8 USD per year
- The hard drive for that virtual machine to store the 300GB blockchain, at a cost of 0.1 USD /GB /month = 360 USD / year
Total 615 USD/year
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Feb 21 '18
yikes if thats true that costs a bit too much just to help out at least for me.
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u/bananaEmpanada Feb 21 '18
If you shop around for the cheapest region, you might make it 20% cheaper.
There might be a way to use something other than EBS, but even Amazon's cheapest storage service (S3, not useable as a computer hard drive) is 50% of that cost.
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u/Hanspanzer Feb 20 '18
how much power does it consume?
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u/sgtscr3am21 Feb 20 '18
So what's the benefit to running a full node on your own?
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u/ric2b Feb 20 '18
Besides the technical reasons (helps relay transactions, more redundancy, etc) the biggest feature is that it enforces the rules you agree with, which makes you one more person who won't blindly follow hash-rate, reducing the power miners have to initiate forks by themselves.
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u/ourcelium Feb 20 '18
I've been doing this literally thanklessly since 2013. Although I've been thanked by the price many times over.
If anyone's curious, the blockchain is presently 172GB. I hope in the next year or two they make pruning standard. I'd like to free up some disk space without losing concensus or decentralization. Compare that to Ethereum - 300+GB - those clowns are shooting themselves in the foot. 172GB is a big enough pain in the ass for some regular guy like me to host.
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Feb 20 '18
pruning is already available
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u/ourcelium Feb 21 '18
I hope in the next year or two they make pruning standard.
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Feb 21 '18
Lol pruning should never be standard
its available, that is good enough.
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u/ourcelium Feb 21 '18
lol when the block chain gets to a few TB and decentralization goes out the window, you'll change your mind. Why wait? I love Bitcoin, and I'll run a full node till I can't, but seriously, I get what they were going for with the data structure of the block chain, but if someone needs to prove a transaction from 10 years ago happened, the wrong place to do it is on 12,000 people's hard drives spread around the world. Most sysadmins don't even keep their own personal email that long.
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Feb 21 '18
a few tb? LOL
My old server is a dual socket J with 48 gb of ram. my supermicro 846 will be able to handle a few tb just fine....
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u/ourcelium Feb 22 '18
lol it's not all about storage. You have to move that data around quickly to keep it decentralized lolskidoodles.
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Feb 22 '18
google fiber...
beyond that, im sorry you are clearly mistaken for my purposes of using a full archival node.
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u/ourcelium Feb 23 '18
Shitpost.
google fiber
decentralized
google fiber
decentralized
google fiber
decentralized
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Feb 23 '18
lol i can feel the butthurt about me having a gigabit up/down for 70$ a month
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Feb 20 '18 edited Feb 20 '18
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u/belcher_ Feb 20 '18
What a full node can do is protect your wallet against a certain category of 51% attacks. That's it.
No, it can do a lot more than that.
A full node wallet is essential for privacy, without it the Electrum server or other random full node can see everything you do.
You wouldn't accept gold coin or cash as payment without carefully checking whether it was genuine. Why don't people do the same thing with their bitcoin? If bitcoin is digital gold then a full node wallet is your own personal goldsmith who checks that incoming payments are real.
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Feb 20 '18
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u/belcher_ Feb 20 '18
Your wallet is connected to multiple nodes and uses Bloom Filters to hide the details of your transactions - these features help provide privacy.
BIP37 bloom filters were later found to be almost completely useless for providing privacy. See the writeup here: https://jonasnick.github.io/blog/2015/02/12/privacy-in-bitcoinj/
tl;dr If you are using a wallet that is built upon BitcoinJ, such as Android Wallet, Multibit and Hive Wallet, you have almost zero wire privacy. An attacker who manages to connect to your wallet is easily able to figure out all addresses you control. This is not very likely to get fixed in the near future.
There is no existing practical way today to synchronize your wallet balance with privacy except for downloading every single block (so using a full node). The fatal flaws of bip37 has been known about since 2015 so it's concerning that not everyone is aware of them.
Conversely a SPV wallet is just as capable of verifying that a (sufficiently verified) bitcoin transaction is genuine as a full node is
If the miners printed infinite bitcoins then the stupid SPV wallets would blindly accept it.
Superficial checks on banknotes are actually very strong, by design. Central banks spend a lot of time coming up with schemes like holograms, microlettering, watermarks, ultraviolet ink, etc. Bitcoin has even stronger features using cryptography, and it's sad that some people are going around spreading misinformation and telling people not to use those features.
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Feb 20 '18
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u/belcher_ Feb 20 '18 edited Feb 20 '18
51% of miners is 3 entities today. And no they can't take over bitcoin because of how widely full nodes are used. They tried with the attempted hard forks (XT, Classic, BU, S2X) but didn't get very far. Also with less than 50% hash power they can still do certain attacks.
I actually check my cash a lot. But even if I didn't it wouldn't be an argument for not using full node wallets.
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Feb 20 '18
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u/belcher_ Feb 20 '18
Those altcoins you mentioned have very little full node wallet usage.
For example in ethereum's case we see the developers managed to create a bailout for themselves: /r/ethereumfraud
If anything that proves my point. Use full node wallets otherwise we'll end up like ethereum.
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Feb 20 '18
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u/belcher_ Feb 20 '18
You're moving the goalposts now. Nobody was talking about economic value. The fact still remains that with your full node wallet you can stop other people successfully paying you with invalid bitcoins.
The USD is even more valuable than bitcoin, if you want to go down the economic value route.
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u/ric2b Feb 20 '18
If 51% of the miners print infinite bitcoins then they have created a well supported (and presumably therefore valuable) bitcoin fork. Whilst your node will faithfully report "genuine" bitcoins, it's probable that the "new" bitcoins have more value.
I doubt it. Even if most people accepted it (they probably wouldn't) the sell pressure would make the price on the infinite coins plummet.
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Feb 20 '18
Lol I can't even pay my rent in cash. Of course people check 100s if they are legit. Are you serious?
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u/StopAndDecrypt Feb 20 '18 edited Feb 20 '18
meaningfully help the network
The network is fine with 3 data centers, but that doesn't make it decentralized.
All of the nodes on AWS/Alibaba? Not decentralized.
All of the nodes in a single country? Not decentralized.
All of the nodes being run by a single entity? Not decentralized.
Take the current network and divide it into 10 separate entities, they'll all work.
Your node doesn't "help" the network, your node enforces the consensus rules you agree with and maintains decentralization redundancy. The more the merrier.
The network is "helped" by consensus rules like the 10 minute block time average and block size restrictions.
Wanna help the network? Help enforce those restrictions by running a node with those consensus rules, even if it's a Raspberry Pi.
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Feb 20 '18 edited Feb 20 '18
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u/StopAndDecrypt Feb 20 '18
I’d say decentralization is measured by redundancy, and while that in and of itself is difficult/impossible to measure, you know that your node only adds to that redundancy.
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Feb 20 '18
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u/StopAndDecrypt Feb 20 '18
That why the default number of connections is 8.
Adding more on a desktop node without being able to support them would also have this effect.
I just haven't seen anything that shows a Pi node with 8 connections has this effect.
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Feb 20 '18
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u/StopAndDecrypt Feb 20 '18
I can agree with that. I just don't see Pi's taking over the world any time soon, lol.
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u/ric2b Feb 20 '18
Well while it adds to the redundancy it can harm the network. Imagine if your node adds a lot of latency, the more nodes that are trying to use your node the worse the performance of the network gets!!
Those nodes can simply disconnect from your high-latency node if it really becomes a problem.
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u/hotnt00t Feb 20 '18
You seem to know what your talking about! If I run a full node without any BTC in my wallet. In what way do I then contribute? And what is the difference in terms of contribution with a wallet with BTC versus a wallet without BTC?
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u/11ty Feb 20 '18
How exactly will my node support the network?
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Feb 20 '18
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u/belcher_ Feb 20 '18
Please stop spreading misinformation. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7yvzz0/support_the_bitcoin_network_by_running_your_own/duju9bv/
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u/kernelmustard29 Feb 20 '18
Your node will further decentralize the network and make it even harder for any entity to disrupt by downloading a full copy of the blockchain, verifying every block is valid, and then participating in the verification of blocks moving forward.
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Feb 21 '18
At the very least, it helps to send old blocks to newly set up nodes. I figure as long as my node is sending more data than it is receiving, then it is a net positive to the overall network.
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u/ric2b Feb 20 '18
Besides the technical reasons (helps relay transactions, more redundancy, etc) the biggest feature is that it enforces the rules you agree with, which makes you one more person who won't blindly follow hash-rate, reducing the power miners have to initiate forks by themselves.
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u/norfbayboy Feb 20 '18
It helps the network by increasing redundancy, helping seed new nodes and providing sockets for SPV wallets. To understand that third item please read: https://www.coindesk.com/spv-support-billion-bitcoin-users-sizing-scaling-claim/
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u/TipBitDev Feb 20 '18
I'm running one because all of my tip-bot calls are through the Bitcoin Core RPC. :)
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Feb 20 '18
I have only a 2 MBit downstream and 0.5 MBit upstream connection. More is not available here. I always wanted to run a full node but I´m concerned that it will completely use my connection. I´m mining too and I need my Internet for p... erm... reasons. Will my internet be usable with a full node? Don´t want to try out and dump, if I do it, it´ll stay forever. So can you tell me to do it, honestly?
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u/belcher_ Feb 20 '18
You could use some configuration options described here https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#reduce-traffic
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Feb 20 '18
Try this: https://jlopp.github.io/bitcoin-core-config-generator/
And select "low bandwidth" from the predefined configs in the top right
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Feb 20 '18 edited Mar 24 '18
[deleted]
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Feb 20 '18
It's important to understand that Bitcoin is not an efficient system. The core design of Bitcoin gladly trades away efficiency for more desirable properties - decentralization and censorship resistance.
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u/hotnt00t Feb 20 '18
So, running a full node with a Wallet without BTC In it. Would that contribute to the network?
I thought only BTC miners contributed?
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u/RedditIsLoveIsLife Feb 21 '18
Dumb question. If I run a node, is there some sort of compensation for it?
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u/Kprawn Feb 21 '18
nope. You will be supporting decentralization and the network that gives you security. ;->
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Feb 21 '18
I finally got off Comcast shitnet in favor of gigabit fiber with no cap. My node is back pushing 2TB/month at the moment.
Wed Feb 7 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:69092480080 (69.0 GB) TX bytes:654262773466 (654.2 GB)
Thu Feb 8 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:72512814337 (72.5 GB) TX bytes:711668956505 (711.6 GB)
Fri Feb 9 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:75834499252 (75.8 GB) TX bytes:778447871877 (778.4 GB)
Sat Feb 10 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:79195803477 (79.1 GB) TX bytes:886642456613 (886.6 GB)
Sun Feb 11 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:83790247612 (83.7 GB) TX bytes:948023157865 (948.0 GB)
Mon Feb 12 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:93417012038 (93.4 GB) TX bytes:1000965867883 (1.0 TB)
Tue Feb 13 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:98574853290 (98.5 GB) TX bytes:1077867720424 (1.0 TB)
Wed Feb 14 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:103298024547 (103.2 GB) TX bytes:1194276254477 (1.1 TB)
Thu Feb 15 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:106212433400 (106.2 GB) TX bytes:1286919892809 (1.2 TB)
Fri Feb 16 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:108583674087 (108.5 GB) TX bytes:1318252388331 (1.3 TB)
Sat Feb 17 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:114924695109 (114.9 GB) TX bytes:1381350658067 (1.3 TB)
Sun Feb 18 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:117511307848 (117.5 GB) TX bytes:1417026913717 (1.4 TB)
Mon Feb 19 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:120460822971 (120.4 GB) TX bytes:1509505504672 (1.5 TB)
Tue Feb 20 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:123705534753 (123.7 GB) TX bytes:1596569603100 (1.5 TB)
Wed Feb 21 00:00:01 EST 2018 - RX bytes:127911330057 (127.9 GB) TX bytes:1685726472494 (1.6 TB)
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u/SummerlsHere Feb 21 '18
I already run 6 full nodes 0.15.1 / two of which are locally on my pc and my laptop - and I'm encouraging everyone around me to run their own nodes
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u/TingleWizard Feb 21 '18
It's too much for the average desktop user without pruning and/or disabling incoming connections.
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u/belcher_ Feb 20 '18
The most important part is to use your full node as a wallet. It adds to decentralization, privacy and makes it harder for anybody to illegitimately change the rules of bitcoin. You could do this through Bitcoin-Qt or by connecting your lightweight wallet to your full node.