1 How to run your own Electrum server
2 ===================================
7 This document is an easy to follow guide to installing and running your own
8 Electrum server on Linux. It is structured as a series of steps you need to
9 follow, ordered in the most logical way. The next two sections describe some
10 conventions we use in this document and hardware, software and expertise
13 The most up-to date version of this document is available at:
15 https://github.com/CryptoManiac/electrum-server/blob/master/HOWTO.md
20 In this document, lines starting with a hash sign (#) or a dollar sign ($)
21 contain commands. Commands starting with a hash should be run as root,
22 commands starting with a dollar should be run as a normal user (in this
23 document, we assume that user is called 'novacoin'). We also assume the
24 novacoin user has sudo rights, so we use '$ sudo command' when we need to.
26 Strings that are surrounded by "lower than" and "greater than" ( < and > )
27 should be replaced by the user with something appropriate. For example,
28 <password> should be replaced by a user chosen password. Do not confuse this
29 notation with shell redirection ('command < file' or 'command > file')!
31 Lines that lack hash or dollar signs are pastes from config files. They
32 should be copied verbatim or adapted, without the indentation tab.
34 apt-get install commands are suggestions for required dependencies.
35 They conform to an Ubuntu 13.10 system but may well work with Debian
36 or earlier and later versions of Ubuntu.
41 **Expertise.** You should be familiar with Linux command line and
42 standard Linux commands. You should have basic understanding of git,
43 Python packages. You should have knowledge about how to install and
44 configure software on your Linux distribution. You should be able to
45 add commands to your distribution's startup scripts. If one of the
46 commands included in this document is not available or does not
47 perform the operation described here, you are expected to fix the
48 issue so you can continue following this howto.
50 **Software.** A recent Linux 64-bit distribution with the following software
51 installed: `python`, `easy_install`, `git`, standard C/C++
52 build chain. You will need root access in order to install other software or
55 **Hardware.** The lightest setup is a pruning server with diskspace
56 requirements of about 200 MB for the electrum database. However note that
57 you also need to run novacoind and keep a copy of the full blockchain,
58 which is roughly 100 MB in 20 July 2014. If you have less than 2 GB of RAM
59 make sure you limit novacoind to 16 concurrent connections. If you have more
60 ressources to spare you can run the server with a higher limit of historic
61 transactions per address. CPU speed is important, mostly for the initial block
62 chain import, but also if you plan to run a public Electrum server, which
63 could serve tens of concurrent requests. Any multi-core x86 CPU ~2009 or
64 newer other than Atom should do for good performance. An ideal setup
65 has enough RAM to hold and procss the leveldb database in tmpfs (e.g. /dev/shm).
70 ### Step 1. Create a user for running novacoind and Electrum server
72 This step is optional, but for better security and resource separation I
73 suggest you create a separate user just for running `novacoind` and Electrum.
74 We will also use the `~/bin` directory to keep locally installed files
75 (others might want to use `/usr/local/bin` instead). We will download source
76 code files to the `~/src` directory.
78 $ sudo adduser novacoin --disabled-password
79 $ sudo apt-get install git
84 If you don't see `/home/novacoin/bin` in the output, you should add this line
85 to your `.bashrc`, `.profile` or `.bash_profile`, then logout and relogin:
87 PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
89 ### Step 2. Download and install Electrum
91 We will download the latest git snapshot for Electrum and 'install' it in
94 $ mkdir -p ~/electrum-server
95 $ git clone https://github.com/CryptoManiac/electrum-server.git
96 $ cd electrum-server/ltc-scrypt
97 $ sudo python setup.py install
99 ### Step 3. Download novacoind
101 # apt-get install make g++ python-leveldb libboost-all-dev libssl-dev libdb++-dev pkg-config libminiupnpc-dev git
103 $ cd ~/src && git clone https://github.com/nova-project/novacoin.git
105 $ make -f makefile.unix
107 $ cp -a ~/src/litecoin/src/litecoind ~/bin/litecoind
109 ### Step 4. Configure and start novacoind
111 In order to allow Electrum to "talk" to `novacoind`, we need to set up a RPC
112 username and password for `novacoind`. We will then start `novacoind` and
113 wait for it to complete downloading the blockchain.
116 $ $EDITOR ~/.novacoin/novacoin.conf
118 Write this in `novacoin.conf`:
120 rpcuser=<rpc-username>
121 rpcpassword=<rpc-password>
124 If you have a fresh copy of novacoind start `novacoind`:
128 Allow some time to pass, so `novacoind` connects to the network and starts
129 downloading blocks. You can check its progress by running:
133 Before starting electrum server your novacoind should have processed all
134 blockes and caught up to the current height of the network.
135 You should also set up your system to automatically start novacoind at boot
136 time, running as the 'novacoin' user. Check your system documentation to
137 find out the best way to do this.
139 ### Step 5. Install Electrum dependencies
141 Electrum server depends on various standard Python libraries. These will be
142 already installed on your distribution, or can be installed with your
143 package manager. Electrum also depends on two Python libraries which we will
144 need to install "by hand": `JSONRPClib`.
146 $ sudo apt-get install python-setuptools python-openssl
147 $ sudo easy_install jsonrpclib
149 ### Step 6. Install leveldb and plyvel
151 $ sudo apt-get install python-leveldb libleveldb-dev
152 $ sudo easy_install plyvel
154 See the steps in README.leveldb for further details, especially if your system
155 doesn't have the python-leveldb package or if plyvel installation fails.
157 leveldb should be at least version 1.1.9. Earlier version are believed to be buggy.
159 ### Step 7. Select your limit
161 Electrum server uses leveldb to store transactions. You can choose
162 how many spent transactions per address you want to store on the server.
163 The default is 100, but there are also servers with 1000 or even 10000.
164 Few addresses have more than 10000 transactions. A limit this high
165 can be considered to be equivalent to a "full" server. Full servers previously
166 used abe to store the blockchain. The use of abe for electrum servers is now
169 The pruning server uses leveldb and keeps a smaller and
170 faster database by pruning spent transactions. It's a lot quicker to get up
171 and running and requires less maintenance and diskspace than abe.
173 The section in the electrum server configuration file (see step 10) looks like this:
176 path_fulltree = /path/to/your/database
177 # for each address, history will be pruned if it is longer than this limit
180 ### Step 8. Import blockchain into the database or download it
182 It's recommended to fetch a pre-processed leveldb from the net
184 You can fetch recent copies of electrum leveldb databases and further instructions
185 from the Electrum full archival server foundry at:
186 http://foundry.electrum.org/
188 Alternatively if you have the time and nerve you can import the blockchain yourself.
190 As of April 2014 it takes between two days and over a week to import 300k of blocks, depending
191 on CPU speed, I/O speed and selected pruning limit.
193 It's considerably faster and strongly recommended to index in memory. You can use /dev/shm or
194 or create a tmpfs which will also use swap if you run out of memory:
196 $ sudo mount -t tmpfs -o rw,nodev,nosuid,noatime,size=15000M,mode=0777 none /tmpfs
198 If you use tmpfs make sure you have enough RAM and swap to cover the size. If you only have 4 gigs of
199 RAM but add 15 gigs of swap from a file that's fine too. tmpfs is rather smart to swap out the least
200 used parts. It's fine to use a file on a SSD for swap in thise case.
202 It's not recommended to do initial indexing of the database on a SSD because the indexing process
203 does at least 20 TB (!) of disk writes and puts considerable wear-and-tear on a SSD. It's a lot better
204 to use tmpfs and just swap out to disk when necessary.
206 Databases have grown to roughly 8 GB in April 2014, give or take a gigabyte between pruning limits
207 100 and 10000. Leveldb prunes the database from time to time, so it's not uncommon to see databases
208 ~50% larger at times when it's writing a lot especially when indexing from the beginning.
211 ### Step 9. Create a self-signed SSL cert
213 To run SSL / HTTPS you need to generate a self-signed certificate
214 using openssl. You could just comment out the SSL / HTTPS ports in the config and run
215 without, but this is not recommended.
217 Use the sample code below to create a self-signed cert with a recommended validity
218 of 5 years. You may supply any information for your sign request to identify your server.
219 They are not currently checked by the client except for the validity date.
220 When asked for a challenge password just leave it empty and press enter.
222 $ openssl genrsa -des3 -passout pass:x -out server.pass.key 2048
223 $ openssl rsa -passin pass:x -in server.pass.key -out server.key
226 $ openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
228 Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US
229 State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:California
230 Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []: electrum-server.tld
232 A challenge password []:
235 $ openssl x509 -req -days 730 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt
237 The server.crt file is your certificate suitable for the ssl_certfile= parameter and
238 server.key corresponds to ssl_keyfile= in your electrum server config
240 Starting with Electrum 1.9 the client will learn and locally cache the SSL certificate
241 for your server upon the first request to prevent man-in-the middle attacks for all
244 If your certificate is lost or expires on the server side you currently need to run
245 your server with a different server name along with a new certificate for this server.
246 Therefore it's a good idea to make an offline backup copy of your certificate and key
247 in case you need to restore it.
249 ### Step 10. Configure Electrum server
251 Electrum reads a config file (/etc/electrum.conf) when starting up. This
252 file includes the database setup, novacoind RPC setup, and a few other
255 $ sudo cp ~/src/electrum/server/electrum.conf.sample /etc/electrum.conf
256 $ sudo $EDITOR /etc/electrum.conf
258 Go through the sample config options and set them to your liking.
259 If you intend to run the server publicly have a look at README-IRC.md
261 ### Step 11. Tweak your system for running electrum
263 Electrum server currently needs quite a few file handles to use leveldb. It also requires
264 file handles for each connection made to the server. It's good practice to increase the
265 open files limit to 16k. This is most easily achived by sticking the value in .bashrc of the
266 root user who usually passes this value to all unprivileged user sessions too.
268 $ sudo sed -i '$a ulimit -n 16384' /root/.bashrc
270 Also make sure the novacoin user can actually increase the ulimit by allowing it accordingly in
271 /etc/security/limits.conf
273 While most bugs are fixed in this regard electrum server may leak some memory and it's good practice to
274 to restart the server once in a while from cron (preferred) or to at least monitor
275 it for crashes and then restart the server. Monthly restarts should be fine for most setups.
277 Two more things for you to consider:
279 1. To increase security you may want to close novacoind for incoming connections and connect outbound only
281 2. Consider restarting novacoind (together with electrum-server) on a weekly basis to clear out unconfirmed
282 transactions from the local the memory pool which did not propagate over the network
284 ### Step 12. (Finally!) Run Electrum server
286 The magic moment has come: you can now start your Electrum server:
288 $ cd ~/electrum-server
291 You should see this in the log file:
293 starting Electrum server
295 If you want to stop Electrum server, use the 'stop' script:
297 $ cd ~/electrum-server
301 ### Step 13. Test the Electrum server
303 We will assume you have a working Electrum client, a wallet and some
304 transactions history. You should start the client and click on the green
305 checkmark (last button on the right of the status bar) to open the Server
306 selection window. If your server is public, you should see it in the list
307 and you can select it. If you server is private, you need to enter its IP
308 or hostname and the port. Press Ok, the client will disconnect from the
309 current server and connect to your new Electrum server. You should see your
310 addresses and transactions history. You can see the number of blocks and
311 response time in the Server selection window. You should send/receive some
312 novacoins to confirm that everything is working properly.