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/spesmilo/electrum-server/blob/master/HOWTO.md
20 In this document, lines starting with a hash sign (#) or a dollar sign ($)
21 contain commands. Commands starting with a hash should be run as root,
22 commands starting with a dollar should be run as a normal user (in this
23 document, we assume that user is called 'bitcoin'). We also assume the
24 bitcoin user has sudo rights, so we use '$ 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.
37 **Expertise.** You should be familiar with Linux command line and
38 standard Linux commands. You should have basic understanding of git,
39 Python packages. You should have knowledge about how to install and
40 configure software on your Linux distribution. You should be able to
41 add commands to your distribution's startup scripts. If one of the
42 commands included in this document is not available or does not
43 perform the operation described here, you are expected to fix the
44 issue so you can continue following this howto.
46 **Software.** A recent Linux distribution with the following software
47 installed: `python`, `easy_install`, `git`, standard C/C++
48 build chain. You will need root access in order to install other software or
51 **Hardware.** The lightest setup is a pruning server with diskspace
52 requirements well under 1 GB growing very moderately and less taxing
53 on I/O and CPU once it's up and running. However note that you also need
54 to run bitcoind and keep a copy of the full blockchain, which is roughly
55 9 GB in April 2013. If you have less than 2 GB of RAM make sure you limit
56 bitcoind to 8 concurrent connections. If you have more ressources to
57 spare you can run the server with a higher limit of historic transactions
58 per address. CPU speed is also important, mostly for the initial block
59 chain import, but also if you plan to run a public Electrum server, which
60 could serve tens of concurrent requests. Any multi-core x86 CPU ~2009 or
61 newer other than Atom should do for good performance.
66 ### Step 1. Create a user for running bitcoind and Electrum server
68 This step is optional, but for better security and resource separation I
69 suggest you create a separate user just for running `bitcoind` and Electrum.
70 We will also use the `~/bin` directory to keep locally installed files
71 (others might want to use `/usr/local/bin` instead). We will download source
72 code files to the `~/src` directory.
74 # sudo adduser bitcoin
79 If you don't see `/home/bitcoin/bin` in the output, you should add this line
80 to your `.bashrc`, `.profile` or `.bash_profile`, then logout and relogin:
82 PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
84 ### Step 2. Download and install Electrum
86 We will download the latest git snapshot for Electrum and 'install' it in
89 $ mkdir -p ~/src/electrum
91 $ git clone https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-server.git server
92 $ chmod +x ~/src/electrum/server/server.py
93 $ ln -s ~/src/electrum/server/server.py ~/bin/electrum
95 ### Step 3. Download Bitcoind stable from git & patch it
97 In order for the latest versions of Electrum to work properly we will need to use
98 bitcoind 0.8.1 stable or higher. It can be downloaded from github and
99 it needs to be patched with an electrum specific patch.
101 $ cd ~/src && wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.8.1/bitcoin-0.8.1-linux.tar.gz
102 $ tar xfz bitcoin-0.8.1-linux.tar.gz
103 $ cd bitcoin-0.8.1-linux/src
104 $ patch -p1 < ~/src/electrum/server/patch/patch
105 $ make USE_UPNP= -f makefile.unix
107 ### Step 4. Configure and start bitcoind
109 In order to allow Electrum to "talk" to `bitcoind`, we need to set up a RPC
110 username and password for `bitcoind`. We will then start `bitcoind` and
111 wait for it to complete downloading the blockchain.
114 $ $EDITOR ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf
116 Write this in `bitcoin.conf`:
118 rpcuser=<rpc-username>
119 rpcpassword=<rpc-password>
126 Allow some time to pass, so `bitcoind` connects to the network and starts
127 downloading blocks. You can check its progress by running:
131 You should also set up your system to automatically start bitcoind at boot
132 time, running as the 'bitcoin' user. Check your system documentation to
133 find out the best way to do this.
135 ### Step 5. Install Electrum dependencies
137 Electrum server depends on various standard Python libraries. These will be
138 already installed on your distribution, or can be installed with your
139 package manager. Electrum also depends on two Python libraries which we will
140 need to install "by hand": `JSONRPClib`.
142 $ sudo easy_install jsonrpclib
143 $ sudo apt-get install python-openssl
145 ### Step 6. Install leveldb
147 $ sudo apt-get install python-leveldb
149 See the steps in README.leveldb for further details, especially if your system
150 doesn't have the python-leveldb package.
152 ### Step 7. Select your limit
154 Electrum server uses leveldb to store transactions. You can choose
155 how many spent transactions per address you want to store on the server.
156 The default is 100, but there are also servers with 1000 or even 10000.
157 Very few addresses have more than 10000 transactions. A limit this high
158 can be considered to be equivalent to a "full" server. Full servers previously
159 used abe to store the blockchain. The use of abe for electrum servers is now
162 The pruning server uses leveldb and keeps a smaller and
163 faster database by pruning spent transactions. It's a lot quicker to get up
164 and running and requires less maintenance and diskspace than abe.
166 The section in the configuration file looks like this:
169 path = /path/to/your/database
170 # for each address, history will be pruned if it is longer than this limit
173 ### Step 8. Import blockchain into the database or download it
175 As of April 2013 it takes between 6-24 hours to import 230k of blocks, depending
176 on CPU speed, I/O speed and selected pruning limit.
178 It's considerably faster to index in memory. You can use /dev/shm or indexing in RAM
179 or create a tmpfs which will also use swap if you run out of memory:
181 $ sudo mount -t tmpfs -o rw,nodev,nosuid,noatime,size=6000M,mode=0777 none /tmpfs
183 At limit 100 the database comes to 2,6 GB with 230k blocks and takes roughly 6h to import in /dev/shm.
184 At limit 1000 the database comes to 3,0 GB with 230k blocks and takes roughly 10h to import in /dev/shm.
185 At limit 10000 the database comes to 3,5 GB with 230k blocks and takes roughly 24h to import in /dev/shm.
187 Alternatively you can fetch a pre-processed leveldb from the net
189 You can fetch recent copies of electrum leveldb databases and further instructions
190 from the Electrum full archival server foundry at:
191 http://electrum-foundry.no-ip.org/
193 ### Step 9. Configure Electrum server
195 Electrum reads a config file (/etc/electrum.conf) when starting up. This
196 file includes the database setup, bitcoind RPC setup, and a few other
199 $ sudo cp ~/src/electrum/server/electrum.conf.sample /etc/electrum.conf
200 $ sudo $EDITOR /etc/electrum.conf
202 Go through the sample config options and set them to your liking.
203 If you intend to run the server publicly have a look at README-IRC.md
205 If you're looking to run SSL / HTTPS you need to generate a self-signed certificate
206 using openssl. Otherwise you can just comment out the SSL / HTTPS ports and run
209 ### Step 10. (Finally!) Run Electrum server
211 The magic moment has come: you can now start your Electrum server:
215 You should see this on the screen:
217 starting Electrum server
220 If you want to stop Electrum server, open another shell and run:
222 $ electrum-server stop
224 You should also take a look at the 'start' and 'stop' scripts in
225 `~/src/electrum/server`. You can use them as a starting point to create a
226 init script for your system.
228 ### Step 11. Test the Electrum server
230 We will assume you have a working Electrum client, a wallet and some
231 transactions history. You should start the client and click on the green
232 checkmark (last button on the right of the status bar) to open the Server
233 selection window. If your server is public, you should see it in the list
234 and you can select it. If you server is private, you need to enter its IP
235 or hostname and the port. Press Ok, the client will disconnect from the
236 current server and connect to your new Electrum server. You should see your
237 addresses and transactions history. You can see the number of blocks and
238 response time in the Server selection window. You should send/receive some
239 bitcoins to confirm that everything is working properly.
241 ### Step 12. Join us on IRC, subscribe to the server thread
243 Say hi to the dev crew, other server operators and fans on
244 irc.freenode.net #electrum and we'll try to congratulate you
245 on supporting the community by running an Electrum node
247 If you're operating a public Electrum server please subscribe
248 to or regulary check the following thread:
249 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85475.0
250 It'll contain announcements about important updates to Electrum
251 server required for a smooth user experience.