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.
34 apt-get install commands are suggestions for required dependencies.
35 They conform to an Ubuntu 13.04 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 well under 1 GB growing very moderately and less taxing
57 on I/O and CPU once it's up and running. However note that you also need
58 to run bitcoind and keep a copy of the full blockchain, which is roughly
59 9 GB in April 2013. If you have less than 2 GB of RAM make sure you limit
60 bitcoind to 8 concurrent connections. If you have more ressources to
61 spare you can run the server with a higher limit of historic transactions
62 per address. CPU speed is also important, mostly for the initial block
63 chain import, but also if you plan to run a public Electrum server, which
64 could serve tens of concurrent requests. Any multi-core x86 CPU ~2009 or
65 newer other than Atom should do for good performance.
70 ### Step 1. Create a user for running bitcoind 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 `bitcoind` 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 bitcoin --disabled-password
83 If you don't see `/home/bitcoin/bin` in the output, you should add this line
84 to your `.bashrc`, `.profile` or `.bash_profile`, then logout and relogin:
86 PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
88 ### Step 2. Download and install Electrum
90 We will download the latest git snapshot for Electrum and 'install' it in
93 $ mkdir -p ~/src/electrum
95 $ sudo apt-get install git
96 $ git clone https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-server.git server
97 $ chmod +x ~/src/electrum/server/server.py
98 $ ln -s ~/src/electrum/server/server.py ~/bin/electrum-server
100 ### Step 3. Download bitcoind
102 Older versions of Electrum used to require a patched version of bitcoind.
103 This is not the case anymore since bitcoind supports the 'txindex' option.
104 We currently recommend bitcoind 0.8.5 stable.
106 ### Step 4. Configure and start bitcoind
108 In order to allow Electrum to "talk" to `bitcoind`, we need to set up a RPC
109 username and password for `bitcoind`. We will then start `bitcoind` and
110 wait for it to complete downloading the blockchain.
113 $ $EDITOR ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf
115 Write this in `bitcoin.conf`:
117 rpcuser=<rpc-username>
118 rpcpassword=<rpc-password>
123 If you have an existing installation of bitcoind and have not previously
124 set txindex=1 you need to reindex the blockchain by running
128 If you have a fresh copy of bitcoind start `bitcoind`:
132 Allow some time to pass, so `bitcoind` connects to the network and starts
133 downloading blocks. You can check its progress by running:
137 You should also set up your system to automatically start bitcoind at boot
138 time, running as the 'bitcoin' user. Check your system documentation to
139 find out the best way to do this.
141 ### Step 5. Install Electrum dependencies
143 Electrum server depends on various standard Python libraries. These will be
144 already installed on your distribution, or can be installed with your
145 package manager. Electrum also depends on two Python libraries which we will
146 need to install "by hand": `JSONRPClib`.
148 $ sudo apt-get install python-setuptools
149 $ sudo easy_install jsonrpclib
150 $ sudo apt-get install python-openssl
152 ### Step 6. Install leveldb
154 $ sudo apt-get install python-leveldb
156 See the steps in README.leveldb for further details, especially if your system
157 doesn't have the python-leveldb package.
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 = /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 2013 it takes between 6-24 hours to import 230k of blocks, depending
191 on CPU speed, I/O speed and selected pruning limit.
193 It's considerably faster 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=6000M,mode=0777 none /tmpfs
198 Figures from April 2013:
199 At limit 100 the database comes to 2,6 GB with 230k blocks and takes roughly 6h to import in /dev/shm.
200 At limit 1000 the database comes to 3,0 GB with 230k blocks and takes roughly 10h to import in /dev/shm.
201 At limit 10000 the database comes to 3,5 GB with 230k blocks and takes roughly 24h to import in /dev/shm.
203 As of November 2013 expect at least double the time for indexing the blockchain. Databases have grown to
204 roughly 4 GB, give or take a few hundred MB between pruning limits 100 and 10000.
207 ### Step 9. Create a self-signed SSL cert
209 To run SSL / HTTPS you need to generate a self-signed certificate
210 using openssl. You could just comment out the SSL / HTTPS ports in the config and run
211 without, but this is not recommended.
213 Use the sample code below to create a self-signed cert with a recommended validity
214 of 5 years. You may supply any information for your sign request to identify your server.
215 They are not currently checked by the client except for the validity date.
216 When asked for a challenge password just leave it empty and press enter.
218 $ openssl genrsa -des3 -passout pass:x -out server.pass.key 2048
219 $ openssl rsa -passin pass:x -in server.pass.key -out server.key
222 $ openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
224 Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US
225 State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:California
226 Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []: electrum-server.tld
228 A challenge password []:
231 $ openssl x509 -req -days 730 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt
233 The server.crt file is your certificate suitable for the ssl_certfile= parameter and
234 server.key corresponds to ssl_keyfile= in your electrum server config
236 Starting with Electrum 1.9 the client will learn and locally cache the SSL certificate
237 for your server upon the first request to prevent man-in-the middle attacks for all
240 If your certificate is lost or expires on the server side you currently need to run
241 your server with a different server name along with a new certificate for this server.
242 Therefore it's a good idea to make an offline backup copy of your certificate and key
243 in case you need to restore it.
245 ### Step 10. Configure Electrum server
247 Electrum reads a config file (/etc/electrum.conf) when starting up. This
248 file includes the database setup, bitcoind RPC setup, and a few other
251 $ sudo cp ~/src/electrum/server/electrum.conf.sample /etc/electrum.conf
252 $ sudo $EDITOR /etc/electrum.conf
254 Go through the sample config options and set them to your liking.
255 If you intend to run the server publicly have a look at README-IRC.md
257 ### Step 11. Tweak your system for running electrum
259 Electrum server currently needs quite a few file handles to use leveldb. It also requires
260 file handles for each connection made to the server. It's good practice to increase the
261 open files limit to 16k. This is most easily achived by sticking the value in .bashrc of the
262 root user who usually passes this value to all unprivileged user sessions too.
264 $ sudo sed -i '$a ulimit -n 16384' /root/.bashrc
266 We're aware the leveldb part in electrum server may leak some memory and it's good practice to
267 to either restart the server once in a while from cron (preferred) or to at least monitor
268 it for crashes and then restart the server. Weekly restarts should be fine for most setups.
269 If your server gets a lot of traffic and you have a limited amount of RAM you may need to restart
272 Two more things for you to consider:
274 1. To increase security you may want to close bitcoind for incoming connections and connect outbound only
276 2. Consider restarting bitcoind (together with electrum-server) on a weekly basis to clear out unconfirmed
277 transactions from the local the memory pool which did not propagate over the network
279 ### Step 12. (Finally!) Run Electrum server
281 The magic moment has come: you can now start your Electrum server:
285 You should see this on the screen:
287 starting Electrum server
290 If you want to stop Electrum server, open another shell and run:
292 $ electrum-server stop
294 You should also take a look at the 'start' and 'stop' scripts in
295 `~/src/electrum/server`. You can use them as a starting point to create a
296 init script for your system.
298 ### Step 13. Test the Electrum server
300 We will assume you have a working Electrum client, a wallet and some
301 transactions history. You should start the client and click on the green
302 checkmark (last button on the right of the status bar) to open the Server
303 selection window. If your server is public, you should see it in the list
304 and you can select it. If you server is private, you need to enter its IP
305 or hostname and the port. Press Ok, the client will disconnect from the
306 current server and connect to your new Electrum server. You should see your
307 addresses and transactions history. You can see the number of blocks and
308 response time in the Server selection window. You should send/receive some
309 bitcoins to confirm that everything is working properly.
311 ### Step 13. Join us on IRC, subscribe to the server thread
313 Say hi to the dev crew, other server operators and fans on
314 irc.freenode.net #electrum and we'll try to congratulate you
315 on supporting the community by running an Electrum node
317 If you're operating a public Electrum server please subscribe
318 to or regulary check the following thread:
319 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85475.0
320 It'll contain announcements about important updates to Electrum
321 server required for a smooth user experience.