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 64-bit 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-server
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
106 $ make USE_UPNP= -f makefile.unix
107 $ ln -s ~/src/bitcoin-0.8.1-linux/src/src/bitcoind ~/bin/bitcoind
109 ### Step 4. Configure and start bitcoind
111 In order to allow Electrum to "talk" to `bitcoind`, we need to set up a RPC
112 username and password for `bitcoind`. We will then start `bitcoind` and
113 wait for it to complete downloading the blockchain.
116 $ $EDITOR ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf
118 Write this in `bitcoin.conf`:
120 rpcuser=<rpc-username>
121 rpcpassword=<rpc-password>
128 Allow some time to pass, so `bitcoind` connects to the network and starts
129 downloading blocks. You can check its progress by running:
133 You should also set up your system to automatically start bitcoind at boot
134 time, running as the 'bitcoin' user. Check your system documentation to
135 find out the best way to do this.
137 ### Step 5. Install Electrum dependencies
139 Electrum server depends on various standard Python libraries. These will be
140 already installed on your distribution, or can be installed with your
141 package manager. Electrum also depends on two Python libraries which we will
142 need to install "by hand": `JSONRPClib`.
144 $ sudo easy_install jsonrpclib
145 $ sudo apt-get install python-openssl
147 ### Step 6. Install leveldb
149 $ sudo apt-get install python-leveldb
151 See the steps in README.leveldb for further details, especially if your system
152 doesn't have the python-leveldb package.
154 ### Step 7. Select your limit
156 Electrum server uses leveldb to store transactions. You can choose
157 how many spent transactions per address you want to store on the server.
158 The default is 100, but there are also servers with 1000 or even 10000.
159 Very few addresses have more than 10000 transactions. A limit this high
160 can be considered to be equivalent to a "full" server. Full servers previously
161 used abe to store the blockchain. The use of abe for electrum servers is now
164 The pruning server uses leveldb and keeps a smaller and
165 faster database by pruning spent transactions. It's a lot quicker to get up
166 and running and requires less maintenance and diskspace than abe.
168 The section in the configuration file looks like this:
171 path = /path/to/your/database
172 # for each address, history will be pruned if it is longer than this limit
175 ### Step 8. Import blockchain into the database or download it
177 As of April 2013 it takes between 6-24 hours to import 230k of blocks, depending
178 on CPU speed, I/O speed and selected pruning limit.
180 It's considerably faster to index in memory. You can use /dev/shm or indexing in RAM
181 or create a tmpfs which will also use swap if you run out of memory:
183 $ sudo mount -t tmpfs -o rw,nodev,nosuid,noatime,size=6000M,mode=0777 none /tmpfs
185 At limit 100 the database comes to 2,6 GB with 230k blocks and takes roughly 6h to import in /dev/shm.
186 At limit 1000 the database comes to 3,0 GB with 230k blocks and takes roughly 10h to import in /dev/shm.
187 At limit 10000 the database comes to 3,5 GB with 230k blocks and takes roughly 24h to import in /dev/shm.
189 Alternatively you can fetch a pre-processed leveldb from the net
191 You can fetch recent copies of electrum leveldb databases and further instructions
192 from the Electrum full archival server foundry at:
193 http://electrum-foundry.no-ip.org/
195 ### Step 9. Configure Electrum server
197 Electrum reads a config file (/etc/electrum.conf) when starting up. This
198 file includes the database setup, bitcoind RPC setup, and a few other
201 $ sudo cp ~/src/electrum/server/electrum.conf.sample /etc/electrum.conf
202 $ sudo $EDITOR /etc/electrum.conf
204 Go through the sample config options and set them to your liking.
205 If you intend to run the server publicly have a look at README-IRC.md
207 If you're looking to run SSL / HTTPS you need to generate a self-signed certificate
208 using openssl. Otherwise you can just comment out the SSL / HTTPS ports and run
211 ### Step 10. (Finally!) Run Electrum server
213 The magic moment has come: you can now start your Electrum server:
217 You should see this on the screen:
219 starting Electrum server
222 If you want to stop Electrum server, open another shell and run:
224 $ electrum-server stop
226 You should also take a look at the 'start' and 'stop' scripts in
227 `~/src/electrum/server`. You can use them as a starting point to create a
228 init script for your system.
230 ### Step 11. Test the Electrum server
232 We will assume you have a working Electrum client, a wallet and some
233 transactions history. You should start the client and click on the green
234 checkmark (last button on the right of the status bar) to open the Server
235 selection window. If your server is public, you should see it in the list
236 and you can select it. If you server is private, you need to enter its IP
237 or hostname and the port. Press Ok, the client will disconnect from the
238 current server and connect to your new Electrum server. You should see your
239 addresses and transactions history. You can see the number of blocks and
240 response time in the Server selection window. You should send/receive some
241 bitcoins to confirm that everything is working properly.
243 ### Step 12. Join us on IRC, subscribe to the server thread
245 Say hi to the dev crew, other server operators and fans on
246 irc.freenode.net #electrum and we'll try to congratulate you
247 on supporting the community by running an Electrum node
249 If you're operating a public Electrum server please subscribe
250 to or regulary check the following thread:
251 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85475.0
252 It'll contain announcements about important updates to Electrum
253 server required for a smooth user experience.