The most up-to date version of this document is available at:
- https://gitorious.org/electrum/server/blobs/master/HOWTO
+ https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-server/blob/master/HOWTO.md
Conventions
-----------
Lines that lack hash or dollar signs are pastes from config files. They
should be copied verbatim or adapted, without the indentation tab.
+apt-get install commands are suggestions for required dependencies.
+They conform to an Ubuntu 13.10 system but may well work with Debian
+or earlier and later versions of Ubuntu.
+
Prerequisites
-------------
perform the operation described here, you are expected to fix the
issue so you can continue following this howto.
-**Software.** A recent Linux distribution with the following software
-installed: `python`, `easy_install`, `git`, a SQL server, standard C/C++
+**Software.** A recent Linux 64-bit distribution with the following software
+installed: `python`, `easy_install`, `git`, standard C/C++
build chain. You will need root access in order to install other software or
-Python libraries. You will need access to the SQL server to create users and
-databases.
-
-**Hardware.** Running a Bitcoin node and Electrum server is
-resource-intensive. At the time of this writing, the Bitcoin blockchain is
-3.5 GB large. The corresponding SQL database is about 4 time larger, so you
-should have a minimum of 14 GB free space. You should expect the total size
-to grow with time. CPU speed is also important, mostly for the initial block
-chain import, but also if you plan to run a public Electrum server, which
-could serve tens of concurrent requests. See step 6 below for some initial
-import benchmarks.
+Python libraries.
+
+**Hardware.** The lightest setup is a pruning server with diskspace
+requirements of about 10 GB for the electrum database. However note that
+you also need to run bitcoind and keep a copy of the full blockchain,
+which is roughly 20 GB in April 2014. If you have less than 2 GB of RAM
+make sure you limit bitcoind to 8 concurrent connections. If you have more
+ressources to spare you can run the server with a higher limit of historic
+transactions per address. CPU speed is important, mostly for the initial block
+chain import, but also if you plan to run a public Electrum server, which
+could serve tens of concurrent requests. Any multi-core x86 CPU ~2009 or
+newer other than Atom should do for good performance. An ideal setup
+has enough RAM to hold and procss the leveldb database in tmpfs (e.g. /dev/shm).
Instructions
------------
-### Step 0. Create a user for running bitcoind and Electrum server
+### Step 1. Create a user for running bitcoind and Electrum server
This step is optional, but for better security and resource separation I
suggest you create a separate user just for running `bitcoind` and Electrum.
(others might want to use `/usr/local/bin` instead). We will download source
code files to the `~/src` directory.
- # sudo adduser bitcoin
+ $ sudo adduser bitcoin --disabled-password
+ $ sudo apt-get install git
# su - bitcoin
$ mkdir ~/bin ~/src
$ echo $PATH
PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
-### Step 1. Download and install Electrum
+### Step 2. Download and install Electrum
We will download the latest git snapshot for Electrum and 'install' it in
our ~/bin directory:
- $ mkdir -p ~/src/electrum
- $ cd ~/src/electrum
- $ git://gitorious.org/electrum/server.git
- $ chmod +x ~/src/electrum/server/server.py
- $ ln -s ~/src/electrum/server/server.py ~/bin/electrum
+ $ mkdir -p ~/electrum-server
+ $ git clone https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-server.git
+
+### Step 3. Download bitcoind
+
+Older versions of Electrum used to require a patched version of bitcoind.
+This is not the case anymore since bitcoind supports the 'txindex' option.
+We currently recommend bitcoind 0.9.1 stable.
-### Step 2. Configure and start bitcoind
+If your package manager does not supply a recent bitcoind and prefer to compile
+here are some pointers for Ubuntu:
+
+ # apt-get install make g++ python-leveldb libboost-all-dev libssl-dev libdb++-dev pkg-config
+ # su - bitcoin
+ $ cd ~/src && wget https://bitcoin.org/bin/0.9.1/bitcoin-0.9.1-linux.tar.gz
+ $ sha256sum bitcoin-0.9.1-linux.tar.gz | grep 3fabc1c629007b465a278525883663d41a2ba62699f2773536a8bf59ca210425
+ $ tar xfz bitcoin-0.9.1-linux.tar.gz
+ $ cd bitcoin-0.9.1-linux/src
+ $ tar xfz bitcoin-0.9.1.tar.gz
+ $ cd bitcoin-0.9.1
+ $ ./configure --disable-wallet --without-miniupnpc
+ $ make
+ $ strip ~/src/bitcoin-0.9.1-linux/src/bitcoin-0.9.1/src/bitcoind
+ $ cp -a ~/src/bitcoin-0.9.1-linux/src/bitcoin-0.9.1/src/bitcoind ~/bin/bitcoind
+
+### Step 4. Configure and start bitcoind
In order to allow Electrum to "talk" to `bitcoind`, we need to set up a RPC
username and password for `bitcoind`. We will then start `bitcoind` and
rpcuser=<rpc-username>
rpcpassword=<rpc-password>
daemon=1
+ txindex=1
+
-Restart `bitcoind`:
+If you have an existing installation of bitcoind and have not previously
+set txindex=1 you need to reindex the blockchain by running
+
+ $ bitcoind -reindex
+
+If you have a fresh copy of bitcoind start `bitcoind`:
$ bitcoind
$ bitcoind getinfo
+Before starting electrum server your bitcoind should have processed all
+blockes and caught up to the current height of the network.
You should also set up your system to automatically start bitcoind at boot
time, running as the 'bitcoin' user. Check your system documentation to
find out the best way to do this.
-### Step 3. Install Electrum dependencies
+### Step 5. Install Electrum dependencies
Electrum server depends on various standard Python libraries. These will be
already installed on your distribution, or can be installed with your
-package manager. Electrum also depends on two Python libraries which we wil
-l need to install "by hand": `Abe` and `JSONRPClib`.
+package manager. Electrum also depends on two Python libraries which we will
+need to install "by hand": `JSONRPClib`.
+ $ sudo apt-get install python-setuptools python-openssl
$ sudo easy_install jsonrpclib
- $ cd ~/src
- $ git clone git://github.com/jtobey/bitcoin-abe.git
- $ cd bitcoin-abe
- $ sudo python setup.py install
-Please note that the path below might be slightly different on your system,
-for example python2.6 or 2.8.
+### Step 6. Install leveldb and plyvel
+
+ $ sudo apt-get install python-leveldb libleveldb-dev
+ $ sudo easy_install plyvel
+
+See the steps in README.leveldb for further details, especially if your system
+doesn't have the python-leveldb package or if plyvel installation fails.
- $ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/Abe/abe.py
- $ ln -s /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/Abe/abe.py ~/bin/abe
+leveldb should be at least version 1.1.9. Earlier version are believed to be buggy.
-### Step 4. Configure the database
+### Step 7. Select your limit
-Electrum server uses a SQL database to store the blockchain data. In theory,
-it supports all databases supported by Abe. At the time of this writing,
-MySQL and PostgreSQL are tested and work ok, SQLite was tested and *does not
-work* with Electrum server.
+Electrum server uses leveldb to store transactions. You can choose
+how many spent transactions per address you want to store on the server.
+The default is 100, but there are also servers with 1000 or even 10000.
+Few addresses have more than 10000 transactions. A limit this high
+can be considered to be equivalent to a "full" server. Full servers previously
+used abe to store the blockchain. The use of abe for electrum servers is now
+deprecated.
-For MySQL:
+The pruning server uses leveldb and keeps a smaller and
+faster database by pruning spent transactions. It's a lot quicker to get up
+and running and requires less maintenance and diskspace than abe.
- $ mysql -u root -p
- mysql> create user 'electrum'@'localhost' identified by '<db-password>';
- mysql> create database electrum;
- mysql> grant all on electrum.* to 'electrum'@'localhost';
- mysql> exit
+The section in the electrum server configuration file (see step 10) looks like this:
-For PostgreSQL:
+ [leveldb]
+ path_fulltree = /path/to/your/database
+ # for each address, history will be pruned if it is longer than this limit
+ pruning_limit = 100
- TBW!
+### Step 8. Import blockchain into the database or download it
-### Step 5. Configure Abe and import blockchain into the database
+It's recommended to fetch a pre-processed leveldb from the net
-When you run Electrum server for the first time, it will automatically
-import the blockchain into the database, so it is safe to skip this step.
-However, our tests showed that, at the time of this writing, importing the
-blockchain via Abe is much faster (about 20-30 times faster) than
-allowing Electrum to do it.
+You can fetch recent copies of electrum leveldb databases and further instructions
+from the Electrum full archival server foundry at:
+http://foundry.electrum.org/
- $ cp ~/src/bitcoin-abe/abe.conf ~/abe.conf
- $ $EDITOR ~/abe.conf
+Alternatively if you have the time and nerve you can import the blockchain yourself.
-For MySQL, you need these lines:
+As of April 2014 it takes between two days and over a week to import 300k of blocks, depending
+on CPU speed, I/O speed and selected pruning limit.
- dbtype MySQLdb
- connect-args = { "db" : "electrum", "user" : "electrum" , "passwd" : "<database-password>" }
+It's considerably faster and strongly recommended to index in memory. You can use /dev/shm or
+or create a tmpfs which will also use swap if you run out of memory:
-For PostgreSQL, you need these lines:
+ $ sudo mount -t tmpfs -o rw,nodev,nosuid,noatime,size=15000M,mode=0777 none /tmpfs
- TBD!
+If you use tmpfs make sure you have enough RAM and swap to cover the size. If you only have 4 gigs of
+RAM but add 15 gigs of swap from a file that's fine too. tmpfs is rather smart to swap out the least
+used parts. It's fine to use a file on a SSD for swap in thise case.
-Start Abe:
+It's not recommended to do initial indexing of the database on a SSD because the indexing process
+does at least 20 TB (!) of disk writes and puts considerable wear-and-tear on a SSD. It's a lot better
+to use tmpfs and just swap out to disk when necessary.
- $ abe --config ~/abe.conf
+Databases have grown to roughly 8 GB in April 2014, give or take a gigabyte between pruning limits
+100 and 10000. Leveldb prunes the database from time to time, so it's not uncommon to see databases
+~50% larger at times when it's writing a lot especially when indexing from the beginning.
-Abe will now start to import blocks. You will see a lot of lines like this:
- 'block_tx <block-number> <tx-number>'
+### Step 9. Create a self-signed SSL cert
-You should wait until you see this message on the screen:
+To run SSL / HTTPS you need to generate a self-signed certificate
+using openssl. You could just comment out the SSL / HTTPS ports in the config and run
+without, but this is not recommended.
- Listening on http://localhost:2750
+Use the sample code below to create a self-signed cert with a recommended validity
+of 5 years. You may supply any information for your sign request to identify your server.
+They are not currently checked by the client except for the validity date.
+When asked for a challenge password just leave it empty and press enter.
-It means the blockchain is imported and you can exit Abe by pressing CTRL-C.
-You will not need to run Abe again after this step, Electrum server will
-update the blockchain by itself. We only used Abe because it is much faster
-for the initial import.
+ $ openssl genrsa -des3 -passout pass:x -out server.pass.key 2048
+ $ openssl rsa -passin pass:x -in server.pass.key -out server.key
+ writing RSA key
+ $ rm server.pass.key
+ $ openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
+ ...
+ Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US
+ State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:California
+ Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []: electrum-server.tld
+ ...
+ A challenge password []:
+ ...
-Important notice: This is a *very* long process. Even on fast machines,
-expect it to take hours. Here are some benchmarks for importing
-~196K blocks (size of the Bitcoin blockchain at the time of this writing):
+ $ openssl x509 -req -days 730 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt
- * System 1: ~9 hours.
- * CPU: Intel Core i7 Q740 @ 1.73GHz
- * HDD: very fast SSD
- * System 2: ~55 hours.
- * CPU: Intel Xeon X3430 @ 2.40GHz
- * HDD: 2 x SATA in a RAID1.
+The server.crt file is your certificate suitable for the ssl_certfile= parameter and
+server.key corresponds to ssl_keyfile= in your electrum server config
-### Step 6. Configure Electrum server
+Starting with Electrum 1.9 the client will learn and locally cache the SSL certificate
+for your server upon the first request to prevent man-in-the middle attacks for all
+further connections.
+
+If your certificate is lost or expires on the server side you currently need to run
+your server with a different server name along with a new certificate for this server.
+Therefore it's a good idea to make an offline backup copy of your certificate and key
+in case you need to restore it.
+
+### Step 10. Configure Electrum server
Electrum reads a config file (/etc/electrum.conf) when starting up. This
file includes the database setup, bitcoind RPC setup, and a few other
$ sudo cp ~/src/electrum/server/electrum.conf.sample /etc/electrum.conf
$ sudo $EDITOR /etc/electrum.conf
-Write this in `electrum.conf`:
-
- # sample config for a public Electrum server
- [server]
- host = host-fqdn
- native_port = 50000
- stratum_tcp_port:50001
- stratum_http_port:8081
- password = <electrum-server-password>
- banner = Welcome to Electrum server!
- irc = yes
- cache = yes
-
- # sample config for a private server (does not advertise on IRC)
- [server]
- host = localhost
- native_port = 50000
- stratum_tcp_port:50001
- stratum_http_port:8081
- password = <electrum-server-password>
- banner = Welcome to my private Electrum server!
- irc = no
- cache = yes
-
- # database setup - MySQL
- [database]
- type = MySQLdb
- database = electrum
- username = electrum
- password = <database-password>
-
- # database setup - PostgreSQL
- TBD!
-
- # bitcoind RPC setup
- [bitcoind]
- host = localhost
- port = 8332
- user = <rpc-username>
- password = <rpc-password>
-
-### Step 7. (Finally!) Run Electrum server
+Go through the sample config options and set them to your liking.
+If you intend to run the server publicly have a look at README-IRC.md
+
+### Step 11. Tweak your system for running electrum
+
+Electrum server currently needs quite a few file handles to use leveldb. It also requires
+file handles for each connection made to the server. It's good practice to increase the
+open files limit to 16k. This is most easily achived by sticking the value in .bashrc of the
+root user who usually passes this value to all unprivileged user sessions too.
+
+ $ sudo sed -i '$a ulimit -n 16384' /root/.bashrc
+
+Also make sure the bitcoin user can actually increase the ulimit by allowing it accordingly in
+/etc/security/limits.conf
+
+While most bugs are fixed in this regard electrum server may leak some memory and it's good practice to
+to restart the server once in a while from cron (preferred) or to at least monitor
+it for crashes and then restart the server. Monthly restarts should be fine for most setups.
+
+Two more things for you to consider:
+
+1. To increase security you may want to close bitcoind for incoming connections and connect outbound only
+
+2. Consider restarting bitcoind (together with electrum-server) on a weekly basis to clear out unconfirmed
+ transactions from the local the memory pool which did not propagate over the network
+
+### Step 12. (Finally!) Run Electrum server
The magic moment has come: you can now start your Electrum server:
- $ server
+ $ cd ~/electrum-server
+ $ ./start
-You should see this on the screen:
+You should see this in the log file:
starting Electrum server
- cache: yes
-If you want to stop Electrum server, open another shell and run:
+If you want to stop Electrum server, use the 'stop' script:
- $ electrum-server stop
+ $ cd ~/electrum-server
+ $ ./stop
-You should also take a look at the 'start' and 'stop' scripts in
-`~/src/electrum/server`. You can use them as a starting point to create a
-init script for your system.
-### 8. Test the Electrum server
+### Step 13. Test the Electrum server
We will assume you have a working Electrum client, a wallet and some
transactions history. You should start the client and click on the green
addresses and transactions history. You can see the number of blocks and
response time in the Server selection window. You should send/receive some
bitcoins to confirm that everything is working properly.
+
+### Step 14. Join us on IRC, subscribe to the server thread
+
+Say hi to the dev crew, other server operators and fans on
+irc.freenode.net #electrum and we'll try to congratulate you
+on supporting the community by running an Electrum node
+
+If you're operating a public Electrum server please subscribe
+to or regulary check the following thread:
+https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85475.0
+It'll contain announcements about important updates to Electrum
+server required for a smooth user experience.
git://git.novaco.in / electrum-server.git / blobdiff