nix-bitcoin/examples/README.md

Examples

The easiest way to try out nix-bitcoin is to use one of the provided examples.

git clone https://github.com/fort-nix/nix-bitcoin
cd nix-bitcoin/examples/
nix-shell

The following example scripts set up a nix-bitcoin node according to configuration.nix and then shut down immediately. They leave no traces (outside of /nix/store) on the host system.
By default, configuration.nix enables bitcoind and clightning.

• ./deploy-container.sh creates a NixOS container.
  This is the fastest way to set up a node.
  Requires: Nix, a systemd-based Linux distro and root privileges

• ./deploy-qemu-vm.sh creates a QEMU VM.
  Requires: Nix

• ./deploy-nixops.sh creates a VirtualBox VM via NixOps.
  NixOps can be used to deploy to various other backends like cloud providers.
  Requires: Nix, VirtualBox

• ./deploy-container-minimal.sh creates a container defined by minimal-configuration.nix that doesn't use the secure-node.nix preset. Also shows how to use nix-bitcoin in an existing NixOS config.
  Requires: Nix, a systemd-based Linux distro and root privileges

Run the examples with option --interactive or -i to start a shell for interacting with the node:

./deploy-qemu-vm.sh -i

Tests

The internal test suite is also useful for exploring features.
The following run-tests.sh commands leave no traces (outside of /nix/store) on the host system.

git clone https://github.com/fort-nix/nix-bitcoin
cd nix-bitcoin/test

# Run a Python test shell inside a VM node
./run-tests.sh debug
print(succeed("systemctl status bitcoind"))

# Run a node in a container. Requires systemd and root privileges.
./run-tests.sh container
c systemctl status bitcoind

# Explore a single feature
./run-tests.sh --scenario electrs container

See run-tests.sh for a complete documentation.