9d029fd1afff4fe79bf8ea7d89bda64bd4c68dc5 Remove lnd explicit tor onion service config (Ștefan D. Mihăilă) 1f407ef22c88518995e6c90facbea43e618952ad Remove lnd user from onion-chef (Ștefan D. Mihăilă) 588002315882d2e94490efe33f49a209bc10f68d Increase xxd column size (Ștefan D. Mihăilă) 101ae3c37075bb4893652d7c04743fcc18d4ba36 Instruct user to backup channel.backup (Ștefan D. Mihăilă) fccd91972aa935e9452cf63d75c40764aa1cdfaf Fix "value is a list [...]" error when lnd is not enabled (Ștefan D. Mihăilă) 700fdf6febdc6e4fff3d00482a28f3d0bebb1094 Add logdir and tor.privatekeypath to lnd.conf (Ștefan D. Mihăilă) 5a2517b926516b511bb7879d2c8f1ac5d5e8d8e8 Check for existing secrets and create them more granularly (Ștefan D. Mihăilă) d6f961db89ab0fdc03658a643fb6b0a6969cb9d1 Reuse lnd seed (Ștefan D. Mihăilă) 9b0753135cfb0ca16df61a48fd157d84b5543a1f Add LND support (Ștefan D. Mihăilă) 4acf5cd32c3ef899fa7900c22e491b7b148b119a Remove unused nginx.csr file (Ștefan D. Mihăilă) 19b971f21f62e5f173488204110bd787c1264263 Rename nginx certificate files (Ștefan D. Mihăilă) Pull request description: ACKs for top commit: jonasnick: ACK 9d029fd1afff4fe79bf8ea7d89bda64bd4c68dc5 Tree-SHA512: 58ee80bcab6c3a1c4642a5d40b94e10d28311557ae7c69539fee90d6f252a6afc70b8066cc7d7ddc0a45e2675978718a369b0341c518f8ce7590cbde1403eaeb
nix-bitcoin
Nix packages and nixos modules for easily installing Bitcoin nodes and higher layer protocols with an emphasis on security. This is a work in progress - don't expect it to be bug free or secure.
The default configuration sets up a Bitcoin Core node and c-lightning. The user can enable spark-wallet in configuration.nix
to make c-lightning accessible with a smartphone using spark-wallet.
A simple webpage shows the lightning nodeid and links to nanopos letting the user receive donations.
It also includes elements-daemon.
Outbound peer-to-peer traffic is forced through Tor, and listening services are bound to onion addresses.
A demo installation is running at http://6tr4dg3f2oa7slotdjp4syvnzzcry2lqqlcvqkfxdavxo6jsuxwqpxad.onion. The following screen cast shows a fresh deployment of a nix-bitcoin node.
The goal is to make it easy to deploy a reasonably secure Bitcoin node with a usable wallet. It should allow managing bitcoin (the currency) effectively and providing public infrastructure. It should be a reproducible and extensible platform for applications building on Bitcoin.
Available modules
By default the configuration.nix
provides:
- bitcoind with outbound connections through Tor and inbound connections through a hidden service. By default loaded with banlist of spy nodes.
- clightning with outbound connections through Tor, not listening
- includes "nodeinfo" script which prints basic info about the node
- adds non-root user "operator" which has access to bitcoin-cli and lightning-cli
In configuration.nix
the user can enable:
- a clightning hidden service
- liquid
- lightning charge
- nanopos
- an index page using nginx to display node information and link to nanopos
- spark-wallet
- electrs
- recurring-donations, a module to repeatedly send lightning payments to recipients specified in the configuration.
- bitcoin-core-hwi.
- You no longer need extra software to connect your hardware wallet to Bitcoin Core. Use Bitcoin Core's own Hardware Wallet Interface with one
configuration.nix
setting.
- You no longer need extra software to connect your hardware wallet to Bitcoin Core. Use Bitcoin Core's own Hardware Wallet Interface with one
The data directories of the services can be found in /var/lib
on the deployed machines.
Installation
The easiest way is to run nix-shell
(on a Linux machine) in the nix-bitcoin directory and then create a NixOps deployment with the provided network.nix
in the network
directory.
Fix the FIXMEs in configuration.nix and deploy with nixops in nix-shell.
See install.md for a detailed tutorial.
Security
- Simplicity: Only services you select in
configuration.nix
and their dependencies are installed, packages and dependencies are pinned, most packages are built from the nixos stable channel, with a few exceptions that are built from the nixpkgs unstable channel, builds happen in a sandboxed environment, code is continiously reviewed and refined. - Integrity: Nix package manager, NixOS and packages can be built from source to reduce reliance on binary caches, nix-bitcoin merge commits are signed, all commits are approved by multiple nix-bitcoin developers, upstream packages are cryptographically verified where possible, we use this software ourselves.
- Principle of Least Privilege: Services operate with least privileges; they each have their own user and are restricted further with systemd options, there's a non-root user operator to interact with the various services.
- Defense-in-depth: nix-bitcoin is built with a hardened kernel by default, services are confined through discretionary access control, Linux namespaces, and seccomp-bpf with continuous improvements.
Note that nix-bitcoin is still experimental. Also, by design if the machine you're deploying from is insecure, there is nothing nix-bitcoin can do to protect itself.
Hardware requirements
- Disk space: 300 GB (235GB for Bitcoin blockchain + some room)
- Bitcoin Core pruning is not supported at the moment because it's not supported by c-lightning. It's possible to use pruning but you need to know what you're doing.
- RAM: 2GB of memory. ECC memory is better. Additionally, it's recommended to use DDR4 memory with targeted row refresh (TRR) enabled (https://rambleed.com/).
Tested hardware includes pcengine's apu2c4, GB-BACE-3150, GB-BACE-3160. Some hardware (including Intel NUCs) may not be compatible with the hardened kernel turned on by default (see https://github.com/fort-nix/nix-bitcoin/issues/39#issuecomment-517366093 for a workaround).
Usage
For usage instructions, such as how to connect to spark-wallet, electrs and the ssh Tor Hidden Service, see usage.md.
Troubleshooting
If you are having problems with nix-bitcoin check the FAQ or submit an issue.
There's also a #nix-bitcoin
IRC channel on freenode.
We are always happy to help.