Lightning Charge

A drop-in solution for calling the suredbits api, built on top of c-lightning.

⚡ radically low fees ⚡ nano payments ⚡ instant confirmations ⚡

Getting dependencies

You need to install Node.js (v7.6 or newer) and npm.

Ubuntu 18.04

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install nodejs npm

Ubuntu 16.04

$ curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_8.x -o - | sudo bash
$ sudo apt install nodejs

macOS

This guide assumes you have Xcode and Homebrew installed.

$ brew install node # installs npm as well

---

bitcoind installation and setup instructions

We need bitcoind, for downloading and interacting with the Bitcoin blockchain.

As of the time of this writing, the bitcoin testnet will take ~25GB of space on your computer's hard drive.

Ubuntu

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bitcoin/bitcoin
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install bitcoind

macOS

$ brew install bitcoin

Downloading and verifying the Bitcoin blockchain is going to take a while, so you should start that right away.

First, edit your bitcoind configuration file called bitcoin.conf. Here is a table to show you where this file should be located based on your OS. If there isn't a file that exists there already, create one.

Operating System 	Default bitcoin datadir 	                 Typical path to configuration file

Windows 	        %APPDATA%\Bitcoin\ 	                         C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin\bitcoin.conf

Linux 	                $HOME/.bitcoin/ 	                         /home/username/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf

Mac OSX 	        $HOME/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/ 	 /Users/username/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/bitcoin.conf

You need to create a rpc username and password inside of your bitcoin.conf file

daemon=1
testnet=1
txindex=1
rpcuser=REPLACEME
rpcpassword=REPLACEME

For more information on configuring bitcoind please see this page

Start bitcoind:

$ bitcoind 

bitcoind will now sync the blockhain. This will take a while, typically several hours. You can inspect the log to ensure that progress is made. Depending on where your bitcoin.conf file is, you can watch your node sync by using tail. For example, on macOS you can do:

$ tail -f $HOME/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/testnet3/debug.log

---

c-lightning installation instructions

lightningd is the piece of software you use to interact with the Lightning Network. It is installed by downloading and compiling the c-lightning software project. Note that we currently need c-lightning version 0.6. First, get dependencies:

Ubuntu

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install -y autoconf automake build-essential git libtool libgmp-dev libsqlite3-dev python python3 net-tools zlib1g-dev

macOS

$ brew install autoconf automake libtool python3 gmp gnu-sed

Then, download the source code and compile:

$ cd
$ git clone https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning.git
$ cd lightning
$ git fetch && git checkout v0.6
$ ./configure
$ make
# Optionally, if you want to have c-lightning in your path
$ sudo make install

Running sb-api

Assuming bitcoind has finished syncing the blockchain, we can now start lightningd. To check the status of bitcoind:

$ bitcoin-cli -testnet getblockchaininfo
{
  ...
  "blocks": [block height]
  ...
  "verificationprogress": [percentage of sync complete]
  ...
}

Starting lightningd:

$ ./lightingd/lightningd --daemon
$ ./cli/lightning-cli getinfo # if this succeeds, lightningd is working

lightningd also needs some time to sync the blockchain, although this is going to be faster than bitcoind. To check the progress of lightningd:

$ ./cli/lightning-cli getinfo
{
  ...
  "blockheight": [block height]
  ...
}

Funds sent to your Lightning node will not show up until lightningd has finished syncing.

To get some free testnet coins, generate a new address and paste it in at the TestNet Bitcoin Sandbox:

$ ./cli/lightning-cli newaddr p2sh-segwit
{
  "address": "[should be a Bitcoin address here]"
}

You will need to wait 3 confirmations for your transaction to confirm. You can monitor your transaction on this block explorer.

#connect to suredbits testnet lightning network node
$ ./cli/lightning-cli connect 0338f57e4e20abf4d5c86b71b59e995ce4378e373b021a7b6f41dabb42d3aad069@ln.test.suredbits.com

#open a channel with suredbits and fund that channel with 100,000 satoshis, note you need 1 confirmation on your testnet tx
$ ./cli/lightning-cli fundchannel 0338f57e4e20abf4d5c86b71b59e995ce4378e373b021a7b6f41dabb42d3aad069 100000

You will need to wait 3 confirmations for your transaction to confirm. You can monitor channel funding transaction on this block explorer.

Starting the API

Note, that the channel needs to be in the state CHANNELD_NORMAL before you can start the client, you can check this with the following command

$ ./cli/lightning-cli listpeers
{
  "peers": [
    {
      "id": "0338f57e4e20abf4d5c86b71b59e995ce4378e373b021a7b6f41dabb42d3aad069",
      "connected": true,
      "netaddr": [
        "54.218.43.96:9735"
      ],
      "alias": "eclair",
      "color": "49daaa",
      "channels": [
        {
          "state": "CHANNELD_NORMAL",
	  ...
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Asuming that the channel is in state CHANNELD_NORMAL, we should be able to start your webserver and query our API!

First let's clone the suredbits/lightning-charge project

$ cd
$ git clone https://github.com/SuredBits/lightning-charge.git
$ cd lightning-charge
$ git fetch && git checkout sb_api

Now that you have cloned and moved into the lightning-charge directory, we can install dependencies and start the API!

$ npm install
$ npm start

You should expect output that looks something like this after 5 seconds:

> lightning-charge@0.4.1 start /home/chris/dev/lightning-charge
> bin/start.sh

API Request:  {"uuid":"3daa1d60-9430-11e8-a087-d736f35db536","channel":"info"}

LN Invoice : {"uuid":"3daa1d60-9430-11e8-a087-d736f35db536","invoice":"lntb10n1pd476tzpp5ejk020ds9cs7ulu80ecahnzwl6ngkym8kyl7a7n8h9ycguk8rzxsdqqxqrrssg09q7ya3vnec33z8rreynjkuse5frzws7rh505f2ucktv89tj0fykjvwpd68nczyejysrmtv7m5tv6d65has8we3tmyfjly0p2m02hsq4ygsxe"}


API response: {"version":"8","lastRosterDownload":"20180730T185645.071Z","seasonType":"Regular","seasonYear":2017,"week":"NflWeek17"}

LN Invoice Payment: {"id":161,"payment_hash":"ccacf53db02e21ee7f877e71dbcc4efea68b1367b13feefa67b9498472c7188d","destination":"0338f57e4e20abf4d5c86b71b59e995ce4378e373b021a7b6f41dabb42d3aad069","msatoshi":1000,"msatoshi_sent":1002,"timestamp":1532979555,"created_at":1532979555,"status":"complete","payment_preimage":"cd5b2a1fcab30e5f267b99e76bff5392217bf4dbcfa148c80bf77c5cd43ea331","getroute_tries":1,"sendpay_tries":1,"route":[{"id":"0338f57e4e20abf4d5c86b71b59e995ce4378e373b021a7b6f41dabb42d3aad069","channel":"1356054:2387:0","msatoshi":1002,"delay":9}],"failures":[]}

You can see more API calls you can make in our suredbits module here or by looking at our API docs on suredbits.com

License

MIT