Start by reading an overview of requirements and other concerns when running a Bitcoin full node. Bitcoin.org's developer examples provide more context to the steps here.
These instructions walk through the steps for installing Bitcoin Core for your OS. For example, OSX instructions
The bitcoin.conf file determines how your bitcoin node will run, and which chain it uses.
Locate the bitcoin.conf file for your environment. Then edit or create a new file named bitcoin.conf (first save the old one with a different name), with the following entries for the chain you want to use
rpcuser=<your-user>
rpcpassword=<your-password>
regtest=1
relaypriority=0
rpcallowip=127.0.0.1
rpcport = 8332
rpcconnect = 127.0.0.1
rpcuser=<your-user>
rpcpassword=<your-password>
testnet=1
server=1
rpctimeout=30
rpcport=8332
rpcuser=<your-user>
rpcpassword=<your-password>
testnet=0
server=1
rpctimeout=30
rpcport=8332
Start the bitcoind daemon with the bitcoin.conf file:
bitcoind -daemon -conf=your-bitcoin.conf
If you're running a bitcoin node locally, you can use the CLI to generate addresses, transfer funds, and (in regtest mode) generate funds
You can create the issuer address by command line and dump the private key
issuer=`bitcoin-cli getnewaddress`
bitcoin-cli dumpprivkey $issuer > <PATH_TO_USB>/<ISSUER_FILE_NAME>.txt
Then add the issuer address to the cert-issuer conf.ini
issuing_address=$issuer
(insert $issuer value from above)
Important note on denominations: the standard cli denomination is bitcoins not satoshis! In the cert-issuer app, the standard unit is Satoshis (this is common in other apis), and the values are converted to bitcoin first._
bitcoin-cli sendtoaddress $issuer <amount>
bitcoin-cli generate 101