docker-bitcoind

A Docker configuration with sane defaults for running a fully-validating Bitcoin node. Binaries are retrieved from bitcoincore.org and verified for integrity based on the process described here.

Tags available

• 0.13.0
• 0.13.1
• 0.13.2
• 0.14.3
• 0.15.2
• 0.16.3
• 0.17.0
• 0.17.0.1
• 0.17.1
• 0.17.2
• 0.18.0
• 0.18.1
• 0.19.0
• 0.19.1
• 0.20.0
• 0.20.1 (latest)

Quick start

Requires that Docker be installed on the host machine.

# Create some directory where your bitcoin data will be stored.
$ mkdir /home/youruser/bitcoin_data

$ docker run --name bitcoind -d \
   -e 'BTC_RPCUSER=foo' \
   -e 'BTC_RPCPASSWORD=password' \
   -e 'BTC_TXINDEX=1' \
   -v /home/youruser/bitcoin_data:/bitcoin/data \
   -p 127.0.0.1:8332:8332 \
   --publish 8333:8333 \
   jamesob/bitcoind:0.20.1

$ docker logs -f bitcoind
[ ... ]

If you want to use a preexisting data directory and your own config file, run

$ docker run --name jamesob/bitcoind:0.20.1 -d \
   -v /home/youruser/bitcoin_data:/bitcoin/data \
   -v /home/youruser/bitcoin.conf:/bitcoin/bitcoin.conf \
   -p 127.0.0.1:8332:8332 \
   --publish 8333:8333 \
   jamesob/bitcoind:0.20.1

Building yourself

By default, the container runs under UID,GID=1000 to avoid executing as a privileged user. If you want to rebuild the container with different settings, you can do so:

$ git clone https://github.com/jamesob/docker-bitcoind
$ cd docker-bitcoind
$ docker build -t $YOUR_USER/bitcoind:$SOME_VERSION \
   --build-arg UID=$(id -u) \
   --build-arg GID=$(id -g) \
   --build-arg VERSION=$SOME_VERSION \
   .

Possible volume mounts

Path	Description
/bitcoin/data	Bitcoin's data directory
/bitcoin/bitcoin.conf	Bitcoin's configuration file

Configuration

A custom bitcoin.conf file can be placed at /bitcoin.conf. Otherwise, a default will be automatically generated based on environment variables passed to the container:

name	default
BTC_RPCUSER	btc
BTC_RPCPASSWORD	changemeplz
BTC_RPCPORT	8332
BTC_RPCALLOWIP	::/0
BTC_RPCCLIENTTIMEOUT	30
BTC_DISABLEWALLET	1
BTC_TXINDEX	0
BTC_TESTNET	0
BTC_DBCACHE	0
BTC_ZMQPUBHASHTX	tcp://0.0.0.0:28333
BTC_ZMQPUBHASHBLOCK	tcp://0.0.0.0:28333
BTC_ZMQPUBRAWTX	tcp://0.0.0.0:28333
BTC_ZMQPUBRAWBLOCK	tcp://0.0.0.0:28333

Daemonizing

The smart thing to do if you're daemonizing is to use Docker's builtin restart policies, but if you're insistent on using systemd, you could do something like

$ cat /etc/systemd/system/bitcoind.service

# bitcoind.service #######################################################################
[Unit]
Description=Bitcoind
After=docker.service
Requires=docker.service

[Service]
ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/docker kill bitcoind
ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/docker rm bitcoind
ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/docker pull jamesob/bitcoind
ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker run \
    --name bitcoind \
    -p 8333:8333 \
    -p 127.0.0.1:8332:8332 \
    -v /data/bitcoind:/root/.bitcoin \
    jamesob/bitcoind
ExecStop=/usr/bin/docker stop bitcoind

to ensure that bitcoind continues to run.

Alternatives

• docker-bitcoind: sort of the basis for this repo, but configuration is a bit more confusing.
• wwcr/bitcoin-core: trustworthy and simple.