btcd-node

Docker volumes

Special diskspace hint: The following examples are using a Docker managed volume. The volume is named btcd-data This will use a lot of disk space, because it contains the full Bitcoin blockchain. Please make yourself familiar with Docker volumes.

The btcd-data volume will be reused, if you upgrade your docker-compose.yml file. Keep in mind, that it is not automatically removed by Docker, if you delete the btcd container. If you don't need the volume anymore, please delete it manually with the command:

docker volume ls
docker volume rm btcd-data

For binding a local folder to your btcd container please read the Docker documentation. The preferred way is to use a Docker managed volume.

Known error messages when starting the btcd container

We pass all needed arguments to btcd as command line parameters in our docker-compose.yml file. It doesn't make sense to create a btcd.conf file. This would make things too complicated. Anyhow btcd will complain with following log messages when starting. These messages can be ignored:

Error creating a default config file: open /sample-btcd.conf: no such file or directory
...
[WRN] BTCD: open /root/.btcd/btcd.conf: no such file or directory

Username Password and SSL Cert

Copy ./rpc.cert to /root/.btcd/rpc.cert in the machine of rpc client for rpc cert. At the same time, use rpcuser=shuttleflow, and rpcpass=kyloM3zEf8 to auth your rpc request.

Examples

All following examples uses some defaults:

• container_name: btcd Name of the docker container that is be shown by e.g. docker ps -a

• hostname: btcd (very important to set a fixed name before first start) The internal hostname in the docker container. By default, docker is recreating the hostname every time you change the docker-compose.yml file. The default hostnames look like ef00548d4fa5. This is a problem when using the btcd RPC port. The RPC port is using a certificate to validate the hostname. If the hostname changes you need to recreate the certificate. To avoid this, you should set a fixed hostname before the first start. This ensures, that the docker volume is created with a certificate with this hostname.

• restart: unless-stopped Starts the btcd container when Docker starts, except that when the container is stopped (manually or otherwise), it is not restarted even after Docker restarts.

docker-compose up -d(creates and starts a new btcd container)

With the following commands you can control docker-compose:

docker-compose down (stops and delete the container. The docker volume btcd-data will not be deleted)

docker-compose restart (restarts the container)

docker-compose stop (stops the container)

docker-compose start (starts the container)

docker ps -a (list all running and stopped container)

docker volume ls (lists all docker volumes)

docker logs btcd (shows the log )

docker-compose help (brings up some helpful information)

Running on TESTNET

To run a node on testnet, you need to provide the --testnet argument. The ports for testnet are 18333 (p2p) and 18334 (RPC):

...
    ports:
      - 18333:18333
      - 18334:18334
    command: [
        "--testnet",
...