Electrum is a popular bitcoin wallet that provides users with a great deal of control over their coins and transactions. By default, Electrum syncs wallet balance data using a decentralized network of semi-trusted servers run by volunteers. This is convenient because it means that Electrum users do not have to download the whole blockchain to use the wallet. But it is bad for privacy because random servers run by strangers know the wallet balance information of Electrum users.
Electrum Personal Server (EPS) is a project that makes it easy for an Electrum wallet user to run their own Electrum server, bypassing the need to share wallet information with any third parties. This guide will show you how to install EPS on your Bitseed node and connect it to your wallet.
Bitseed nodes are plug-and-play bitcoin full nodes, designed to make it easy to run a personal full node. As of June 2019 the Bitseed company has shut down and Bitseed nodes are no longer produced. However, many Bitseed nodes were produced and sold, and their owners may want to continue getting value from them for years to come. This guide should work with Bitseed 3 nodes or any other x86 Linux computer running an up-to-date Debian variant e.g. Ubuntu or Mint.
Using bitcoin with your own full node is necessary but not sufficient to use bitcoin privately. Due to the nature of bitcoin's p2p network and unencrypted public ledger, there is no way to use bitcoin without revealing some information about your transactions to some third parties. If you would like to learn more about bitcoin privacy, check out the extensive Bitcoin Wiki Privacy article.
All working instructions are owed credit to the following sources; any mistakes are the fault of the author of this guide alone.
- Chris Belcher and the Electrum Personal Server project
- 402 Payment Required
- Raspi Bolt project
This guide involves using the Linux command line to install and run EPS. Users are expected to have basic familiarity with the Linux command line. Beginners are welcome but may get stuck in some places if they do not have the knowledge to self-correct and undo errors.
If you run into any issues you can join the #bitcoin community chatroom on Matrix or join the #electrum channel on Freenode IRC to ask for help from the open source community.
The instructions in this guide work as of the date of the last commit made to this document. If you try to follow the instructions and they do not work, please create an issue, and if you discover a fix, please submit a pull request that fixes the issue.
SSH into your node, replacing bitseed.ip.address with your Bitseed's local IP address.
ssh bitcoin@bitseed.ip.address
Type the password printed on your Bitseed documentation and hit Enter.
sudo apt-get install python3-setuptools python3-pyqt5 python3-pip -y
Type the password printed on your Bitseed documentation and hit Enter.
cd .bitcoin
nano bitcoin.conf
Add or modify the following lines to match:
txindex=1
server=1
# disablewallet=1
Note the rpcuser and rpcpassword shown in the bitcoin.conf file. You will need these later.
Press ctrl+x, then y, then Enter to save the changes and exit.
cd
Start bitcoin:
bitcoind --daemon
In the commands below, replace the EPS version with the version you want to install. You can find the latest version on the EPS Releases page.
wget https://github.com/chris-belcher/electrum-personal-server/archive/eps-v0.2.0.tar.gz
wget https://github.com/chris-belcher/electrum-personal-server/releases/download/eps-v0.2.0/eps-v0.2.0.tar.gz.asc
wget https://github.com/chris-belcher/electrum-personal-server/raw/master/docs/pubkeys/belcher.asc
gpg --import belcher.asc
gpg --verify eps-v0.2.0.tar.gz eps-v0.2.0.tar.gz
tar -xzf eps-v0.2.0.tar.gz
mv eps-v0.2.0.tar.gz ~/eps-2
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If you want to use EPS with private keys stored in your Electrum wallet, skip ahead to the "Appendix I. Use EPS with Electrum wallet" section below, then come back here once you have your Electrum wallet master public key.
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If you want to use EPS with your Ledger wallet, skip ahead to the "Appendix II. Use EPS with Ledger wallet" section below, then come back here once you have your Ledger wallet master public key.
cd eps-2
nano config.ini_sample
Add wallet Master Public Keys under the [master-public-keys] section and/or add individual addresses you want to watch under the [watch-only-addresses] section of the config.ini_sample file. Use the same format shown in the examples included in the config.ini_sample file.
Uncomment rpc_user and rpc_password by removing the # symbol in front of these lines then enter the bitcoin.conf RPC username and password noted earlier:
rpc_user = username
rpc_password = password
Scroll down to where it shows the host IP address. Change it to:
host = 0.0.0.0
Scroll down to where it says broadcast_method and change it to:
broadcast_method = own-node
Press ctrl+x, then y, then Enter to save changes and exit.
Rename the EPS configuration file:
mv config.ini_sample config.ini
pip3 install --user .
cd
cd .local/bin
electrum-personal-server /home/bitcoin/eps-2/config.ini
electrum-personal-server --rescan /home/bitcoin/eps-2/config.ini
Enter the earliest date when you used the wallets you want to scan (make it a month or two earlier in case your memory is fuzzy). This scan could take a while (up to several hours or longer) depending on how many addresses need to be scanned for and how far back in the blockchain's history the wallet needs to scan.
Note: you will need to stop EPS with ctrl+c and enter the above two commands each time you add a new Master Public Key to your EPS config.ini file, so that the server knows to look for the new addresses.
You can check on rescan progress by opening a new tab, SSH'ing into the node again, and entering:
cd .bitcoin
nano debug.log
ctrl+w then ctrl+v
The log will show what the most recent block scanned was and the progress e.g. 0.435 = 43.5% finished.
Once the wallet is done rescanning, run the script to start EPS again:
electrum-personal-server /home/bitcoin/eps-2/config.ini
Wait until the message Listening for Electrum Wallet ... appears, then go to the next step below.
Download Electrum wallet onto your personal computer if you haven't already by visiting https://electrum.org/#download and downloading the appropriate file for your OS. Then navigate to the directory that the Electrum file was downloaded to and open the directory in your terminal.
Start Electrum with the following command to ensure that the wallet only connects to your Electrum server, replacing electrum-file.AppImage with the correct name of the Electrum executable file you are using and bitseed.ip.address with the local IP address of your Bitseed node (the same IP address you use to SSH into your Bitseed).
./electrum-file.AppImage --oneserver --server bitseed.ip.address:50002:s
Electrum should start and connect to your node. The connection light will turn from red to green, and the wallet will fill up with the transaction history and addresses after it is done syncing (syncing may take a minute or two). Once the wallet is done syncing, you can now use your Electrum wallet privately with your own Electrum Personal Server running on your Bitseed node.
General Electrum + EPS privacy tip
Remember to never use Electrum with third party servers when using the private accounts that you use with EPS, or else all the effort expended to gain privacy by using your Electrum Personal Server will be for naught. If you follow the instructions below each time you use Electrum, your privacy should be preserved.
If you already have used accounts in your Electrum wallet
If there are already accounts in your Electrum wallet that you have used with default Electrum settings, then these accounts can be treated as "compromised" - or at least "associated" - from a privacy perspective, even if you've only ever connected the wallet over Tor. The Electrum servers you have connected to already know these accounts are tied to the same user. You have two choices regarding what to do with these accounts:
- Run the coins in them through a mix network like that offered by JoinMarket or Wasabi Wallet, then transfer the resulting mixed coins back to a fresh Electrum wallet (described below), keeping in mind to be careful with your unmixed change, or
- Keep these accounts segregated from the private accounts you're about to create and just remember that they have been associated with each other by the Electrum servers.
Regardless of which choice you make, you will need fresh new accounts to work off of that haven't been associated by the Electrum servers. To create these, you're going to need a new master public key that hasn't been sent to any third-party Electrum servers yet. This means starting over with a fresh Electrum wallet.
Start Electrum with this command to ensure the wallet only tries to connect to your EPS, replacing bitseed.ip.address with the local IP address of your Bitseed node (the same IP address you use to SSH into your Bitseed).
electrum --oneserver --server bitseed.ip.address:50002:s
After Electrum opens, the connection light in the wallet will be red because EPS is not running yet. This is ok. Click File > New/Restore in the Electrum menu bar then create a new wallet. Once the new wallet is open, click Wallet > Information in the Electrum menu bar and copy the Master Public Key. Then go back to the "Enter EPS directory and modify EPS configuration file" section above and proceed from there.
If you have not already used accounts in your Electrum wallet
Start Electrum with this command to ensure the wallet only tries to connect to your EPS, replacing bitseed.ip.address with the local IP address of your Bitseed node (the same IP address you use to SSH into your Bitseed).
electrum --oneserver --server bitseed.ip.address:50002:s
You will be prompted to create a new wallet. Once the new wallet is open, click Wallet > Information in the menu bar and copy the Master Public Key. Then go back to the "Enter EPS directory and modify EPS configuration file" section above and proceed from there.
General Ledger + EPS privacy tip
Remember to never use the private Ledger accounts that you use with EPS to log in to the Ledger app, or else all the effort expended to gain privacy by using your Electrum Personal Server will be for naught. If you ever need to use the Ledger app to update the apps or firmware on your Ledger, use a temporary passphrase (it can be as simple as "abc") to create a "dummy" account and then log in to the Ledger app to perform the necessary software updates.
If you already have used accounts in your Ledger wallet
If there are already accounts in your Ledger wallet that you have used with the Ledger app or any other centralized nodes (such as third party Electrum servers) then these accounts can be treated as "compromised" - or at least "associated" - from a privacy perspective. The Ledger company already knows these accounts are tied to the same user. You have two choices regarding what to do with these accounts:
- Run the coins in them through a mix network like that offered by JoinMarket or Wasabi Wallet, then transfer the resulting mixed coins back to a fresh Ledger account (described below), keeping in mind to be careful with your unmixed change, or
- Keep these accounts segregated from the private accounts you're about to create and just remember that they have been associated with each other by the Ledger company.
Regardless of which choice you make, you will need fresh new accounts to work off of that haven't been associated by the Ledger company. To create these, you're going to need a new Master Public Key that hasn't been sent to Ledger's servers yet. This means starting over with a fresh Master Public Key on your Ledger. The easiest way to do this is by setting a new passphrase + PIN as detailed on Ledger's website under "Option 1 - Attach to PIN code". You will want to be sure to save the passphrase in a safe place, perhaps the same way you've saved the seed phrase when you first set up your Ledger. You will need both the seed phrase and the passphrase to regain access to your new accounts. And of course you will need the PIN that you set with your new passphrase to access the new accounts when regularly using your Ledger.
After creating a new passphrase and PIN, you are now ready to connect your fresh Ledger accounts to your Electrum wallet. Proceed to follow the rest of the instructions in the "If you have not already used accounts in your Ledger wallet" section below.
If you have not already used accounts in your Ledger wallet
Download Electrum wallet onto your personal computer if you haven't already by visiting https://electrum.org/#download and downloading the appropriate file for your OS. Then navigate to the directory that the Electrum file was downloaded to and open the directory in your terminal.
Start Electrum with the following command to ensure that the wallet only connects to your Electrum server, replacing electrum-file.AppImage with the correct name of the Electrum executable file you are using and bitseed.ip.address with the local IP address of your Bitseed node (the same IP address you use to SSH into your Bitseed).
./electrum-file.AppImage --oneserver --server bitseed.ip.address:50002:s
Follow the instructions on the Ledger website for connecting to Electrum. Use your PIN to log in to your Ledger and connect it to Electrum. You will get to a page that asks you to select the type of wallet and the account number. Here you can choose the type of wallet you want (p2pkh "legacy", p2wpkh-p2sh "legacy segwit", or p2wpkh "bech32 aka native segwit") and enter the derivation path. You can leave the derivation path as-is. If you later choose to create separate accounts you can iterate the derivation path e.g. by changing the path from 49'/0'/0'/ to 49'/0'/1'/, and then later to 49'/0'/2'/ for a third account, and so on.
After Electrum opens, the connection light in the wallet will be red because EPS is not running yet. This is ok. In the Electrum wallet, click Wallet > Information in the menu bar and copy the Master Public Key. Then go back to the "Enter EPS directory and modify EPS configuration file" section above and proceed from there.
- Download the AppImage file from https://electrum.org.
- Open the directory that the AppImage file was downloaded to in your Linux terminal e.g.
cd Downloads. - Enter
chmod a+x electrum-file-name.AppImage, replacing electrum-file-name with the actual name of the Electrum AppImage file you downloaded (minus the .AppImage extension, which is already included in the example). - Enter
./electrum-file-name.AppImage --oneserver --server bitseed.ip.address:50002:sto start Electrum wallet connecting only to your own EPS instance.