Ride The Lightning (RTL)

Intro -- Application Features -- Road Map -- LND API Coverage -- Application Configurations

• Introduction
• Architecture
• Prerequisites
• Installation
• Prep For Execution
• Start The Server
• Access The Application
• Troubleshooting

Introduction

RTL is a full function, device agnostic web user interface for Lightning Network Daemon, to help manage lightning node operations. Lightning Network Daemon is an implementation of Lightning Network BOLT protocol by Lightning Labs.

Pre-requisite for running RTL is a functioning LND node. You can setup your own node, by following the below guides:

• Windows/Mac users can explore Pierre Rochard's Node Launcher
• Linux or Raspberry Pi users can explore Stadicus's guide

RTL source code is available at this repo

For detailed screenshots and UI operation guide you can visit our medium post

Architecture

Prerequisites

Please ensure that you have completed the installation of LND lightning node.

The application also requires Node.js, which can be downloaded here

Recommended Browsers: Chrome, Firefox, MS Edge

Installation

First time setup

Fetch sources from the RTL git repository, by executing the below command at the command prompt:

$ git clone https://github.com/ShahanaFarooqui/RTL.git

Move to the newly created directory:

$ cd RTL

Fetch the dependencies and build the application by running:

$ npm install

Updating existing build

$ cd RTL
$ git reset --hard HEAD
$ git clean -f -d
$ git pull
$ npm install

Prep for Execution

Make sure you are in the RTL directory, where the application was built.

RTL requires a config file RTL.conf to start the server and provide user authentication for the app.

Locate the complete path of the readable macroon file (admin.macroon) on your node and lnd.conf file

If you followed Stacidus's guide referenced above, and you are on lnd version 0.4.2 or below it should be /home/admin/.lnd.

For lnd versions 0.5 and above, it should be /home/admin/.lnd/data/chain/bitcoin/testnet.

Other platform users should accordingly locate the directory of the readable macroon and lnd.conf files.

The path of the macroon directory and lnd.conf needs to be provided in the RTL.conf file to start the server.

Sample RTL.conf:

[Authentication]
lndServerUrl=https://localhost:8080/v1
macroonPath=C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Local\Lnd\data\chain\bitcoin\testnet
nodeAuthType=DEFAULT
lndConfigPath=C:\Users\<User>\AppData\Local\Lnd\lnd.conf
[Settings]
flgSidenavOpened=true
flgSidenavPinned=true
menu=Vertical
menuType=Regular
theme=dark-blue
satsToBTC=false

User Authentication on RTL

Basic user authentication has now been added on RTL. This requires user to login to RTL server first, before accessing LND functions. There are two options to configure authentication on RTL, depending on the nodeAuthtype value provided in RTL.conf.

For nodeAuthType=DEFAULT Password provided in lnd.conf for the rpc setting for bitcoind will be used for authentication.

For nodeAuthType=CUSTOM Specific password can be provided in RTL.conf, to be used by RTL for authentication. Password should be set with rtlPass=<user defined> in the [Authentication] section of RTL.conf

Start the Server

Run the following command:

node rtl

If the server started successfully, you should get the below output on the console:

Server is up and running, please open the UI at http://localhost:3000

Optional: Running RTL as a service (rpi or Linux platform users)

In case you are running a headless rpi or Linux node, you can configure RTL as a service.

• Create RTL systemd unit and with the following content. Save and exit.

# Raspibolt RTL: systemd unit for RTL
# /etc/systemd/system/RTL.service

[Unit]
Description=RTL daemon
Wants=lnd.service
After=lnd.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node /home/admin/Projects/RTL/rtl
User=<user>
Restart=always
TimeoutSec=120
RestartSec=30

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

• enable and start RTL

$ sudo systemctl enable RTL
$ sudo systemctl start RTL

• montior the RTL log file in realtime(exit with Ctrl-C)

$ sudo journalctl -f -u RTL

Accessing the Application

You can access the application in two ways:

Same device as the server

Open your browser at the following address: http://localhost:3000 to access the RTL application.

Remotely from another device on the same local network as the node

Ensure that the firewall running on your node allows access on port 3000 (or the custom port configured for RTL). Determine the IP address of your node to access the application.

E.g. if the IP address of your node is 192.168.0.15 then open your browser at the following address: http://192.168.0.15:3000 to access RTL.

Troubleshooting

Feel free to open issues on our github, in case you are running into issues with the application.

You can also reach out via twitter DM on @Sauby_k or @RTL_App. Thanks for your interest.