lnbook/node_operations.asciidoc

[[operating_ln_node]]
== Operating a Lightning Network Node

After reading this far, you've probably set up a Lightning wallet. In this chapter we will take things one step further and set up a full Lightning node, learning how to operate and maintain it over time.

There are many reasons why you might want to set up your own Lightning node:

* To be a full participant of the Lightning Network, not just an end-user.
* To run an e-commerce store, or earn income with Lightning payments.
* To develop new services, applications or plugins on the Lightning Network
* To increase your privacy while using Lightning

Of course, there are costs to running a Lightning Network node. You need a computer (of course), a permanent Internet connection, lots of disk space, and lots of time!

But the skills you will learn from this experience are valuable and can be applied to a variety of other tasks too.

Let's get started!

=== Choosing your platform

There are many ways you can run a Lightning node, from a small mini-PC hosted in your home, to a dedicated server, to a hosted server in the cloud. The method you choose will depend on the resources you have and how much money you want to spend.


==== Running in the "cloud"

Virtual Private Server (VPS) and "cloud computing" services such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, or Amazon Web Services (AWS) are quite affordable and can be set up very quickly. A Lightning node can be hosted for between $20 and $40 per month on such a service.

However, as the saying goes, "'Cloud' is just other people's computers". Using these services means running your node on other people's computers, with all the privacy and security implications that has. A Lightning node running in the "cloud", will always be less secure, less private that one running on your own computer. Additionally, these cloud computing services are very centralized. The vast majority of Bitcoin and Lightning nodes running on such services are located in a handful of data centers in Virginia, Sunnyvale, Seattle, London and Frankfurt. When the networks or data centers of these providers have service problems, it affects thousands of nodes on so-called "decentralized" networks.

Running a Lightning node in the cloud is better than not running a node at all, and worse than running it on your own computer at home or in your office.

==== Running a node at home

If you have a reasonable capacity internet link at home, or in your office, you can certainly run a Lightning node there. Any "broadband" connection is sufficient for this purpose (running a lightweight node), and a fast connection will allow you to run a Bitcoin full node too.

While you can run a Lightning node (and even a Bitcoin node) on your laptop, it will become annoying quite fast. These programs consume your computer's resources and need to run 24/7, and you will find yourself competing against the background services for your computer's attention (meaning your browser and other desktop workloads will be slowed down).

Instead, most users will choose to run a node on a dedicated computer. Fortunately, you don't need a "server" class computer to do this. You can run a Lightning node on a mini-PC, such as a Raspberry Pi or an Atom-based fanless PC, computers which are commonly used as a media server or home automation hub. These are relatively inexpensive, costing between $50 and $150 USD at that time of this writing. To run on a mini-PC, you will need an external USB hard drive, which again is relatively inexpensive, costing approximately $50 USD. The advantage of a dedicated mini-PC as a platform for Lightning and Bitcoin nodes is that it can run continuously, silently and unobtrusively on your home WiFi network, tucked behind your router or TV. No one will even know that this little box is actually a global banking system!

==== Using an installer/helper

Installing a Lightning node (or also a Bitcoin node), may be daunting if you are not familiar with a command-line environment. However, there are a number of projects that make "helpers", software that installs and configures the various components for you. You will still need to learn some command-line incantations to interact with your node, but most of the initial work is done for you.

One of the most popular and complete such "helpers", is _RaspibBlitz_, a project built by Christian Rootzoll, which is intended to be installed on a Raspberry Pi 4. RaspiBlitz comes with a recommended hardware "kit" that you can build in a matter of hours, or at most a weekend. If you attent a Lightning "hackathon" in your city, you are likely to see many people working on their RaspiBlitz set up, swapping tips and helping each other. You can find the RaspiBlitz project here:

https://github.com/rootzoll/raspiblitz


image::[images/raspiblitz.jpg]


MyNode is another popular open source project including a lot of Bitcoin related software. Is is super easy to install, you just have to flash it on an SD card, put it into your nano-computer an plug it in. You do not need any screen to use myNode as the administrative tools are accessible from a browser. You can manage it from a computer or even from your smartphone. Once installed, go to http://mynode.local/ and create a lightning wallet and node in two clicks.

==== Choosing your hardware

Independently of the type of computer you will use, from a server in the cloud to a mini-PC, you will have to choose the hardware configuration that suits your needs and wallet.

If you use a mini-PC or rent a server, the storage can be the costliest part. Let's have a look at the different options available. First there are two main types of drives, HDDs and SSDs. HDDs are a lot cheaper and SSDs are a lot faster, but both would do the job. The fastest SSDs up to date use the NVMe protocol, but depending on your hardware they may not be better than the cheaper version, the SATA ones. As an example, the Raspberry Pi 4 cannot benefit from them because of the limited bandwidth of it's USB port. To choose the size, let's look at the blockchain. As of July 2020 it's size is ~330GB including the transaction index. If you want to have some margin available for the future or to install other stuff on your node, choose at least 1TB.

For the CPU and RAM, low-end equipment should be enough to run a lightning node. The 10-year-old computer in your garage or your old student laptop should do the job. Even the $40 Raspberry Pi 4 has a powerful enough CPU to manage it. For the RAM 2GB is enough but 4GB is probably a better option.

* Bandwidth
* Full node backend (bitcoind, btcd) or lightweight backend (neutrino)
* Where will you host it (cloud hosting, VPS, own server, your laptop, RPi, MiniPC)
* What OS will you use (Linux variant, Windows, other)
* Docker or direct installation

=== Choose your node implementation

* Which project (LND, eclair, c-lightning, other) will you use
* Language and build-system familiarity
* Integration needs
* Features
* Performance

=== Node startup and configuration

* Startup and headless operation
* Process isolation
* Auto-unlocking
* IBD configuration
* Fine tuning performance
* RPC security and authentication
* Logging
* Process monitoring

=== Node and channel backups

* Difference between Bitcoin wallet (BIP39) backups and LN backups
* Need for backup of channel state

==== Static channel backups

=== Security of your machine

==== Hot wallet risk

==== Sweeping funds

===== On-chain sweep

===== Off-chain sweep

==== Watchtowers

=== Channel management

==== Private vs public channels

==== Manually choosing nodes for outbound channels

==== Autopilot

==== Getting inbound liquidity

==== On-chain fees for channel management

==== Submarine swaps

==== Splice-in/Splice-out


=== Routing fees

* Earning fees from routing
* Setting routing fees
  * High volume/low cost vs. High cost/low volume
  * Zero fee routing

=== Node monitoring

==== RTL

Maintaining a Lightning node using the command-line can be a tedious task sometimes, fortunately we can use Ride The Lightning, most commonly known as RTL.

RTL is web graphical user interface to help users to manage lightning node operations for the three main lightning implementations (LND, c-lightning and Eclair), RTL is an open source project developed by Suheb, Shahana Farooqi and many other contributors. You can find the RTL software here:

https://github.com/Ride-The-Lightning/RTL

==== lndash

==== External node monitors (1ml etc.)

=== Channel maintenance

==== Inactive channels and nodes
==== When to force-close
==== Re-balancing channels

=== Running multiple Lightning Network nodes

==== Private channels
==== Topology


=== Hardware Requirements for a Lightning Nodes

In this section we discuss various types of hardware Lightning Nodes, why they are needed, and the risks in running them.

==== Why is hardware important for running a Lightning Node?

In Bitcoin, unless one is specifically running a mining node, hardware is not particularly important.
The Bitcoin Core node software can be run on any machine that meets its minimum requirements and does not need to be online to receive payments; only to send them.
If a Bitcoin node goes down for an extended period of time, the user can simply reboot the node and once it connects to the rest of the network, it can simply request the blocks that were mined in the interim from its peers.
It can then validate all of the transactions at its leisure until it resyncs with the rest of the network.

In Lightning however, the user needs to be online both to send _and_ to receive payments.
If the Lightning user is offline it cannot receive any payments from anyone and thus its open invoices cannot be fulfilled.
Furthermore, the open channels of an offline user cannot be used to route payments.
Your channel partners will notice that you are offline and cannot contact you to route a payment.
If you are offline too often, they may consider the Bitcoin locked up in their channels with you to be "wasted" capacity, and may close those channels.
We also consider the case of a Protocol Breach i.e. your channel partner tries to cheat you by submitting an earlier commitment transaction.
If you are offline and your channels aren't being monitored, then the theft could succeed and you will have no recourse if the cheater force closes a channel and the timelock expires.
Hence uptime is extremely important for a Lightning node and a reliable routing node will aim to be online at all times.

There is also the issue of hardware failure.
In Bitcoin, hardware failure can be a trivial problem if the user has a backup of their mnemonic phrase or private key.
The Bitcoin wallet and the bitcoin inside the wallet be easily restored from the private key on any computer or hardware wallet, and the blockchain can be re-downloaded from any peer.
In Lightning, however, the private keys for the 2-out-of-2 multisignature addresses where funds are stored are separate from the private key and are not restored when the private key is restored.
Furthermore, the information about the user's channels, including the commitment transactions and revocation secrets, are not publicly known and are only stored on the individual user's hardware.
Thus hardware failure in the Lightning Network can easily result in loss of funds.
Even if the user has backed up their Bitcoin private key, without the private keys to the 2-out-of-2 multisignature addresses and the revocation secrets, they will not be able to restore in their funds in the case of hardware failure or theft.

==== What are the types of hardware Lightning Nodes?

* **General Purpose Computers**: a Lightning Network node can be run on a home computer or laptop running Windows, MacOS, or Linux. Typically this is run alongside a Bitcoin node. This method of running a Lightning node is vulnerable to attackers unless the user takes measure to ensure their own security and privacy.
* **Dedicated Hardware**: a Lightning Node can also be run on dedicated hardware like a Raspberry Pi or Rock64. This setup would usually run a software stack including a Bitcoin node and other applications. This setup is popular as the hardware is dedicated to running and maintaining the Lightning node only, and is thus has a lower attack surface than a general purpose computer.
* **Specialized Hardware**: a Lightning Network node can also be run on purpose-built hardware specifically designed for it. This would include "out-of-the-box" Lightning node solutions.
* **Light-Client**: technically, running a phone app like Eclair Mobile Wallet for Android is also a Lightning node in that it can open and close channels and route payments. However, it does not run a Bitcoin node and so is unable to monitor the Bitcoin blockchain for cheating attempts against it. It thus reliant on third-party services in order to use the Lightning Network securely.

==== What hardware is required to run a Lightning node?

We will assume in this section that the user is setting up a dedicated solution mentioned above.
These points apply equally to a general purpose computer or specialized hardware, but in the case of specialized hardware it will be the manufacturer who considers these points.

At a minimum, the following will be required to run a Lightning Node:

* **CPU**: sufficient processing power will be required to run a Bitcoin node, which will continuously download and validate new blocks. The user also needs to consider the initial block download when setting up a new Bitcoin node which can take anything from several hours to several days.
* **Storage Drive**: this can be a Hard Drive or an SSD, although an SSD will be significantly quicker for running a Bitcoin node. The storage drive is primarily to store the Bitcoin blockchain, however this can be pruned. In addition it will also store software, channel information, route maps, and commitment transactions.
* **Internet Connection**: a reliable internet connection will be required to download new Bitcoin blocks, as well as to communicate with other Lightning Peers. If the user wishes to earn fees routing other users payments, they likely want a high bandwidth connection with low latency to other users.
* **Power Supply**: a reliable power supply is required as Lightning nodes to be online at all times. A power trip will cause payments in-flight to fail. For heavy duty routing nodes, a backup power supply is useful in the case of power outages.

In addition, the user will also want to consider some kind of data backup solution.
This could be a cloud-based automated backup to a server or web service the user controls.
Or it could be a hardware backup, such as a second hard drive that can be used if the first hard drive fails.