How-to: Bitcoin Full Node on Ubuntu 22.04

In this video, I talk about how to install and configure a Bitcoin full node using a snap on Ubuntu 22.04.

One important thing I left out of the video is you need to go onto your Internet router and port forward tcp/8333 to your node to allow inbound Bitcoin node connections.

*** Since I recorded the video I've made some tweaks to the log rotation so the below doesn't exactly match the video. ***

The basic steps are:

= Prep OS and install bitcoin core software
sudo su
apt update
apt upgrade
snap install bitcoin-core

= Create an account to run Bitcoin core in even more isolation from the rest of the system
groupadd btc
useradd -g btc -m -s /bin/bash btc
su - btc

= Do a test run:
== If no errors then after 30s:
ctrl-c

= Create the configuration file:
cd ~/snap/bitcoin-core/common
mkdir .bitcoin
externalip=121.98.x.x
externalip=2404:4408:x:x::x
listenonion=0
disablewallet=1
dbcache=2048

= If you created a config file then do another test run:
== If no errors then after 30s:
ctrl-c

= Now setup to run as a daemon:
== Become root again:
exit

[Unit]
Description=Bitcoin daemon

[Service]
User=btc
Group=btc
Type=forking
KillMode=process
Restart=always
TimeoutSec=120
RestartSec=30

[Install]

== Enable and start service
systemctl daemon-reload

= Setup log rotation of debug log
vi /etc/logrotate.d/bitcoind
{
su btc btc
missingok
notifempty
compress
delaycompress
sharedscripts
copytruncate
}

== Check logrotation service is correctly configured

= Check Bitcoin Daemon
su - btc

= This shows disk space used - should grow to begin with, currently 450GB "all up" for me
du -h ~/snap/bitcoin-core/common/.bitcoin/

#bitcoin #ubuntu #howto

Video Content
00:00 Intro
00:11 Why run a Bitcoin full node?
00:51 Requirements
02:22 CPU Load
02:34 Initial setup prep
04:06 Setup separate user to run software
04:32 Initial test run
04:52 Creating a config file
07:28 Create a systemd service
09:39 Setting up log rotation
11:15 Checks and troubleshooting

[kevin]

Thank you for this walkthrough! You’ve made running a node accessible to a beginner. Not much bitcoin reference material online for ubuntu 22 or snap so this is very helpful!

[timb.]

What a fantastic walk through! I only had one hiccup on Raspberry Pi 4 (2 TB SSD) with having to run "apt install snapd" after the "apt upgrade". I will now proceed with the next walk through for ckpool. Exciting!!! THANK YOU PHILIP !

[Toresh]

Thank you for this video and for the ckpool installation videos. I will install these on my Lattepanda Sigma when it arrives

[Anonymous-gfob]

Great video Philip!

Would be useful to go over the config file a bit more - thing like RPC?

[mordinkainen]

Thank you very much, this was very helpful!

[inbestprogram]

Great vid!! Is it necessary to hace this on a separate drive? Or should i create a partition for this? Or theres no need for that? Thanks !!

[selfdefensemall]

Windows.Server / Mac Guy - 1st time running through this, . Raspberry Pi 5 with 2TB NVMe Hat - Going to just run Core and Lighning - Have to bring over channel backup thouigh.

[rprinku]

hI Phil. so i got a small miner to mine solo btc . we can mine direct using ck pool right ? or we make a node ? what difference ?

[arickthompson]

after getting to step : "Creating Configuration File", I was unable to edit to match your example. I closed the terminal and when I opened the terminal again and typed "su - btc" to get back to the pervious step it asked for a password. I put in my computers password and it states "su: Authentication failure".
Not sure what to do now

[danieldarko]

thanks for this, do you mind sharing how to connect to your own node via an api

[wakirksey]

Is there a way that I can download the Bitcoin-GUI then stop the bitcoin daemon that you have shown how to setup here and then start the Bitcoin-GUI using the user btc file directories until the complete blockchain has been download then stop the bitcoin-GUI and then restart the bitcoin daemon so that I do not have to issue all of the command line commands to determine that the complete blockchain has been downloaded?

[casbran]

hi, im a beginner. the commands for setup the full node in an external ssd are the same. directly from external ssd directory?

[greythorne]

Is it possible to just run bitcoin core on a raspberry pi 4. The OS on pi 4 is dietpi. The pi 4 is run as headless. I am trying to run both pihole and bitcoin core full node.

[silverdesert]

Thanks for the video. Can you please make a video on how to make a stratum server to work with the btc node in Ubuntu?

[uneducated_technologist]

I'm not sure why I had to do this, but it wasn't working for me with "Type=forking".. I had to change this to "Type=simple". I'm using a raspberry PI btw, running it as the root

[apieproject]

Your tutorial show a full node on the mainnet; how do I change that to testnet; right now I just want to learn rpc api with minimal memory requirements

[arickthompson]

If I have a external harddrive how to I get bitcoin Core to run on that instead of the internal drive

[pedrobarbosa]

Can you make a tutorial running on docker?

[arghyabs]

How to get address and secret key of the address ?

[javierburgos]

Who helps me install a node of these, please?