*The RaspiBlitz is a all-switches-on Lightning Node based on LND running together with a Bitcoin- or Litecoin-Fullnode running on a RaspberryPi3 with a 1TB HDD and an nice Display for easy setup and monitoring. Its mainly targeted for learning how to run your own decntralized Node from home. Discover & develop the growing ecosystem of the Lightning Network by becoming a part of it.*
The RaspiBlitz is optimized for being Setup during a workshop at hackdays or conference. When it comes ready assembled together with a up-to-date synced HDD containing the blockchain its possible to have it ready in about 2 to 3 hours.
If you start at home ordering the parts from Amazon (see shopping list below) then its a weekend project with a lot of download and syncing time where you can do other stuff while checking on the progress from time to time.
*You can even pay your RaspiBlitz Amazon Shopping with Bitcoin & Lightning thru [Bitrefill](https://blog.bitrefill.com/its-here-buy-amazon-vouchers-with-bitcoin-on-bitrefill-bb2a4449724a).*
Your SD-card needs to contain the RaspiBlitz software. You can take the long road by [building the SD-card image yourself](#build-the-sd-card-image) or use the already prepared SD-Card image:
**Now follow the dialoge in your terminal. This can take some time (prepare some coffee) - but in the end you should have a running Lightning node on your RaspberryPi that you can start to learn and hack on.**
Fore more details on the setup process see the documentation below. If you run into a problem or you have still a question, follow these steps to get support:
1. Check the [FAQ](FAQ.md) if you can find an answere to this question/problem.
2. Please determine if your problem/question is about RaspiBlitz or for example with LND. For example if you cant route a payment or get an error when opening a channel that is an LND question/problem an is best answered by the LND dev community: https://dev.lightning.community
3. Go to the GitHub issues of the RaspiBlitz: https://github.com/rootzoll/raspiblitz/issues Do a search there. Also check closed issues by removing 'is:open' from the filter/search-box.
4. If you havent found an answere yet, open a new issue on the RaspiBlitz GitHub. You may have to register an account with GitHub for this. If its a bug with the RaspiBlitz, please add (copy+paste) a Debug Report to your issue (see [FAQ](FAQ.md) how to generate) and/or add some screenshots/photios so the community gets more insight into your problem.
*The goal is, that all information needed is provided from the interaction with the RaspiBlitz itself during the setup. Documentation in this chapter is for background, comments for educators and to mention edge cases.*
*This menu is displayed by the script `00mainMenu.sh` and started automatically on every login of the admin user by admins `.bashrc`. If you want to get to the normal terminal prompt after login, just use CTRL-c or CANCEL. To return to the main menu from the terminal you can use the command `raspiblitz`.*
*The password A,B,C & D idea is directly based in the [RaspiBolt Guide Preperations](https://github.com/Stadicus/guides/blob/master/raspibolt/raspibolt_20_pi.md#write-down-your-passwords) - check out for more background.*
*The bitcoin and lightning services will later run in the background (as daemon) and use the separate user “bitcoin” for security reasons. This user does not have admin rights and cannot change the system configuration.*
Before the lighting service can be started, the Bitcoin service needs to make sure that the blockchain is up to date. The downloaded blockchain data could be several weeks old - this could take some minutes. Then the Lightning Service gets started and a wallet can be created:
After the wallet was created the Lightning service needs to scan the Blockchain ... this can take some time. If needed the user can close the SSH session with the RaspiBlitz during that time (progress is displayed on the LCD as status). On SSH back in just continue with the setup process.
*Background: The LND wallet needs to get unlocked on every new start of the RaspiBlitz. The status information loop on the LCD is done by the script '00infoBlitz.sh'*
After SSH back in as admin the main menu shows the unlock option:
*Background: The script `00mainMenu.sh` is now the place to offer further features und extend the possibilities of the RaspiBlitz. Feel free to come up with ideas. Check out the developer section at the end of this page.*
You can manually extend your RaspiBlitz with features listed in the RaspiBolt Guide: https://github.com/Stadicus/guides/blob/master/raspibolt/raspibolt_60_bonus.md
*Background: The script `91addBonus.sh` is the place to put your setup of features you want to add to RaspiBlitz. Its run at the end of the automated setup process before final reboot. To make the feature executable for the user, add a new option to the `00mainMenu.sh`*
You can use the Switch to TOR option from the main menu to make the node reachable thru TOR. This way you can get thru a NAT without needed to open/forward ports on your router. Bitcoin and LND will have a seperate onion-address displayed on LCD and the Status Info Screen option in menu.
This is a way to make your RaspiBlitz publicly reachable from the internet so that other nodes can open channels with you and you can connect with the
To do so you can register at an DynamicDomain service like freedns.afraid.org, forward the TCP ports 8333 (Bitcoin/mainnet),9735 (LND Node) & 10009 (LND RPC) from your internet router to the local IP of your RaspiBlitz and then activate unter "Services" the "DynamicDNS" option.
You will be asked for your dynamic domain name such like "mynode.crabdance.org" and you can also optionally set an URL that will be called regularly to update your routers IP with the dynnamic domain service. At freedns.afraid.org this URL is called "Direct URL" under the menu "Dynamic DNS" once you added one.
This feature is based on https://github.com/Stadicus/guides/blob/master/raspibolt/raspibolt_6A_auto-unlock.md
It can be activated under "Services" -> "Auto-unlock LND". Its recommended to be turned on, when DynamicDNS is used. Because on a public IP change of your router, LND gets restarted automatically and without Auto-Unlock it will stay inactive/unreachbale until you manually unlock it.
But keep in mind that when activated, your Password C will be stored on the RaspiBlitz SD card. That lowers your security in (physical) attack scenarios. On an update you would need to re-enter your password C.
Now download the new RaspiBlitz SD card image and write it to your SD card .. yes you simply overwrite the old one, it's OK, the RaspiBlitz stores all your personal data on the HDD. See details about latest SD card image [here](README.md#installing-the-software).
*If you have done manual changes to the system (installed packages, added scripts, etc) you might need to do some preparations before overwriting your sd card - see [FAQ](FAQ.md#why-do-i-need-to-re-burn-my-sd-card-for-an-update).*
If done successfully, simply put the SD card into the RaspiBlitz and power on again. Then follow the instructions on the display ... and dont worry, you dont need to re-download the blockchain again.
A ready to use SD card image of the RaspiBlitz for your RaspberryPi is provided as download by us to get everybody started quickly (see above). But if you want to build that image yourself - here is a quick guide:
As you can see from the URL you find the build script in this Git repo under `build_sdcard.sh` - there you can check what gets installed and configured in detail. Feel free to post improvements as pull requests.
The whole build process takes a while. At the end the LCD drivers get installed and a reboot is needed. A user `admin` is created during the process. Remember the default password is now `raspiblitz`. You can login per SSH again - this time use admin: `ssh admin@[IP-OF-YOUR-RASPI]`. An installer of the SD card image should automatically launch. If you do not want to continue with the installation at this moment and use this sd card as a template for setting up multiple RaspiBlitze, click `Cancel` and run `/home/admin/XXprepareRelease.sh`. Once you see the LCD going white and the activity LED of the pi starts going dark, you can unplug power and remove the SD card. You have now built your own RaspiBlitz SD card image.
*Note: If you plan to use your self build sd card as a MASTER copy to backup image and distribute it. Use a smaller 8GB card for that. This way its ensured that it will fit on every 16 GB card recommended for RaspiBlitz later on.*
Everybody is welcome to join, improve and extend the RaspiBlitz - its a work in progress. Check the issues if you wanna help out or add new ideas. You find the scripts used for RaspiBlitz interactions on the device at `/home/admin` or in this git repo in the subfolder `home.admin`.
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