blockstream-electrs/doc/usage.md

Installation

Install latest Rust (1.28+), latest Bitcoin Core (0.16+) and latest Electrum wallet (3.2+).

Also, install the following packages (on Debian):

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install clang cmake  # for building 'rust-rocksdb'

Build

First build should take ~20 minutes:

$ cargo build --release

Bitcoind configuration

Allow Bitcoin daemon to sync before starting Electrum server:

$ bitcoind -server=1 -txindex=0 -prune=0

If you are using -rpcuser=USER and -rpcpassword=PASSWORD for authentication, please use --cookie="USER:PASSWORD" command-line flag. Otherwise, ~/.bitcoin/.cookie will be read, allowing this server to use bitcoind JSONRPC interface.

Usage

First index sync should take ~1.5 hours:

$ cargo run --release -- -vvv --timestamp --db-dir ./db [--cookie="USER:PASSWORD"]
2018-08-17T18:27:42 - INFO - NetworkInfo { version: 179900, subversion: "/Satoshi:0.17.99/" }
2018-08-17T18:27:42 - INFO - BlockchainInfo { chain: "main", blocks: 537204, headers: 537204, bestblockhash: "0000000000000000002956768ca9421a8ddf4e53b1d81e429bd0125a383e3636", pruned: false, initialblockdownload: false }
2018-08-17T18:27:42 - DEBUG - opening DB at "./db/mainnet"
2018-08-17T18:27:42 - DEBUG - full compaction marker: None
2018-08-17T18:27:42 - INFO - listing block files at "/home/user/.bitcoin/blocks/blk*.dat"
2018-08-17T18:27:42 - INFO - indexing 1348 blk*.dat files
2018-08-17T18:27:42 - DEBUG - found 0 indexed blocks
2018-08-17T18:27:55 - DEBUG - applying 537205 new headers from height 0
2018-08-17T19:31:01 - DEBUG - no more blocks to index
2018-08-17T19:31:03 - DEBUG - no more blocks to index
2018-08-17T19:31:03 - DEBUG - last indexed block: best=0000000000000000002956768ca9421a8ddf4e53b1d81e429bd0125a383e3636 height=537204 @ 2018-08-17T15:24:02Z
2018-08-17T19:31:05 - DEBUG - opening DB at "./db/mainnet"
2018-08-17T19:31:06 - INFO - starting full compaction
2018-08-17T19:58:19 - INFO - finished full compaction
2018-08-17T19:58:19 - INFO - enabling auto-compactions
2018-08-17T19:58:19 - DEBUG - opening DB at "./db/mainnet"
2018-08-17T19:58:26 - DEBUG - applying 537205 new headers from height 0
2018-08-17T19:58:27 - DEBUG - downloading new block headers (537205 already indexed) from 000000000000000000150d26fcc38b8c3b71ae074028d1d50949ef5aa429da00
2018-08-17T19:58:27 - INFO - best=000000000000000000150d26fcc38b8c3b71ae074028d1d50949ef5aa429da00 height=537218 @ 2018-08-17T16:57:50Z (14 left to index)
2018-08-17T19:58:28 - DEBUG - applying 14 new headers from height 537205
2018-08-17T19:58:29 - INFO - RPC server running on 127.0.0.1:50001

The index database is stored here:

$ du db/
38G db/mainnet/

Electrum client

# Connect only to the local server, for better privacy
$ ./scripts/local-electrum.bash
+ ADDR=127.0.0.1
+ PORT=50001
+ PROTOCOL=t
+ electrum --oneserver --server=127.0.0.1:50001:t
<snip>

In order to use a secure connection, TLS-terminating proxy (e.g. hitch) is recommended:

$ hitch --backend=[127.0.0.1]:50001 --frontent=[127.0.0.1]:50002 pem_file
$ electrum --oneserver --server=127.0.0.1:50002:s

Docker

$ docker build -t electrs-app .
$ docker run --network host \
             --volume /home/roman/.bitcoin:/home/user/.bitcoin:ro \
             --volume $PWD:/home/user \
             --rm -i -t electrs-app

Monitoring

Indexing and serving metrics are exported via Prometheus:

$ sudo apt install prometheus
$ echo "
scrape_configs:
  - job_name: electrs
    static_configs:
    - targets: ['localhost:4224']
" | sudo tee -a /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
$ sudo systemctl restart prometheus
$ firefox 'http://localhost:9090/graph?g0.range_input=1h&g0.expr=index_height&g0.tab=0'