Quick Start

From source to a synced node serving wallets and a block explorer. Bitcoin Server (bs) is the libbitcoin server, and runs the same on Linux, macOS and Windows.

1. Build#

To use a published build instead, see Download BS, and continue from §2.

On Linux or macOS, a release build installed under ~/libbitcoin, optimized for this machine:

$ git clone https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-server
$ cd libbitcoin-server
$ ./builds/gnu/install-gnu.sh --prefix=$HOME/libbitcoin --build-config=release --build-link=static --hardware-optimized

The result is ~/libbitcoin/bin/bs. On Windows, see Building on Windows. For build choices, see Building.

Portability: a build with --hardware-optimized runs only on CPUs that have every instruction set extension of the machine it was built on. To build for other machines, omit it, and enable only the extensions they all have (see Hardware options).

2. Sync#

$ bs

With no configuration, bs syncs mainnet into a bitcoin store in the current directory, creating it if it does not exist. Progress is logged to the console. To stop, type c and <enter>, or press <ctrl> c. A restart resumes where it stopped.

The time a sync takes and the space its store needs are shown on the Sync BS and Footprint pages.

3. Serve#

Each interface is enabled by an address and a connection limit. This configuration serves the admin console and the block explorer locally, and Electrum wallets on the network:

[database]
path = bitcoin

[admin]
bind = 127.0.0.1:8080
connections = 10

[native]
bind = 127.0.0.1:8180
connections = 10

[electrum]
bind = 0.0.0.0:8580
connections = 100

$ bs --config bs.cfg

The admin console and the block explorer are available at once, and show the sync's progress. The other interfaces accept connections once the node is current.

4. Next#

• Configuration: common setups, such as milestone sync, TLS, credentials and test networks.
• Interfaces: every interface, its methods and examples.
• Building: platforms, build options and hardware optimizations.