Valuable Recommendations for Running Your Full Bitcoin Node with Umbrel \ stacker news ~bitcoin

Valuable Recommendations for Running Your Full Bitcoin Node with Umbrel

4995 sats \ 22 comments \ @r3drun3 11 Dec 2023 bitcoin freebie

I recently achieved the successful setup of my own Bitcoin full node + Lightning using Umbrel, hosted on a Raspberry Pi 4. I firmly believe that this should be the goal of any dedicated Bitcoin enthusiast for two primary reasons:

Contributing to the network's decentralization
Minimizing dependence on third parties

If you aspire, like me, to be a sovereign individual and become your own "bank" within the Bitcoin space, here are some tips that I encountered during my journey:

Avoid Mechanical Hard Drives: Refrain from using mechanical hard drives. Despite having a spare 4TB HDD, attempting to utilize it for my node proved to be a significant mistake. Umbrel documentation strongly advises against this, and I experienced near-impossibility of maintaining a functional and healthy node. Initial synchronization is considerably slower (about a week for 600GB of blockchain compared to 3 days with an SSD). Additionally, any issues with power or internet connectivity pose a high risk of block data corruption, necessitating a complete reinitialization. Use an SSD for a more reliable performance; I recommend the Crucial X6 4TB.
Stick to Default App Configurations: Unless you have specific reasons and a clear understanding, avoid altering default app configurations on Umbrel. Modifying them may compromise functionality and lead to issues.
Patience with Electrs Installation: When installing Electrs to bridge your Bitcoin wallet (e.g., Electrum, Sparrow) and your node, expect challenges. Many online Umbrel community and Reddit posts discuss synchronization issues with Electrs. Patience is key; the software takes time to complete its processes, and after a day or two, it will be fully operational. Avoid deleting any Bitcoin node configurations to maintain integrity.
Establishing Lightning Channels: To both receive and send payments, create both inbound and outbound Lightning channels. Outbound channels are easily managed through the LND app on Umbrel. For inbound channels, consider using services like lnbig.com to pay a small amount of sats for a channel to be opened towards your node.
Install Thunderhub for Lightning Node Management: Install Thunderhub from the Umbrel app store for effective Lightning node management.
Personalized Lightning Address with Your Domain: If you want a Lightning address associated with a custom domain that you own, follow these steps:
- Create an account on Alby
- Connect Alby to your Umbrel lightning node
- Create a GitHub page for redirecting traffic between your domain and Alby's callback to your account (and hence, your node). Refer to this repository for an example: https://github.com/stackzoo/ln-address-redirect This setup allows you to have your Lightning address associated with your domain, such as mine: me@ln.stackzoo.io.

If you embark on the noble mission of implementing your personal node with Umbrel and need assistance, respond to this post, and I'll do my best to help!

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360 sats \ 2 replies \ @Athena_Alpha 11 Dec 2023

All great points! Allow us to add a few... mainly our epic huge guide that itself involves about a dozen more other guides inside it.

Umbrel: Ultimate Quick Start Guide For Beginners

We also have our How To Build A Sexy Umbrel Node For $300 guide that uses our considerable IT building experience to recommend targeted upgrades to the default suggested parts list from Umbrel.

These upgrades will make your node more stable, last loner and most importantly, sexier. Finally, as Umbrel heavily encourages "being your own cloud", we'll also point out these two important issues:

Privacy & Security

When you first use Umbrel you’ll quickly notice that it doesn’t use encryption. The URL will read like “http” not “https”. This means that anything you send, including passwords, files and more will be sent in clear text for anyone to read.

Even across the Tor network, it doesn’t fully secure your data as the Tor exit node (which can be run by anyone) is what decrypts the Tor data and forwards it onto your node. That exit node can thus see anything that’s in clear text which is again, any password or files you send.

Tor also doesn’t provide data integrity or confidentiality meaning someone in the middle can alter your data and perform man-in-the-middle attacks. Full, end to end TLS 1.3 encryption solves all this which is why you normally see sites using “HTTPS” in their URL.

While Umbrel doesn’t try to hide this security issue (they state it in their security.md file), it’s a big issues uses should be well aware of going in.

No Data Backup Or Redundancy

Another major blind spot is the complete lack of any and all data backup and redundancy. A huge part of self hosting your own data is ensuring that it’s properly backed up and secured from things like a failing drive, someone accidentally deleting something, stuffing up a configuration change or even worse, a ransomware attack.

These sorts of critical files will normally be stored on a NAS which by default provides data redundancy through RAID. This allows for 1 or more disks to fail and still have your data be safe. With Umbrel, you only have 1 drive… so if it fails then poof. All your photos and files are gone. Not great and again, something users should consider seriously before they self host certain apps.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 11 Dec 2023

good points

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nullcount 11 Dec 2023

There is no Tor exit node involved when you access your node using its hidden service .onion url

64 sats \ 1 reply \ @r3drun3 OP 11 Dec 2023

I forgot a point in the list:

Upon installation, Umbrel utilizes Multicast DNS (mDNS) to be accessible throughout the internal network under the name "umbrel.local." However, it occasionally happens that, for some reason, it does not respond to that name, leading to past instances where I mistakenly believed the node was unresponsive and subsequently rebooted it. In reality, it is simply an mDNS issue within the internal network.

Therefore, if you encounter this situation, follow these steps:

Access the Umbrel interface using the IP address rather than the DNS name (hence the importance of setting a static IP for the node).
If this also proves ineffective, test the connection to the node via SSH.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Zepasta 11 Dec 2023

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110 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 11 Dec 2023

Contributing to the network's decentralization and Minimizing dependence on third parties

That's not a good reason why you should run a public LN node.

And this is the key point where many new node runners start with the wrong foot! The important question is WHY you want to run a public node and not a private one. It is a big difference between them.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 11 Dec 2023

Avoid the Pi at all costs. You been warned

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @brave 12 Dec 2023

Running a node adds to the decentralization of Bitcoin

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @newnym 11 Dec 2023

Here is a tip to speed up the initial blockchain download: increase the amount of cache for bitcoin. You should give it almost all of your ram during the initial download, as it makes a HUGE difference. On a 1TB ssd with a 300mbps internet it takes little less than 24hs to fully sync if I give it like 16GB of cache. You can change this on Umbrel by clicking on the three little dots on the bitcoin app, then Advanced Settings. Then, expand the tab Optimization and set the Cache Size to as much as you can spare. Save and enjoy your node going BRRRR.

(After your node has finished syncing, change this back to the initial value, as it is no longer needed and will only use up resources needlessly).

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @JesseJames 11 Dec 2023

Nothing wrong with Umbrel as a node and related services. It seems folks get "too happy" and install a zillion other apps besides BTC. I would recommend dedicating your Umbrel for BTC only LN, pi-hole and BTC related stuff. Skip NextCloud or Video Streaming servers for another box. YMMV

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bitcoinisawesome 11 Dec 2023

I use umbrel to estamblish private LN channels so i can top up my spending wallets when applicable. here's my question:

Can i splice additional sats into already established channels? I had one with robo sats and one with ASINQ but then robosats had the issues that force closed a lot or all of their channels. I'd like to take those sats (that are now just in my hotwallet) and splice them into my ACINQ channel to make it bigger.

Is this possible through umbrels OS?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @pako 11 Dec 2023

My ultimate Umbrel recommendation after using it for a year:

Uninstall it and install StartOS if you want a stable node.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @021da48107 11 Dec 2023

Avoid Mechanical Hard Drives

I agree with this, however I'm also looking into how to make it cheaper to run a bitcoin node. I saw this in a bitcoin wiki (not sure if this is a legit wiki or not): https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Splitting_the_data_directory There is a shell script there that looks like it will move the blk* and rev* files in the blocks directory to a harddrive. I've though about setting up a system that has a small SSD to speed things up and then periodically run that script (with bitcoind stopped) to move that data to a big HDD.

At the end of the day it almost doesn't make financial sense to buy a HDD over a 2TB SSD. You can even get by with a 1TB SSD for the blockchain data right now and those can be had for less than $50 USD now-a-days.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nullcount 11 Dec 2023

You can also use multiple HDDs in parallel using a RAID config. This will increase the write/read speeds of the RAID volume as well as add redundancy. A RAID10 setup using 4 disks of equal size is a good comprimise.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nikotsla 11 Dec 2023

A good recommendation is to start with a bare bone NUC, if you want... "after" you play with Umbrel.

Focus on your "user case" maybe you don't need all the bloated software, less software, better, more easy.

When shit hit the fan... you want to know what it's running very well instead of search for help in some random forum.

0 sats \ 6 replies \ @Zepasta 11 Dec 2023

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150 sats \ 5 replies \ @DarthCoin 11 Dec 2023

Yes, the weakest point fort RPi is the USB connection to the drive. That is literally killing the nodes traffic and many noobs still do not want to understand that. That's why so many they have issues with fucked up data fro their nodes.

Use a damn stable system, a NUC, a second hand Dell workstation with good internal SSD, even in RAID and you are good to go.

I really do not understand why this obsession with RPis that in some cases are even more expensive than a damn 2nd hand PC.

16 sats \ 0 replies \ @r3drun3 OP 11 Dec 2023

I've tested power/internet outage with my setup (SSD and RPi) and I had zero issues with my node. The HDD, on the other hand, was a complete disaster.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @021da48107 11 Dec 2023

Yes, the weakest point fort RPi is the USB connection to the drive.

What do you mean by this? USB 3.0 is 5 Gbit/s, which isn't far off from sata 3 which is 6 Gbit/s.

even in RAID and you are good to go.

You can even raid 2 USB 3.0 drives with mdadm in Linux if you want.

Use a damn stable system, a NUC, a second hand Dell workstation with good internal SSD

In general I do agree with this. I just bought a Dell Wyse 5070 thin client for $40 USD recently. I bought a 1TB m.2 sata SSD for $42 USD. So for a total of ~$85 USD I have a system that is faster than a RPI 5. I don't think you could get a RPI 5 with a case, PSU, 1TB SSD, Sata to USB 3.0 adapter for $85.

You could also get something like an HP elitedesk 800 g4 mini used for around $150 and that accepts 2 m.2 NVMe's if you want raid1.

1 sat \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 11 Dec 2023

HP elitedesk 800 g4 mini used for around $150 and that accepts 2 m.2 NVMe's if you want raid1.

That one I name a good machine for a LN node.

USB 3.0 is 5 Gbit/s, which isn't far off from sata 3 which is 6 Gbit/s.

Is not about speed is about reliability.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @021da48107 18 Dec 2023

Is not about speed is about reliability. Is sata 3 more reliable than usb 3.0?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @justBrian 11 Dec 2023

My experience almost certainly more expensive recently.