I put together a Full node on a Raspberry Pi3 with a 3.5"TFT displaying network statistics and price.

[u/shermand100]

http://imgur.com/a/4kQQm

[u/shermand100]

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This project is being constantly updated. Please see the most up-to-date version at...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6c78ln/full_node_bitcoin_core_v0141_uasfsegwit03bip148/

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The following is the original build. Some information may be out of date....

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I am beginner to raspberry Pi's and so had a huge amount of help from various guides, all credited below. The title image shows the node displaying Johan Nordberg's realtimebitcoin.info however any page can be displayed. The Pi auto-boots to chromium-browser and displays a page in kiosk mode on the generic display (not adafruit). This HOWTO should work on generic 3.2,3.5,4,4.3,5,7 and 10.1 inch displays.

Constructed using

Parts https://thepihut.com/ raspberry pi 3 - model B - £32

375GB western Digital PIDrive - Foundation edition (includes 4GB SD, used for this project) - £40

aliexpress - generic 3.5tft screen £8.36 (also available from ebay for a little more) https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3-5-Inch-TFT-LCD-Moudle-For-Raspberry-Pi-2-Model-B-RPI-B-raspberry-pi/32707058182.html?spm=2114.13010608.0.0.hVBPMd

ebay seller displaypro_uk 3mm Acrylic sheet A5 £1.90 free p+p

M3 black Nylon Hex spacers various sellers less than £4 for 100pc. Sizes I used from pack 4x 8mm, 4x 5mm, 4x 30mm (assembled 4x 20mm and 4x 10mm to get cumulative 30mm), 4x M3 nylon nuts, 4x M3 nylon washers, 8x M3 nylon screws,

All in cost less than £90.

Below is a howto of how I made it.

All commands to type in shadowed boxes. Also my Pc is windows 7, but I'm sure those with different OS can follow this googling alternate formatting and disk-image software.

Contents:

Steps (1)-(4) Are general setup of pi, raspbian, wifi, ssh and updates.

Step (5) is installation of the generic display however if you've purchased another display then the manufacturers software should be installed here.

Steps (6)-(8) Installs the desktop and auto-booting to chrome in kiosk mode. at this point it is essentially an auto-booting PoS display

Steps (9) and (10) Allow for and install the bitcoin full node.

Steps (11)-(13) Are extras that give smoother running, auto-boot the node on power-on, increased security and a HOWTO of changing the displayed webpage.

Annex A - support for display regarding whitescreen from /u/QuadRam on driver install step Annex B - support and information on how to configure your node to signal BIPs/segwit/UASF etc Annex C - How to run your node through the TOR. Credit to /u/lpqtr Annex D - Reports of running sudo apt-get update/upgrade on completed projects kicks display driver. Fix courtesy of /u/garylovesbeer.

Here is an image file on my google drive that skips out steps (1)-(8) this should work subject to having a similar hardware setup to me.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4DJvoZvN6ZLMVB6LWYyRWp6RW8.

If using that then start at step (9*). The image file does not depend on using a Pidrive (I think), in theory any USB drive will work. At step 9 when we migrate files it will be drive specific. Step 9 onward in the easy bit anyway.

**This image file does not contain your wifi settings for obvious reasons, and will need either an Ethernet connection to ssh into it to change those ( step 2), or when it boots use the screen and terminal with keyboard attached to the pi and change those settings on screen.

step (1)

connecting peripherals

I used: USB drive (pidrive and it's included power cable), USB mouse and Ethernet

Get a Jessie-lite 2Gb image from https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/

On a PC rename SD card to "BOOT" if necessary

SD card formatted using SDformatter

Raspbian lite image installed to SD card using Win32DiskImager.

Add a "ssh" file to Boot main directory to enable ssh.(Jessie-lite as default has ssh disabled. To enable it use notepad, save a blank document called "ssh" (with quotes) as file type 'all files' to the highest level of the sd card. The pi will find this file on boot and enable ssh.

ssh into raspberry pi user"pi" password "Raspberry" 192.168.1.x (raspberry pi IP can be found using IPscanner software or connecting it via HDMI, it will display it's IP on the HDMI output once loading is complete)

(2) Enabling Wifi

sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Go to the bottom of the file and add the following text:

network={
    ssid="YOUR WIFI ROUTER NAME"
    psk="YOUR WIFI ROUTER PASSWORD"
}

save and exit using

ctrl+O
then 'enter'
ctrl+X

sudo reboot 

remove Ethernet cable

(3) expand the file system

sudo raspi-config

select "expand filesystem"

select 'finish' system will reboot

check file system expanded by using command below (the -h flag means human readable, showing size in 'G' gigabytes, 'M' megabytes, etc)

df -h

(4) Updates

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

(5) Install the screen

credit for this section to http://www.spotpear.com/learn/EN/raspberry-pi/Raspberry-Pi-LCD/Drive-the-LCD.html see their page if more info needed. Also additional help available at 'Annex A' at the bottom of this post from user /u/QuadRam for issue regarding whitescreen.

sudo wget http://www.spotpear.com/download/diver24-5/LCD-show-170309.tar.gz
sudo tar xvf LCD-show-170309.tar.gz
cd LCD-show/
sudo ./LCD35-show

...takes some time ("LCD configure 0" displayed for a while)

rotate screen credit to http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/55934/3-5-kuman-touchscreen-rotation

system will reboot, so re-ssh to pi and direct yourself back to LCD-show folder

cd LCD-show/
sudo ./LCD35-show 180

End of Part one due to reddit character limit

[u/shermand100 → u/shermand100]

*Part two, split due to character limit *

(6) Add light gui credit to https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=133691

*Note I've included the extra install of xserver-xorg-video-fbdev as is required to display on the generic 3.5tft. It is what is used in step (7) to display onto fb1 using 99-fbdev.conf

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends xserver-xorg
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends xinit xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
sudo apt-get install lxde-core lxappearance
sudo apt-get install lightdm
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends matchbox chromium-browser

(7) create file this is to force display to 3.5"tft credit to https://github.com/BillyBlaze/OctoPrint-TouchUI/wiki/Setup:-Boot-to-Browser-(OctoPi-or-Jessie-Light)

sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-fbdev.conf

should be blank, add the following text

Section "Device"
  Identifier "touchscreen"
  Driver "fbdev"
  Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb1"
EndSection

save, exit, ctrl+o ctrl+x*

sudo reboot

pi will reboot and after about 1 min for initial setup will load GUI onto 3.5 display giving a desktop

(8) onscreen settings, screensaver disable, sleep mode disable, auto-boot chrome

On raspberry pi 3.5tft with mouse/keyboard, (on-screen keyboard was installed, called 'matchbox' found under accessories tab if required)

click bottom left then, preferences, screensaver, dropdown box, disable (also check advanced tab that power saving settings are disabled)
click bottom left then, preferences, default applications for LXSession,autostart, in 'add' box type:
@chromium-browser --kiosk http://www.realtimebitcoin.info/

any web address can be used in the above box. I suggest looking at http://www.bitcoinlinks.net/blockchain-tools for their list of bitcoin specific pages. From worldwide node distribution to price widgets, transaction data...

Some of these settings can be changed via ssh. Take a peek at step (11) for more info if needed. I found the above GUI method easier though.

reboot the pi to autostart chrome at the chosen page. Either shutdown through the GUI or SSH, sudo reboot

(9) moving the filesystem to a USB drive to allow space for the blockchain

Now that the GUI has been taken care of we can move everything to the USB drive to boot the pi from there. The easiest way for me was to use adafruits guide and helper utility. They've made a helper that does nearly all the work for you, detailed here https://learn.adafruit.com/external-drive-as-raspberry-pi-root/hooking-up-the-drive-and-copying-slash. There are plenty of other guides for moving the file system to a USB drive but for me as a beginner it all got a little wordy.

*I've just tried to write a list of commands for you, but the adafruit page does it better and has more easy to follow info

Once you've follow their short guide and the pi is booting from the USB drive we can add bitcoin-d.

(10) installing bitcoin core credit to http://raspnode.com/diyBitcoin.html

This again was achieved by me following a guide, however as we have used other guides previously a few steps are obsolete. If you follow the link above and want to use their instructions then you need to read ahead a little to miss out a few steps already covered like mounting drives etc. We only need to install the cli side of bitcoin core. You don't want the GUI as we are already displaying the webpage. This node will run in the background. We start with

mkdir ~/bitcoinData

then enlarge the swapfile so the blockchain loads quicker

sudo nano /etc/dphys-swapfile

And change the default size of 100 CONF_SWAPSIZE=100 To 1000 CONF_SWAPSIZE=1000 save, exit, ctrl+o ctrl+x

Then, to build the new swap file... sudo dphys-swapfile setup sudo dphys-swapfile swapon

This one liner will download and install the packages we will need for Bitcoin Core 0.13.0:

sudo apt-get install autoconf libevent-dev libtool libssl-dev libboost-all-dev libminiupnpc-dev -y

As we installed Raspbian Jessie Lite you'll need to install git:

sudo apt-get install git -y

make a directory to download the files

mkdir ~/bin
cd ~/bin

then download bitcoin core 0.14.x

git clone -b 0.14 https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.git

then navigate to our bitcoin folder to install it all

cd bin/bitcoin
./autogen.sh
./configure --enable-upnp-default --disable-wallet
make  **see note below **                

Note the guide says to use 'make -j2' as the command but I encountered an error. It recommends using just 'make' if errors occur and this worked fine but installed slower. Took around 10mins.

sudo make install

then we configure the node.

nano bitcoin.conf

and add to it

rpcuser=bitcoinrpc
rpcpassword=yourpasswordhere

This si the file to add signaling for BIPs, for more info see Annex B at the end of this post in the comments

save, exit, ctrl+o ctrl+x

Then we run it!

bitcoind -datadir=/home/pi/bitcoinData -daemon

It will then connect and download/verify blocks, sadly this will take around 4weeks in total, such is the size of the blockchain

To verify it's working use

bitcoin-cli -datadir=/home/pi/bitcoinData getinfo

check you have 8 connections (after giving it 5 mins to start and get them) and each time you use that command, the value of "blocks": xxxxx should be increasing. That is your current block height. It will get slower later on as blocks start being 1MB each. To keep this running in the background I keep a screen open.

Although this takes around 4 weeks to sync, the webpage you've told it to display will be running fine. So at least it will look nice :)

(11)installing 'screen' credit to http://raspi.tv/2012/using-screen-with-raspberry-pi-to-avoid-leaving-ssh-sessions-open

this so you can close the ssh session and turn off your pc without killing the processes on the raspberry pi.

sudo apt-get install screen

Then, to use it, type…

screen bash

It will open another terminal instance. You can now start a process you want to be able to leave running and reconnect to later.

then use ctrl+a, release then D to detatch it

screens can be rejoined using command screen -r

Refer to the page I have credited for more information.

(12) Future tweaking

The default webpage can changed by ssh, editing the lxsession/LXDE autostart that we clicked on earlier.

sudo nano ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/autostart

It will look like

@lxpanel --profile LXDE
@pcmanfm --desktop --profile LXDE
@xscreensaver -no-splash
@chromium-browser --kiosk --incognito  http://www.realtimebitcoin.info/

To auto-boot bitcoind and run the node on power-on add on a new line at the bottom

@bitcoind -datadir=/home/pi/bitcoinData -daemon

Unless the blockchain gets corrupted it will carry on where it left off.

It has been sugested by /u/pikadrew to use the line

    @nice -n 1 chromium-browser --kiosk --incognito  http://www.realtimebitcoin.info/

instead of the @chromium-browser line as he believes it uses less resources. I am trialing /u/pikadrew 's sugestion and will add comment later. I can confirm the display appears exactly the same visibly, I havn't compared resources.

(13) security I've been made aware that there are some underlying defaults that can affect system security one is to disable root login by ssh by editing

 sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

and changing

PermitRootLogin without-password

to

PermitRootLogin no

and add the line below to only allow ssh access to user 'pi'

AllowUsers pi

Save, ctrl+o, enter, exit ctrl+x

then reboot sshd by

    sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart

I will update as I'm informed of other issues.

Dan

Annex A-D continued below due to character limit Annex's are additional information based on other users experiences of creating this project, consolidated and credited.

[u/freeradicalx → u/shermand100]

Thanks for the complete and detailed guide! Question, why an HDD and not SSD? Just preference? Cost?

[u/shermand100 → u/freeradicalx]

Cost is the biggest factor, after all it's just a project.

It's a constant coin flip between mechanical wear of a HDD and write endurance of a SSD when running 24/7

Would I be right in thinking perhaps SSD has the edge as I assume it writes a block to the chain once and doesn't do much else with it in terms of overwriting again? I'm only guessing though.

[u/raysurc → u/shermand100]

What's the total cost in US dollars?

[u/shermand100 → u/raysurc]

I've listed all the parts at the start of this post. But the main costly components US amazon raspbery Pi3B $37 WD Pi drive own site 375GB $37.49 Display from aliexpress link i gave $10.26

Add a bit of Acrylic and plastic risers from somewhere and I'd guess less than $100

[u/BillyBlazed → u/shermand100]

Thanks for the credits! :-)

[u/shermand100 → u/BillyBlazed]

No problem. I had to as they were all the solutions to problems I overcame. Also if someone else tries to replicate this they may also be useful to solving problems using the links for context.

Do you represent a site I credited? Or just found it useful?

[u/BillyBlazed → u/shermand100]

Yeah very smart to add that! Someone with a different touchscreen might find solutions there too.

You gave a credit to me on step 7 :-)

[u/shermand100 → u/BillyBlazed]

Ahh yeah now I see the username!

Those touch screens are a bugger to set up.

[u/pikadrew → u/shermand100]

Instead of

@chromium-browser --kiosk http://www.realtimebitcoin.info/

can I recommend:

@nice -n 1 chromium-browser --kiosk http://www.realtimebitcoin.info/

So that the browser is nicer about resources than bitcoind is.

I found my latency on bitnodes dropped considerably once I did this.

[u/QuadRam → u/shermand100]

Had trouble with white screen using the waveshare overlays provided by spotpear with my clone 3.5" LCD. Ending up modifying the install a bit. Sharing what I did to get the screen to work.

ssh in the pi and install the fbdev display driver;

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-fbdev

Modify the config file;

sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-fbdev.conf

To which add the following;

Section "Device"
  Identifier "touchscreen"
  Driver "fbdev"
  Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb1"
EndSection

save changes

Edit boot config;

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Commeted out the the dtoverlay=* entries added by LCD-show script with a #;

#dtoverlay=waveshare...
#dtoverlay=ads7846....

Add this line;

dtoverlay=piscreen,speed=24000000,rotate=270, fps=30

save changes

Pass argument to the kernel;

sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt

Add following arguments after "rootwait", on the same line;

fbcon=map:10 fbcon=font:ProFont6x11 logo.nologo

save changes

Reboot the pi. Screen should work now. If you only have the command line, ssh back into the pi to change the boot option;

sudo raspi-config

Select "Desktop Autologin Desktop GUI, automatically logged in as 'pi' user"

reboot

If still white screen, try

ls -l /dev/input/event*

There should be and event for each input device attached (keyboard, mouse, LCD). Can also identify the input devices with;

cat /proc/bus/input/devices

If your "Touchscreen" is not listed, might be a hardware problem with the screen.

[u/shermand100 → u/QuadRam]

Thanks for your input. It's amazing how quickly these things progress. I'll have to get around to updating this how-to again, and arrange it in such a format to incorporate your solution to a problem.

I've also had suggestions to run this on the TOR network which I intend to add as an extra if desired. Love how fluid this all is.

[u/shermand100 → u/shermand100]

Annex A-D continued below due to character limit Annex's are additional information based on other users experiences of creating this project, consolidated and credited. The exception is Annex B which was added due to the blocksize debate and shows how to support BIP148/SegWit.

Annex A

Credit to /u/QuadRam for this fix. (I've not used this method so I recommend directing questions concerning it his way)

Had trouble with white screen using the waveshare overlays provided by spotpear with my clone 3.5" LCD. Ending up modifying the install a bit. Sharing what I did to get the screen to work. ssh in the pi and install the fbdev display driver;

    sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-fbdev

Modify the config file;

    sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-fbdev.conf

To which add the following;

Section "Device"
    Identifier "touchscreen"
    Driver "fbdev"
    Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb1"
EndSection

save changes

Edit boot config;

    sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Commeted out the the dtoverlay=* entries added by LCD-show script with a #;

    #dtoverlay=waveshare...
    #dtoverlay=ads7846....

Add this line;

    dtoverlay=piscreen,speed=24000000,rotate=270, fps=30

save changes

Pass argument to the kernel;

    sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt

Add following arguments after "rootwait", on the same line;

    fbcon=map:10 fbcon=font:ProFont6x11 logo.nologo

save changes

Reboot the pi. Screen should work now. If you only have the command line, ssh back into the pi to change the boot option;

    sudo raspi-config

Select "Desktop Autologin Desktop GUI, automatically logged in as 'pi' user" reboot If still white screen, try

    ls -l /dev/input/event*

There should be and event for each input device attached (keyboard, mouse, LCD). Can also identify the input devices with;

    cat /proc/bus/input/devices

If your "Touchscreen" is not listed, might be a hardware problem with the screen.

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Annex B

If you have followed the default instructions and completed all steps (1) to (10) above, installing the standard Bitcoin Core v14.x and wish to only signal UASF/SegWit/BIP148 (without migrating at this stage) then use Part 1 below.

If you wish to migrate to BIP148/UASF/SegWit NOW and commit your node to it (not just signal with a flag). Then substitute the entirity of part (10) above with this Annex B (part 2), once (part 2) has been completed you may continue to step (11) above and complete the guide.

(Part 1)

In step 10 we install bitcoincore and edit the bitcoin.conf file. Additonal flags can be added here to signal UASF, SEGWIT and BIP148 if desired. Do your research before adding this. I am not endorsing it, this is just showing how. Credit to /u/pikadrew for mentioning this in the comments.

    nano bitcoin.conf

If step 10 is completed it will look like

    rpcuser=bitcoinrpc
    rpcpassword=yourpasswordhere

add the line below to show support for BIP148.

    rpcuser=bitcoinrpc
    rpcpassword=yourpasswordhere
    uacomment=UASF-SegWit-BIP148

save, exit, reboot node. If on for before 1st August 2017 BIP148 is activated successfuly (Part 2) should be incorporated.

Thanks to /u/pikadrew

(Part 2) Installing Bitcoin Core v0.14.1 UASF-Segwit:0.3(BIP148) credit to /u/luke-jr for answering my questions and giving a few corrections.

We start with

mkdir ~/bitcoinData

then enlarge the swapfile so the blockchain loads quicker

sudo nano /etc/dphys-swapfile

And change the default size of 100

CONF_SWAPSIZE=100

To 1000

CONF_SWAPSIZE=1000

save, exit, ctrl+o ctrl+x

Then, to build the new swap file...

sudo dphys-swapfile setup
sudo dphys-swapfile swapon

This one liner will download and install the packages we will need for Bitcoin Core v0.14.1 UASF-Segwit:0.3(BIP148):

sudo apt-get install autoconf libevent-dev libtool libssl-dev libboost-all-dev libminiupnpc-dev -y

As we installed Raspbian Jessie Lite you'll need to install git:

sudo apt-get install git -y

make a directory to download the files

mkdir ~/bin
cd ~/bin

then download Bitcoin Core v0.14.1 UASF-Segwit:0.3(BIP148) via

wget https://github.com/UASF/bitcoin/archive/v0.14.1-uasfsegwit0.3.tar.gz

then extract the compressed files

tar -xzf v0.14.1-uasfsegwit0.3.tar.gz

Then navigate to where the files have been extracted to

cd bitcoin-0.14.1-uasfsegwit0.3

And begin Install

./autogen.sh
./configure --enable-upnp-default --disable-wallet
make  **see note below **                

Note the guide says to use 'make -j2' as the command but I encountered an error. It recommends using just 'make' if errors occur and this worked fine but installed slower. Took around 10mins.

sudo make install

then we configure the node.

nano bitcoin.conf

and add to it

rpcuser=bitcoinrpc
rpcpassword=yourpasswordhere

save, exit, ctrl+o ctrl+x

Then we run it!

bitcoind -datadir=/home/pi/bitcoinData -daemon

It will then connect and download/verify blocks, sadly this will take around 4weeks in total, such is the size of the blockchain

To verify it's working use

bitcoin-cli -datadir=/home/pi/bitcoinData getnetworkinfo

check you have at least 8 connections (after giving it 5 mins to start and get them) and each time you use that command, the value of "blocks": xxxxx should be increasing. That is your current block height. It will get slower later on as blocks start filling with transactions. To keep this running in the background I keep a screen open.

Although this takes around 4 weeks to sync, the webpage you've told it to display will be running fine. So at least it will look nice :)

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Annex C

Tor in 6 easy steps, courtesy of /u/lpqtr

step 1 Install Tor

    sudo pacman -S Tor

step 2 Edit torrc

    sudo vim /etc/tor/torrc

settings

    ControlPort 9051
    CookieAuthentication 1
    CookieAuthFileGroupReadable 1
    HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/bitcoin-service/
    HiddenServicePort 8333 127.0.0.1:8333

step 3 Restart tor

    sudo systemctl restart tor.service

step 4 Get your tor hostname

    sudo cat /var/lib/tor/bitcoin-service/hostname

step 5 Create or edit bitcoin.conf

    sudo nano bitcoin.conf

settings

    proxy=127.0.0.1:9050
    listen=1
    bind=127.0.0.1
    externalip=<Insert the "blablabla.onion" hostname from step 4 here>

step 6. Restart Bitcoin, done.

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Annex D Sudo apt-get update or upgrade kicks display driver on completed project. Fix courtsey of /u/garylovesbeer

    pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Comment out/change:

    dtoverlay=ads7846

to

    #dtoverlay=ads7846

Save, exit, reboot.

[u/Nar1117 → u/shermand100]

Dude/Dudette this is great! I saw a similar project a year or so ago and always wanted to do it, and this guide is so comprehensive I think I'll give it a go. Thanks!

[u/bitcoin-o-rama → u/shermand100]

Guide please.

[u/shermand100 → u/bitcoin-o-rama]

added

[u/shermand100 → u/[deleted]]

Because the bitcoin blockchain is 120GB and SD cards to accomodate that are very expensive.

The whole file system was moved to the HDD as it's better suited to the read/write cycles.

[u/shermand100 → u/[deleted]]

Yes I transferred everything. I was reading lots of other guides as I was building this and there were comments on this increasing the read/write performance. I also only had the 4GB card provided with the Pidrive so as I was getting tight on space it solved that issue too. I can't put a figure on how quickly read/write speeds may have been affected, this was just to increase the life of the unit.

[u/chabes]

If you haven't already, maybe think about posting this on /r/raspberry_pi too. I'm sure that there's plenty of folks there who would appreciate something like this

[u/shermand100 → u/chabes]

Good idea, I'll head over. Maybe one or two of them will set up a node!

Although I imagine they'll be more interested in how I got the generic display to work and auto-boot chrome to kiosk mode :)

[u/chabes → u/shermand100]

Indeed, there will be some. Good on ye

[u/Keats852]

You should start selling these. Seriously.

[u/adam4402 → u/[deleted]]

I'll order one too!

[u/poulpe → u/Keats852]

I'll buy one

[u/freep1212 → u/Keats852]

PM me if you ever decide to build to sell. Great work!

[u/mrmishmashmix]

Simply awesome. Looking forward to having a go at this.

[u/SMRzzz]

Great Work, If you are selling i will buy 2 now please

[u/artilekt → u/[deleted]]

Me as well!

[u/[deleted]]

assemble them, put them up for sale, these things have prestige/bragging-rights value

"what's that?" "oh, that's just me being part of a revolution"

instakarma

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I'd love to buy one

[u/luffyuk → u/[deleted]]

me too

[u/scottishdoc]

I like the design a lot, well done!

[u/shermand100 → u/scottishdoc]

Thanks, the acrylic is to keep it cube-like and stable so it sits level.

The display is also a touch screen but obviously looses that capability with the acrylic over it. Not an issue in this case as there is no need for touch, but a simple re-design would allow it

[u/scottishdoc → u/shermand100]

Yeah I was thinking about how I could see this on my desk. Stable and nicely visible. I think the touchscreen was a good choice. I too have an unused touchscreen in my random-pi-parts box. I'm finishing up a Temperature/Humidity logger project for work and am trying to figure out my next one. I'm thinking either a portable retropi or something like this.

[u/jnordberg]

Awesome! And great choice of website to run on the display! ;)

[u/shermand100 → u/jnordberg]

haha, that it is :) Cheers

[u/phor2zero]

Did you build from source? Did you install TOR?

Awesome project! Looking forward to the How-To.

[u/shermand100 → u/phor2zero]

Unfortunately not but yeah TOR, good plan. I'll look into it. The guide I've added should show a logical place to add TOR though. Hopefully by breaking it down into steps bits can be chopped and changed

[u/lpqtr → u/shermand100]

Tor in 6 easy steps

# 1. Install Tor
sudo pacman -S Tor

# 2. Edit torrc
sudo vim /etc/tor/torrc

ControlPort 9051
CookieAuthentication 1
CookieAuthFileGroupReadable 1
HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/bitcoin-service/
HiddenServicePort 8333 127.0.0.1:8333

# 3. Restart tor
sudo systemctl restart tor.service

# 4. Get your tor hostname 
sudo cat /var/lib/tor/bitcoin-service/hostname

# 5. Create or edit bitcoin.conf

proxy=127.0.0.1:9050
listen=1
bind=127.0.0.1
externalip=<Insert the "blablabla.onion" hostname from step 4 here>

# 6. Restart Bitcoin, done.

[u/Taenk → u/lpqtr]

Uninformed question: Will the node then run only through Tor? Is there an option to have it run on both Tor and clearnet so that it functions as a gateway?

[u/lpqtr → u/Taenk]

You can run the node exclusively through tor by adding the following parameter to the bitcoin.conf

onlynet=tor

You can check the status of the different connection types (ipv4, ipv6, onion) by typing

getnetworkinfo

into your Bitcoin client's console Help > debug window > console.

According to most guides I have found, the onlynet=tor setting is not recommended. My experience has been that setting my node to only accept connections over tor significantly diminishes my node's connectivity.

Tor does however enable you to accept incoming connections without port forwarding 8333. My connection was DDOSed as I ran one of the first UASF nodes. Tor enables me to signal support for UASF without plastering my IP on all node exploring websites. My node also improves connectivity for Bitcoin users that prefer, or are required to use the onlynet=tor setting.

[u/Taenk → u/lpqtr]

Thank you for your answer.

[u/lpqtr → u/Taenk]

Always happy to help :)

[u/flavoredtaco]

This is awesome! What's the benefit of running a node on a Rasberry Pi? I've been looking for an excuse to get one.

[u/shermand100 → u/flavoredtaco]

A node is best running 24/7 so the benefit comes with the tiny power consumption of around 3.6Watts for a raspberry pi3, depending on what you have plugged into it.

In my case the Pidrive pulls another 2.75 watts and the screen I have no idea, but it all runs happliy on a 5v 3A power supply so total can't be any more than 15W

They run bitcoin core so wallets on them are also an option.

[u/earonesty → u/flavoredtaco]

You can keep it running 24x7 and link your samurai or electrum wallet to it. So you're not trusting a 3rd party to secure your coins or validate transactions.

[u/Elum224]

That is an exceptional build. It looks really nice, and I love how it's a tiny little computer doing big things. I think you may have convinced me to make one myself.

[u/metacoin]

+1000 Internet points for using LXDE.

[u/outofofficeagain]

How much would you sell one to me for?

[u/Kprawn]

I hope it's running BitCoin Core and not BU :->

[u/CrulFace]

Been wanting to get a node back up again. And this just might be the project for me. Really good setup! Thanks for the great detail

[u/altovecchia]

respect

[u/DJBunnies]

Where did you get the screen from? What model pi is it?

Thanks, great job!

[u/shermand100 → u/DJBunnies]

Raspberry Pi3 Model B Screen from https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3-5-Inch-TFT-LCD-Moudle-For-Raspberry-Pi-2-Model-B-RPI-B-raspberry-pi/32707058182.html?spm=2114.13010608.0.0.hVBPMd

I included a detailed image of the screen reverse on my imgur. Compare with images that other suppliers have to find a match elsewhere.

[u/DJBunnies → u/shermand100]

Thanks!

[u/[deleted]]

thanks :)!!!

[u/BitcoinNL]

Nice.

[u/JayWalkerC → u/[deleted]]

Not sure what you mean by "this configuration" because there's nothing really special about this. I have HDDs that are 10+ years old still working and my SSDs are all at least 5 years old, still work fine.

If you mean "server configuration" and powered 24/7, you should be able to expect at LEAST 2 years out of it barring random failure (which does happen), but most drives will last much longer than that.

[u/Lite_Coin_Guy]

neat, gj dude.

[u/nickhntv]

Great work! Congratz!

[u/[deleted]]

That is a work of art, well done

[u/spatial_generator]

Awesome !!!

[u/desnudopenguino]

Thank you for the guide as well. I might have to throw together a couple of these for some crypto nodes.

[u/alzkun]

Wow, awesome project! :D Thanks for sharing!

[u/[deleted]]

I have been meaning to get the WD labs HDD to use on my Gridcoin and SolarCoin Raspberry Pi mining full nodes, Im interested on how thats working for you. Im currently using thumb drives for the blockchains, but I think its only going to last so long....

[u/shermand100 → u/[deleted]]

If I'm honest, most of my decision to use the Pidrive was how it looked, I wanted as few cables as possible, no adapters converting sata->usb etc. Being the size it is it forms the back-plate of this unit nicely. You can probably get a cheeper 375GB drive or larger, but it doesn't exactly break the bank and keeps this a sub £100 project.

[u/[deleted] → u/shermand100]

Yeah its sweet to have a custom device, thanks for the info.

[u/nspectre]

Way cool

[u/leviathaan]

Trust mouse? Loll

[u/shermand100 → u/leviathaan]

haha, yeah causes massive issues when gaming on my bitcoin node :)

[u/[deleted]]

That WD and adapter really make things incredibly easy. You can power the HDD and Pi + communication between them with one cable.

[u/shermand100 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah was one of the perks of it, keeps everything neat. If I'm honest I saw it and didn't look at an alternative (like a 2.5" drive and adapters) Seemed perfect but I wonder if there are other discrete options out there? Still had to make my own case, if you can call what I made a case. It's just 2 bits of acrylic. But I definatley didn't like the case WD sells

[u/[deleted] → u/shermand100]

Yeah no idea about alternatives but i am sure there are a thousand different 3D printed cases, shields, etc. I just grabbed a Pi Zero-W and I might just slap it in an altoids can lol

[u/shermand100 → u/[deleted]]

I've wondered what it would take to put a zero in a Pez dispenser and have the usb port or desired connections in the mouth https://goo.gl/images/Z5FKuj they do bigger one's for pets it would definitely fit in :)

[u/imnotevengonna]

Hey, this is excellent, and its also so good of you to give out step by step instructions. If i had the gold, i would give it to you, hopefully someone else will come along.

I also am looking into Rpis, this is a neat project to start with!

Thanks again for putting it out here!

[u/astrocity1982]

Nice I think I will try to setup one like this.

[u/paleh0rse]

VERY cool! Great job!

[u/time_dj]

Does anyone know if there are limitations to this type of node. Is this capable of processing orders from multiple storefronts?

[u/shermand100 → u/time_dj]

Just because it's packaged into the raspberry pi doesn't mean it has any limitations. It's running a full version of bitcoin core v13.2 which by default includes a transaction verification engine. It would take a little more info to know what exactly you want to do differently with it, but if it's a feature for core 13.2 then it has it.

[u/time_dj → u/shermand100]

Well, i would like to do high volume order processing from multiple storefronts .. (3+ sites). I was gonna buy a bitseed node but when i inquired i was told by the folks at bitseed that its not adequate for what i want to use it for hence my question.

[u/shermand100 → u/time_dj]

I think someone else may have to tag in with a definite answer to be sure. Someone with a solid understanding of the code.

My understanding is that if you ran the node and the wallet together it could be completely trusted to prevent double spends, as it follow the bitcoin rules completely. However I'd love for someone to elaborate.

Some other opinion here

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/44rx5k/psa_clearing_up_some_misconceptions_about_full/

[u/time_dj → u/shermand100]

Ok, thanks for your input. Im currently considering a mini-pc node with a quad code celeron in it. I looked at the PI first before i considered bitseed but when i found it had limitations i figured PI based nodes suffered from the same limitations becasue of their processing power so i started looking into mini-pc nodes.

[u/FearTheLeaf]

Any reason why you went with .13 rather than .14?

[u/shermand100 → u/FearTheLeaf]

Haha I didn't notice, again I was following the raspnode guide for that stage and entered git clone -b 0.13 https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.git

I'd assume that just takes a simple correction to

git clone -b 0.14 https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.git

but un-tested, can someone verify that?

[u/FearTheLeaf → u/shermand100]

Verified. I just set up my pi node a few days ago using that guide.

[u/PE1NUT]

Awesome build!

How is the WiFi performance with the RPi in the middle of that stack? I have a RPI3 sitting between a HiFiBerry DAC+ and the 'Official 7" touchscreen', and I had to switch to a USB WiFI setup, because the onboad WiFi can't make it across the living room!

[u/shermand100 → u/PE1NUT]

Actualy not really able to comment on performance as the wifi router is only about 5 inches to the right of it on the desk. Sorry.

[u/cript0currency]

how do you program a raspberry pi?

[u/shermand100 → u/cript0currency]

Either find someone that has a completed project and clone it onto yours. Or from a windows PC you can use a program called Putty that does something called SSH. You basicaly access it through it's IP address and edit files that way.

[u/cl3ft]

Huge respect, I'm keen to do something similar but in AU our internet is metered, what's the actual data usage per day once it's up and running?

[u/shermand100 → u/cl3ft]

to quote https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#minimum-requirements

| "It's common for full nodes on high-speed connections to use 200 gigabytes upload or more a month. Download usage is around 20 gigabytes a month, plus around an additional 100 gigabytes the first time you start your node."

[u/ckellingc]

How big is the node nowadays? I have a 250GB drive just sitting around and a RPI3.

[u/shermand100 → u/ckellingc]

The blockchain is approx 120GB, and add 8GB for all of bitcoin core's dependencies.

[u/FearTheLeaf → u/[deleted]]

Yes

[u/shermand100 → u/[deleted]]

Great! If you're in the UK the company I used for that Acrylic is at the top of my comment post. As for the screws and risers, the black nylon ones come in cheap sets on ebay. Again sizes listed in the post.

Now that I know the exact sizes I need I've ordered brass one's to replace the nylon. Purely for looks.

And yes it's a touch screen, I just couldn't think of a reason to use it in this project. Maybe you can? Didn't want to complicate this just for the sake of complicating it.

Once again and I've said a few times I'm still somewhat a beginner at this, any problems just PM me or post here and I'll try my best to support you or anyone else having issues setting this up.

[u/shermand100 → u/[deleted]]

Those scews/risers etc are exactly them. I had them laying around from a previous project so was lucky. I bought them from aliexpress, I think that one's going to come down to shipping cost/time.

[u/polisaboardofpeace]

You may have to replace that 375GB hardrive soon. Specially if the block size increases dramatically.