Phoenix Server - Easy Lightning Node

Introduction

In this guide I will walk you through how to install Phoenix Server AKA PhoenixD on your headless server to give you the functionality of Phoenix LN Mobile wallet but on your server.

Installing PhoenixD

Grab the install files from the latest release: https://github.com/ACINQ/phoenixd/releases

VERSION="0.3.2"
wget "https://github.com/ACINQ/phoenixd/releases/download/v${VERSION}/phoenix-${VERSION}-linux-x64.zip"
wget "https://github.com/ACINQ/phoenixd/releases/download/v${VERSION}/SHA256SUM.asc"
wget https://acinq.co/pgp/drouinf.asc
gpg --import drouinf.asc
gpg -d SHA256SUM.asc > SHA256SUM.stripped
sha256sum -c SHA256SUM.stripped --ignore-missing

Assuming the checksum and signature are valid you can then proceed with copying the binary files to your binary directories.

VERSION="0.3.2"
sudo rsync -aP "phoenix-${VERSION}-linux-x64/*" /usr/local/bin/
sudo rsync -aP "phoenix-${VERSION}-linux-x64/*" /var/lib/

Setting up PhoenixD

The setup process is very easy. Just go into your commandline and run phoenixd. This will initialize a folder called ~/.phoenix which contains all the relevant files to run your PhoenixD.

After you run phoenixd for the first time, interrupt the command with CTRL+C and this will shut it down. Now you just need to setup a .service file to make sure it remains running in the background 24/7.

Backup Seed

The 12-word seed phrase for your wallet is stored in plain text in ~/.phoenix/seed.dat. Back up this phrase somewhere for recovery. I would probably recommend backing up the complete contents of ~/.phoenix.

Review Defaults

You might also want to review some of the default settings and decide whether you want to override these in ~/.phoenix/phoenix.conf. In particular you might want to set a different max mining fee.

Liquidity Options:
  --auto-liquidity=(off|2m|5m|10m)  Amount automatically requested when inbound liquidity is needed (default:
                                    2m)
  --max-mining-fee=<int>            Max mining fee for on-chain operations, in satoshis (default: 1% of
                                    auto-liquidity amount)
  --max-fee-credit=(off|50k|100k)   Max fee credit, if reached payments will be rejected (default: 100k)

Options:
  --chain=(mainnet|testnet)              Bitcoin chain to use (default: mainnet)
  --mempool-space-url=<value>            Custom mempool.space instance
  --http-bind-ip=<text>                  Bind ip for the http api (default: 127.0.0.1)
  --http-bind-port=<int>                 Bind port for the http api (default: 9740)
  --http-password=<text>                 Password for the http api (full access)
  --http-password-limited-access=<text>  Password for the http api (limited access)
  --webhook=<value>                      Webhook http endpoint for push notifications (alternative to
                                         websocket)
  --webhook-secret=<text>                Secret used to authenticate webhook calls
  --silent, --verbose                    Verbosity level (default: prints high-level info to the console)

Create .service file

sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/phoenixd.service

Unit]
Description=PhoenixD
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/phoenixd
User={your_username}

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable phoenixd.service
sudo systemctl start phoenixd.service
sudo systemctl status phoenixd.service

Using PhoenixD

This new Phoenix instance will charge around 1% fee + mining costs, but it manages all the liquidity for you. You can LN receive payments immediately and I don't yet see a native option for sending from onchain to the wallet as you might in Phoenix mobile.

To create a channel you run phoenix-cli getoffer and pay from another LN wallet to the static invoce. Once you do this you can do phoenix-cli getinfo and phoenix-cli getbalance to monitor your wallet.

Read more about the Auto-Liquity setup here.

Bonus Setup - Phoenixd-Server-Ui

Hodladi has setup a web-ui for interfacing with your PhoenixD instance: https://github.com/Hodladi/Phoenixd-Server-Ui

You can self-host this or use his public instance: https://pwallet.app/

If you use the public instance you will have to use something like CloudFlareD Tunnels to forward your LAN PhoenixD http web socket located at http://localhost:9740 to your own public facing domain name.

If you use a self-hosted instance then you just give it the LAN IP address in full with http:// and the port 9740 together with the http-password from ~/.phoenix/phoenix.conf.

4.7 KiB Raw Permalink Blame History