You need a Lightning Network node and Telegram in order join PLEBNET.
There's several newbie options for getting a Lightning node set up and running.
- BTC SESSIONS has a good video walkthrough for getting started with Raspberry Pi and Umbrel
- Umbrel is a newbie-friendly package that runs on Raspberry Pi v4+
- RaspbiBlitz is another option for Raspberry Pi
- Start9 is an all-in-one option that includes the necessary hardware
- myNode is another all-in-one with hardware
- RaspiBolt has some good information on how to set up the necessary services manually
Security note for Umbrel: Your Umbrel node is only as secure as your network (WiFi/LAN). Be sure to read the Security Disclosure from the Umbrel team.
PLEBNET discussion and coordination happens on the Telegram chat platform.
Download the Telegram app and join the PLEBNET group.
The companion Telegram channel PLEBNET Library contains high quality materials collected from chat group traffic.
A Telegram bot that will allow you to join and interact with the PLEBNET.
You'll want to send a message to @cheeserobot
to claim and add your node. Start with /claim
and follow the instructions to get add your node id. Then, in the PLEBNET channel, use /id@cheeserobot
to get yourself added to the graph.
Generate a Lightning wallet and add some funds so that you can open channels. Keep in mind that PLEBNET prefers girthy channels, so fund your node accordingly.
If you're not yet able or willing to offer girthy channels and just want to get started with a smaller amount of sats, Turgidson is for PLEBNET newbies and will accept channels as low as 20k.
Otherwise, you'll need to find some other nodes in PLEBNET to open channels with.
You can go to http://graph.kycjelly.com/ to see the current visual graph of nodes, or type /graph@cheeserobot group
in the PLEBNET chat. /groupnodes@cheeserobot
will output a list of the 50 most recent members and nodes. You can contact plebs form the graph or list and see if they'd like to open a channel.
You can also just ask in the PLEBNET channel if anyone is interested in opening a channel with you.
If you're just getting started and want to find some other nodes to open channels with, here's some places where other plebs have had success:
It's best to have fewer big channels with more sats than it is to have many smaller ones. The recommended minimum channel size is 2 million sats, which would be 1 million per node on the channel.
The idea is to have balanced channels. This means that there is an equal amount of sats between each node on the channel.
For example, if Node A
opens a channel with Node B
for 2m sats, it will start entirely on their end. Node A
will want to find a way to have 1m sats on each side of the channel.
There are several different ways to accomplish this.
ONLY DO THIS WITH ESTABLISHED AND TRUSTED PLEBNET NODES! IT IS POSSIBLE TO LOSE SATS DOING THIS.
Node A
opens a channel with X satsNode B
sends a Lightning invoice for half of the amount X sats that was opened on the channel- The
Node A
operator sends the address of their preferred on-chain Bitcoin wallet to the operator ofNode B
- The
Node B
operator sends half of the amount X sats of the opened channel to the Bitcoin wallet of the operator ofNode A
from step 3 Node A
pays the Lightning invoice
When you're running a lightning node, it's important to keep consistent uptime. This is good for you, your peers, and the overall community. Making sure your node stays online improves your reliability, as well as the reliabity of nodes that connect to you. If your node reboots or goes offline repeatedly, your reputation will be negatively impacted, and other peers will choose to route around you. If your node is offline for an extended period of time, you also run the risk of having your open channels force-closed, which can result in losing sats as the channel balance settles on-chain.
One of the most important aspects to keeping your node online is setting a static IP address. Normally, your router assigns IP addresses dynamically to every device on the network. When the router refreshes its IP tables from time to time, some or all of the devices connected to it are reassigned new addresses. Generally, your devices will not alert you when this happens. Some models of wireless printers will display a message on the screen when the IP address changes, but by default, your laptop, smartphone, or node will not inform you when this happens.
The solution for this is to change your router's settings to lock the IP address used by your node. Depending on the type of router you use, this might be referred to as a manually-assigned IP, a reserved IP, or you may need to simply turn off automatic IP assignment. You might have to look in the advanced settings section to find this feature. Once you've set the IP address, you shouldn't have to reboot your node, but if you do, it should retain the same IP address when it comes back up.
Example of the Reserved IP settings screen on the Google Home app.
One simple way to be notified in the event your node becomes unavailable is to register it with @lightningwatchbot, a Telegram bot that will keep an eye on your node's up/down staus. Start a conversation with the bot, and it will walk you through the steps to connect your node. As a free service, it will send you alerts on a one hour delay. For a faster response time, you can open a channel of any size with the bot (a great way to practice opening channels) and send it a small payment to receive notifications for your desired duration.
Currently, Lightning Watch Bot charges the following fees:
- 1 hour for 5 sats
- 1 day for 90 sats
- 1 week for 600 sats
- 1 month for 2400 sats
- 6 months for 14400 sats
- 1 year for 27600 sats
A UPS (uninterruptible power supply) ensures that your node continue to function through minor power fluctuations and power outages.
If you don't shut your Raspberry Pi down properly this is essentually the same as pulling the power cord out of your desktop computer every time you want to shut it down. When this happens, you risk corrupting your device's SD card, as well as data on your hard drive.
The solution is to you plug your device into a high-output power bank. This is basically a juiced-up version of what you might use to charge your phone while camping. The battery pack gets plugged into the wall and your device gets plugged into the battery pack.
A UPS should only be relied on to provide you with enough time to safely shut down your node until your power is restored. You should not connect your router or modem to the UPS due to potential data corruption that may occur if your node is in the process of writing to the disk when a power outage occurs.
Many UPS devices have a loud audible alert that will be triggered when the power goes out.
Here are some options to consider:
- https://amzn.com/B01FWAZEIU
- https://amzn.com/B00DBAA696
- https://amzn.com/B07BXZPF99
- https://amzn.com/B073Q3BSPG
If you want to automate a graceful shutdown for the node once the UPS power capacity goes to a minimum level, you can connect the UPS Serial port (via USB) to the Raspberry Pi or PC and have it communicate with the UPS once configuring the UPS daemon in the Pi or you Linux setup correctly, it will initiate a graceful shutdown if the capacity hits 5%
The following steps should be run via SSH:
sudo apt-get install apcupsd
sudo nano /etc/default/apcupsd
In /etc/default/apcupsd change 'ISCONFIGURED=no' to 'ISCONFIGURED=yes'
sudo nano /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf
Change the values as below, make sure the DEVICE field is empty, the default is /dev/ttyS0 and should be cleared.
UPSNAME myups
UPSCABLE usb
UPSTYPE usb
DEVICE
Note - Make sure the Restart apcupsd
sudo apcupsd restart
Check UPS status:
apcaccess status
output example:
$ apcaccess status
APC : 001,035,0900
DATE : 2021-06-14 02:13:51 +0000
HOSTNAME : umbrelmavic
VERSION : 3.14.14 (31 May 2016) debian
UPSNAME : myups
CABLE : USB Cable
DRIVER : USB UPS Driver
UPSMODE : Stand Alone
STARTTIME: 2021-06-13 01:38:35 +0000
MODEL : Back-UPS ES 350
STATUS : ONLINE
LINEV : 120.0 Volts
LOADPCT : 0.0 Percent
BCHARGE : 100.0 Percent
TIMELEFT : 36.4 Minutes
MBATTCHG : 5 Percent
MINTIMEL : 3 Minutes
MAXTIME : 0 Seconds
SENSE : High
LOTRANS : 88.0 Volts
HITRANS : 139.0 Volts
ALARMDEL : 30 Seconds
BATTV : 13.7 Volts
LASTXFER : Unacceptable line voltage changes
NUMXFERS : 1
XONBATT : 2021-06-13 01:50:34 +0000
TONBATT : 0 Seconds
CUMONBATT: 251 Seconds
XOFFBATT : 2021-06-13 01:54:45 +0000
STATFLAG : 0x05000008
SERIALNO : XXXXXXXXXXXX
BATTDATE : 2007-06-08
NOMINV : 120 Volts
NOMBATTV : 12.0 Volts
FIRMWARE : 823.B1.D USB FW:B1
END APC : 2021-06-14 02:13:55 +0000
Once the output looks correct, specifically the STATUS shows as ONLINE, you can test the setup by disconnecting the UPS from the main power, watch the message prompts on the terminal and and let the battery drain until the point that a showdown will be initiated, this will confirm that your setup is correct.
Personalizing your node makes it easier for your node to be identified by others. You can give it a name and a color that shows up when your node is viewed using external applications, such as 1ml and graph.kycjelly.com.
In order to do this, you will need to access your node via the command line terminal using SSH. If you're using Umbrel/LND, use these instructions.
If you're familiar with the Linux command line, you'll find this step very simple. You can view a cheat sheet of common Linux commands here.
Important note: Whenever you update your node's software, you will need to reset these settings, so you should take note of the these settings for reference. (Do not overwrite the new lnd.conf with your old version, just update those specific lines.)