Before you begin you'll need to have about 100GB of disk space available to store the Bitcoin blockchain plus additional database information. Both 64bit Mac OS X and GNU/Linux are currently supported. The process of downloading the blocks and indexing can take upwards of 4 hours, depending on Internet connection and other factors. So it's suggested to plan accordingly and let the node syncronize while you're away. It's also possible to use an existing Bitcoin data directory, which will speed up the process.
It's recommended to install the Node Version Manager, as this makes it simple to switch between different Node.js versions. We will specifically need to install and run v0.12. Please follow the directions at https://github.com/creationix/nvm#install-script and then run:
nvm install v0.12.7Bitcore Node will come with a commandline utility for creating and managing your full node. To get started you can run these commands, and you'll then have bitcore-node command in your path:
npm install -g bitcore-node@latest
Note: It's should not necessary to run this command with sudo, as it should install in your home directory.
To create a node with a fresh data directory:
bitcore-node create mynodeThis will create the directory "mynode" and install all of the necessary dependencies and configuration files for your node.
To create a node if you already have a Bitcoin data directory that you want to use:
bitcore-node create -d <path-to-datadirectory> mynodeThe database directory will likely be at ~/.bitcoin. Please make sure however that you'll need to have txindex enabled in your bitcoin configuration file. To enable txindex add txindex=1 and reindex=1 to ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf. After you start Bitcoin with reindex=1 you can remove it, however leave txindex=1.
Your node can run on "livenet" or "testnet". If you wish to configure the network you can do so by opening the bitcore-node.json configuration file:
cd mynode
gedit bitcore-node.jsonAnd change the network value to "testnet" or "livenet", here is an example configuration file:
{
"name": "Bitcore Node",
"services": [
"address",
"bitcoind",
"db",
"web"
],
"datadir": "/home/user/.bitcoin",
"network": "livenet",
"port": 3001
}
As mentioned previously, this process can take several hours to complete, so you can likely start the script and come back later to check on the status. So let's get started!
cd mynode
bitcore-node startThis will start up all of the services that have been enabled in your configuration file. The first service that will most likely be started is Bitcoin itself, followed by others that depend on it, such as the Database and Address Service. The syncing process will connect to other Bitcoin peers in the network and start downloading the blockchain, verifying proof-of-work, transaction history and start creating indexes to query the blockchain. Both Bitcoin and the Database Service will log the status of the initial syncronization process.
Get details about the genesis block:
bitcore-node call getBlock 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26fGet the balance of an address, results are in satoshis:
bitcore-node call getBalance 12i6Y6TZsmbFPJiQr6UXqTqmkL5j2FCXD3 trueThe first argument is the address and the second is a boolean to include the mempool (true includes the mempool).
While running individual CLI commands can be useful way to interact with your node, being able to view it, may even be better. So let's get started by installing the blockchain explorer Insight!
bitcore-node install insight-api insight-ui
This will run an npm command to download the package insight-api and add it to your node's package.json as well as bitcore-node.json. The next time you start up your node, the service will be enabled and you'll be able to open your web browser to view the explorer.
Go to the URL (default):
http://localhost:3001/insight/