ObjSal / bitcoin-for-raspberry-pi

Bitcoin Core for Raspberry Pi

Bitcoin Core for Raspberry Pi

Bitcoin Core RPC client version v0.18.0.0-g2472733a24a9364e4c6233ccd04166a26a68cc65

If you're looking for the official Bitcoin Core for ARM download it directly from the bitcoincore download site, make sure you download the 32-bit version, checkout the recommendations below.

This repository contains bitcoind, bitcoin-cli, bitcoin-tx, bitcoin-wallet and test_bitcoin compiled from source code in Raspberry Pi Model B from the official source code.

Building the bitcoin core for Raspberry was very time consuming so I'm making these publicly available for my personal backup, please feel free to use them at your own risk, I highly recommand downloading these binaries from the official download site or build from source, I followed a great guide by Damian Mee titled Bitcoin Full Node on RBP3 (revised).

Check binary integrity

After downloading the files, check integrity by running the following command from the terminal:

$ sha256sum --ignore-missing --check SHA256SUMS.asc

You should receive the following output:

bitcoin-cli: OK
bitcoind: OK
bitcoin-tx: OK
bitcoin-wallet: OK
test_bitcoin: OK
sha256sum: WARNING: 19 lines are improperly formatted

Verify the creator

To verify the creator of the binaries, run the following commands:

# If you haven't already, obtain a copy of my personal signing key:
$ gpg --recv-key 9747978CEAC8ACDEAF2AC3773661EB54D8D413C8

# Verify that the checksums file is PGP signed by Salvador Guerrero:
$ gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.asc

# Check the output from the above command for the following text:
 1. A line that starts with: gpg: Good signature
 2. A complete line saying: Primary key fingerprint: 9747 978C EAC8 ACDE AF2A C377 3661 EB54 D8D4 13C8

Trust the PGP key

If you haven't sign my personal PGP key, you will get a warning that the key is not certified with a trusted certificate, follow the below commands to fix it:

# If you haven't already created a personal key, create one now
$ gpg --get-key

# Sign the public key
$ gpg --sign-key 9747978CEAC8ACDEAF2AC3773661EB54D8D413C8

Recommendations

Here are list a few recommendations before running bitcoind for the first time

• Use Raspbian Lite, at the time of this writing I was using version June 2019, here's the information from the terminal:
  • $ uname -a prints Linux raspberrypi 4.19.50-v7+ #896 SMP Thu Jun 20 16:11:44 BST 2019 armv7l GNU/Linux
  • $ dpkg --print-architecture prints armhf
• Use an Micro SDCard at least 512GB (when running without external HDs).
• Disable swap to prolong the life of the Micro SDCard.
  • $ sudo swapoff --all disabled swap, will revert after reboot
  • $ sudo apt-get remove dphys-swapfile permanently disables swap
• Download the entire blockchain on a personal computer and then copy everything except the wallet dir.
• Encrypt and backup the wallet.
• Enable RPC only for local networks.
• If SSH is enabled, change the defauls password for pi and root.
• Install a Firewall like the uwf (Uncomplicated Firewall).
• Install something like Fail2Ban to scan logs and ban IP addresses conducting too many failed login attempts.
• Run the bitcoind service as a non-root user.
• Create a service to autostart bitcoind on reboot.
  • For convenience, download the bitcoind.service file in this repository and copy this file to /etc/systemd/system/
  • Run $ sudo systemctl enable bitcoind to enable it.
  • Run $ sudo systemctl start bitcoind to start it.
• Install dependencies (might not be needed for official binaries)

Dependencies

To build from source code I had to install the following packages, if you don't have these installed on your system, run will fail and you will need to install them by running the below command:

$ sudo apt install libssl-dev libevent-dev bsdmainutils libboost-system-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-chrono-dev libboost-program-options-dev libboost-test-dev libboost-thread-dev libminiupnpc-dev libzmq3-dev jq

I removed git build-essential libtool autotools-dev automake pkg-config from the above command because I think these are build only specific requirements, please let me know if any of these are required to run as well.