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Bitcoin Satellite

Table of Contents

Overview

Bitcoin Satellite is a fork of FIBRE (Fast Internet Bitcoin Relay Engine) and, consequently, also a fork of Bitcoin Core. It features a version of the bitcoind application with support for the reception of blocks sent over satellite in UDP datagrams with multicast addressing. You can find in-depth information about Bitcoin Satellite on the project's Wiki page.

Installation

If using the GUI, go to the Receiver tab and select the Settings sub-tab. Then, open the Bitcoin dropdown menu and select "Install Bitcoin Satellite," as shown below:

GUI Bitcoin Satellite Installation

If using the CLI, install bitcoin-satellite by running:

blocksat-cli deps install --btc

NOTE:

  • This step works with the two most recent releases of Ubuntu LTS, Fedora, Debian, and Raspbian.

  • bitcoin-satellite is a fork of bitcoin core. As such, it installs applications with the same name (i.e., bitcoind, bitcoin-cli, bitcoin-qt, and bitcoin-tx). Hence, the installation of bitcoin-satellite will fail if you already have bitcoin core installed.

Alternatively, you can install bitcoin-satellite manually from binary packages or from source.

Configuration

Next, you need to generate a bitcoin.conf file with configurations to receive Bitcoin data over satellite. If using the GUI, select "Create configuration file" on the Bitcoin dropdown menu shown above.

With the CLI, run the following command:

blocksat-cli btc

By default, the generated bitcoin.conf file is placed at ~/.bitcoin/, the default Bitcoin data directory used by Bitcoin Satellite. However, you can specify an alternative datadir as follows:

blocksat-cli btc -d datadir

Running

Next, run bitcoind as usual, like so:

bitcoind

Note that other Bitcoin Core options are supported and can be added to the generated bitcoin.conf file or as arguments to the above command. For example, you can run the node based on satellite links only (unplugged from the internet) using option connect=0 on bitcoin.conf or by running:

bitcoind -connect=0

Also, you can run bitcoind in daemon mode:

bitcoind -daemon

Once bitcoind is running, you can check the satellite interface is receiving data by running the following command:

bitcoin-cli getudpmulticastinfo

If the receiver is correctly locked to the satellite signal, you should see a bitrate around 1.09 Mbps.

Furthermore, you can check the number of blocks being received concurrently over satellite with the following command:

bitcoin-cli getchunkstats

Further Information

UDP Multicast Reception Option

The GUI and the CLI command described previously generate the bitcoin.conf required to process the multicast-addressed UDP/IPv4 stream received over satellite. The main option defined on the generated configuration file is the udpmulticast option, explained next.

There are several ways to configure option udpmulticast, depending on your hardware setup, such as your receiver and the satellite from which you are receiving the signal. The option should be set as follows:

 -udpmulticast=<if>,<dst_ip>:<port>,<src_ip>,<trusted>[,<label>]

With this command, the application listens to multicast-addressed UDP messages sent by IP address <src_ip> towards IP address <dst_ip>:<port> using interface <if>. When option <trusted> is set to 1, the application assumes the sender is a trusted node. Lastly, option <label> assigns a label to the multicast stream in order to facilitate the inspection of logs.

Consider the following example:

udpmulticast=dvb0_0,239.0.0.2:4434,172.16.235.9,1,blocksat

In this case, it follows that:

  • dvb0_0 is the network interface receiving multicast-addressed UDP messages out of the receiver.
  • 239.0.0.2:4434 is the destination IP address and port of the packets sent over satellite.
  • 172.16.235.9 is the IP address of the Blockstream ground station node broadcasting data over the satellite network (each satellite has a unique source IP address).
  • 1 configures this stream as coming from a trusted source, which is helpful to speed up block reception.
  • blocksat is a label used to facilitate the inspection of logs.

Please note that the bitcoin.conf file generated by the GUI or CLI already has the udpmulticast option with the appropriate parameters for your chosen hardware and satellite, so no further action is needed.

Installation from Binary Packages

We recommend using the GUI or CLI to install the Bitcoin Satellite application, as instructed previously. However, you can also install bitcoin-satellite manually from the binary packages available for the two most recent Ubuntu LTS, Fedora, Debian, and Raspbian releases. The manual installation instructions are as follows:

Ubuntu:

add-apt-repository ppa:blockstream/satellite
apt-get update
apt-get install bitcoin-satellite

If command add-apt-repository is not available, install software-properties-common.

Debian:

add-apt-repository https://aptly.blockstream.com/satellite/debian/
apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com \
    --recv-keys 87D07253F69E4CD8629B0A21A94A007EC9D4458C
apt-get update
apt-get install bitcoin-satellite

Install gnupg, apt-transport-https, and software-properties-common, if necessary.

Raspbian:

add-apt-repository https://aptly.blockstream.com/satellite/raspbian/
apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com \
    --recv-keys 87D07253F69E4CD8629B0A21A94A007EC9D4458C
apt-get update
apt-get install bitcoin-satellite

Install gnupg, apt-transport-https, and software-properties-common, if necessary.

Fedora:

dnf copr enable blockstream/satellite
dnf install bitcoin-satellite

If command dnf copr enable is not available, install dnf-plugins-core.

CentOS:

yum copr enable blockstream/satellite
yum install bitcoin-satellite

If command yum copr enable is not available, install yum-plugin-copr.

Compilation from Source

To build Bitcoin Satellite from source, first, clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/Blockstream/bitcoinsatellite.git
cd bitcoinsatellite/

Then, install all build requirements listed in the project's documentation.

Next, run:

./autogen.sh
./configure
make

This will build the bitcoind application binary within the src/` directory, and you can execute it from there. Alternatively, you can install the application in your system:

make install

Detailed build instructions can be found within the project's documentation.

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