Bitcoin Forum

Where do most web services host a reliable bitcoind server to handle their traffic?  Such as SatoshiDice.com, BTCDice.com or any other rapid 0 confirmation service?

Any VPS will do, but the real question is how to secure a bitcoind, that is most important part.

some give only 256mb of RAM which is really dodgy for bitcoind... make sure you get AT LEAST 512.

is that the reason why bitcoinmax.com is down after the login page?

I host bitcoind on my home PC. Never trust Bitcoin wallet to the hosting company!

That is why you have to read TOS, and privacy policies, but if your power or internet goes down then your service is kinda done.

Have you ever seen at least one web hosting company who takes any liability in its terms of service?! ;D

I wouldn't trust to host it in a server, unless I owned that physical server.
Very few know how to keep your bitcoin secure on a server, so It's best to keep it separate and off-site from the main server.

Liability has nothing to do with this, but if you look at the TOS and privacy policy most web hosting companies can't access your server with out your permission or they need to have a cause to look at the files on it. Also I would never host a hot wallet, from a home network, this just opens you up hackers, where they can get at more of your bitcoins.

if you have a nice home-connection you could do this:

have your bitcoind on a local machine in your house behind router/firewall and connect it via TOR network TOR HIDDEN SERVICE

then you can install TOR on your web-server and from your web-app you can connect to your homeserver.

this needs the web-app to be able to cope with connection errors... having a list of pre-generated receive-addresses ...

you get the deal...

It just takes some research and securing bitcoind is pretty easy, if you know linux. It is best to have a front end machine that does all the web stuff, and bitcoind on it's own vps.

Pretty much all the major hacks involved some idiot running bitcoind on a server they did not have physical custody of.

The linode employee who uses their admin interface to steal $80,000 or $250,000 bucks worth of bitcoins doesn't seem to give two shits for any "we will not steal your data" policies their employer might have in their terms of service. There is not really much if any evidence they would give any more or less shits about $80 worth or even $8 worth. (Thought they might lurk watching the small ones, watching for the right moment to catch the wallet at a peak of its value...)

-MarkM-

you do realize in the linode hacks the wallet wasn't encrypted either js

Are you suggesting the term idiot was too mild a term?

Or that root does not have access to userspace RAM?

Or both?

-MarkM-

Yes, that is all it takes, yet it still happens a lot where the worst still happens.

Buy a cheap used rack server that is compatible with BSD/Linux and buy cohosting somewhere local where you can get access to your server and back it up encrypted on a regular basis. Where I live it's $40/mth and it sits behind an OpenBSD pfSense firewall with carp. There's also local console access to think about if you don't trust the cohost, plenty of IDS to set up, SElinux MAC, ssh keys ect.

I also like the Tor idea though I imagine that must be crazy slow, could see applications timing out before they reach bitcoind. I'll have to test that

Use blockchain.info's rpc service? http://blockchain.info/api/json_rpc_api

A vserver should be enough to host bitcoind.
If there is a lack of technical knowledge maybe managed hosting is an option.

As bitcoind is not very bandwidth intense its maybe an option to host it at home on a dedicated machine.

I get nothing but errors using that with PHP.

Maybe give BitVPS a try.

Anyone have experience running it off a EC2 Server on AWS?

Anybody? I'm interested in the same.

YES. It works well. You can use Cloud9 to set up very strict access control as well. It's not as cheap as a VPS, but at least you know you're instance is secure.

Just to provide a little bit of perspective, you can run a bitcoind on any server you want but you need to manage the funds on that server according to the risk.

On a cheap ass VPS on a host you don't really trust? Keep it to $20 worth or less of BTC on the server.

Running dedis in your network of hardened bunkers? Increase that to $1000-100000 worth (maybe you have real work to do).

It's easy talk to say, "Don't ever store bitcoins on the server" but to not mention risk management and some sense of stored value vs. difficulty of attack is reckless advice.

Wouldn't it be better to build something and get ripped off once for $20 than to get 10% complete on something that is 100% Secure(tm)*?

* exists only in textbooks and back-of-the-envelope designs

Please don't host it on some random dude's server, who admits he has no bitcoins, and has no rep, this is recipe for disaster.

I would recommend cold storage solution, only way to keep bitcoins safe.

You could just use your logs and get the password from him or sniff all incoming traffic. It takes time to earn rep, being around, helping and using the forums is how you build rep, just like a credit card, over time we will see your a good guy.

Maybe you could put it to use hosting a spare electrum server mirror?

Or he can just host a node on it, and just not the use the wallet, to help protect the network.

Well I hate to be the bad guy, but sadly if someone paid for storage on your server, they be a fool, and yes you could easily trick a newbie into letting you host a site or files for them, but that would be mean. So help the community out so later we can help you out.

I'm experimenting with a setup that utilizes two servers, a cheap VPS for the frontend, and dedicated hardware I have physical control of to run bitcoind and the backend.  The backend services can be further segregated using VMs.  The VPS handles all internet traffic, whereas the backend only communicates directly with the VPS with signed messages.  The frontend can verify that messages from the backend are valid, and the backend can maintain its own records to audit the requests sent by the frontend.  If the VPS was compromised, then any malicious requests sent to the backend would raise alarms.

Currently, I'm not handling any coin, so it is a bit overkill, but this kind of design would be extremely beneficial where security matters.



I don't think that SSH logs record passwords, that would be a huge security issue.

Youre welcome :)


I just signed up and am officially running the bitcoind on an EC2 server :) Its downloading the block chain but taking ages.

Do you have one running on an EC2 instance gweedo?

It was fast up until the more recent blocks, now its taking ages. Damn satoshidice and all those transactions!

for setup bitcoind for sci you can use any vps , but if you want shared hosting , i suggest you choose :
http://leaseweb.com (http://leaseweb.com) / Netherlands location
http://godaddy.com (http://godaddy.com)  / popular hosting
http://kabuuk.com (http://kabuuk.com)   / good price