Full Node FreeBSD: request help

[nuxbsd]

Hi all,

I'm talking to you about making a full node running on FreeBSD and I hope I'm in the right part.
The goal is to benefit the node for the network but also to understand the operation.
The more nodes there are, the more beneficial it is for the network and its users.

I have a lot of questions regarding this project.
Your advice and your experience are welcome.
You may find some questions ridiculous, but I count on your indulgence.

For this I need to proceed in stages.

Steps 1: installation and recovery of the blockchain
The node does not have a graphical interface, all done via CLI with ssh.
OS: FreeBSD 12.1

What I have already done currently:

• installation of bitcoin-daemon-0.20.1
• installation of bitcoin-utils-0.20.1
• opening of port 8333 to the node
• recovery of the blockchain about 332Gb

Then I stopped the knot because the primary objective had been reached.
When it restarts it will update the register and it will take less time to wait this time.
I use the https://bitnodes.io/ site to see the connection status.

Node part questions:

• Do I absolutely have to add a wallet to the node?
• If so, how to create it?
• How to secure it properly?
• How to connect from a client machine to the node?

Client part questions:

• What do you advise me as a client to connect to the node?
• I tried to use Bitcoin Core but it tries each time to retrieve the blockchain when it is already on my node?

Thank you so much
Yours truly.

[bob123]

• How to secure it properly?

Your node or your wallet?

If i understand you correctly, your node is hosted on a server and not your local machine. If this is the case, you shouldn't store BTC in this wallet.

Regarding your node, not opening unnecessary ports, restricting root login via SSH (use sudo instead) and disabling password authentication (use public-/private keys for that) is a good first step.

• How to connect from a client machine to the node?

This depends on the client. What exactly do you want to achieve?

• What do you advise me as a client to connect to the node?

Not too many wallets allow to directly connect to your own node.
One of the best (if not the best) wallet for protecting a users privacy which also allows to connect to your own node, is wasabi.

• I tried to use Bitcoin Core but it tries each time to retrieve the blockchain when it is already on my node?

Do you mean you tried core on your local machine to connect to your node? AFAIK that's not possible in such a way that you don't need to sync the blockchain on your local machine.
If you are talking about your node, then core should only update the latest few blocks (roughly 1 block per 10 minutes; total amount depends on the time your node was offline).

[nuxbsd]

Thanks for the answers, it's really very motivating.

For ETFbitcoin:
Thank you for your reply.
The Bitcoin Core that I use on a Debian client machine tries to recover 10 years of blockchain each time, so not just a few blocks.
For this reason, I do not use it.

- Is it possible to connect it directly to the node through the LAN?

I forgot to mention that all my machines are running Linux.
I'm going to look around Wasabi.

For bo123:
Thanks also for your reply.

- How to secure the node on the server as well as the wallet running on a remote Linux machine?

My node is hosted on a BSD server and I moved the bitcoin part to a 1Tb hard drive in a chroot part.
I then opened TCP port 8333 on the router.
For ssh root connection under FreeBSD it is restricted and ssh only works on LAN, ssh is not accessible from WAN.
Please tell me to use the key sets rather than the password. I also go through sudo.

- I want to realized a node operate 24 hours a day and being able to connect to the node from the LAN only from a machine that will have the client containing the wallet.
- I would also like to be able to interrogate the node with the rpc commands but this remains another step.

For node synchronization it took exactly 4 days and 332Gb of disk space.

Here is my bitcoin.conf

Code:

#----BITCOIN CORE----
# Specify data directory
datadir=/srv/blockchain

#Specify directory to hold blocks subdirectory for *.dat files (default: <datadir>)
blocksdir=/srv/blockchain

#Run in the background as a daemon and accept commands
daemon=1

# Set database cache size in megabytes; machines sync faster with a larger cache. 
# Recommend setting as high as possible based upon machine's available RAM.
dbcache=2048

#----NETWORKING----
# Bind to given address and always listen on it. Use [host]:port notation for IPv6
#bind=<addr>

# Specify your own public IP address.
#externalip=<ip>

# Listen for incoming connections on non-default port.
# Listen for connections on <port> (default: 8333, testnet: 18333, regtest: 18444)
port=8333

# Connect via a SOCKS5 proxy
#proxy=127.0.0.1:9050

#-----------------------------------------------------------
# [rpc]
#
# Accept command line and JSON-RPC commands.
#server=1
# Accept public REST requests.
#rest=1
# Listen for JSON-RPC connections on this port
#rpcport=2300

#-----------------------------------------------------------
# [wallet]
#
# Do not load the wallet and disable wallet RPC calls
disablewallet=1

Thanks again.

[califminer]

I have been running bitcoin testnet on FreeBSD for a while and I too am intending on upgrading to a full real node.

Is your machine locally hosted or is it with some VPS/Cloud provider?
I will be keeping a wallet so using any loud service is unadvisable right?

[nuxbsd]

califminer:

The machine is hosted locally.