Running Electrum Server ?

[OmegaStarScream]

I have few questions about Running electrum server and I hope someone who have enough knowledge about this can answer me .

How can I make one and do I need to buy a host etc .. or I can simply make it on my PC just like full nodes (if it's the case then how secure is it to make the server on your PC) , if I need to fund them and buy host etc ... how much it would cost me to do that ? and ... is there is there is any benefits from running a server ? or basically nothing just helping Electrum users ?

[Quickseller]

and ... is there is there is any benefits from running a server ? or basically nothing just helping Electrum users ?

I believe that electrum servers can often receive donations for running their servers. I am unsure as to how much they receive or even if they amount to anything writing home about.

I would not recommend running an electrum server on your PC because of the resources running one takes up, and unlike running a full node, many people are going to depend on your electrum server to get their transaction and broadcast their transactions so performance is a little more important then running a full node

[OmegaStarScream]

and ... is there is there is any benefits from running a server ? or basically nothing just helping Electrum users ?

I believe that electrum servers can often receive donations for running their servers. I am unsure as to how much they receive or even if they amount to anything writing home about.

I would not recommend running an electrum server on your PC because of the resources running one takes up, and unlike running a full node, many people are going to depend on your electrum server to get their transaction and broadcast their transactions so performance is a little more important then running a full node

Speaking about the donations , is the "Console" tab written by people who run a specific server ? is it how they receive the donation's by posting their addresses there ?
Ty for the answer , I hope someone can give more info about the costs etc ...

[Quickseller]

Yes, what is written in the console tab is from the person/entity who is running the electrum server you are connected to currently (or at least at one point -- I am not entirely sure when this changes, however I was able to change the electrum server I was connected to and what is displayed on the console did not change)

[OmegaStarScream]

Then it wouldn't make sense I suppose ? It's either change when you change server or it don't . I hope ThomasV can answer this and still looking for more answers pls ,ty guys

[mocacinno]

Then it wouldn't make sense I suppose ? It's either change when you change server or it don't . I hope ThomasV can answer this and still looking for more answers pls ,ty guys

I have a VPS ideling at the moment, i would also be interested running it as an electrum node for a couple of months (i payed a yearly fee for this one, but stopped using it... It's payed up front for another 4-5 months).
IF somebody gives a donation, it would be welcomed to compensate a bit of my server price. If nobody donates anything, at least the recources were used instead of ideling.

[bctmke]

You'll need bitcoind so you'll need plenty of diskspace.

Plus the electrum database which is another 20gigs or so (you're up to at least 80 if not more like 90gigs of hard drive space).

From a resources perspective you don't need the latest processor but you definitely want a bunch of memory.

As for security thats on you.

[mocacinno]

In the meantime, i've found that the tutorial here works just fine:

https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-server/blob/master/HOWTO.md

If you follow it, you end up with a fully functional electrum server 

[OmegaStarScream]

In the meantime, i've found that the tutorial here works just fine:

https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-server/blob/master/HOWTO.md

If you follow it, you end up with a fully functional electrum server 

Thanks mate , I'm going to take a look at it . Hopefully it contain answers for my questions as-well .

[HeXaN]

In the meantime, i've found that the tutorial here works just fine:

https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-server/blob/master/HOWTO.md

If you follow it, you end up with a fully functional electrum server 

I have a vps, what i need? 1gb ram? x gb? transfer size?

[mocacinno]

In the meantime, i've found that the tutorial here works just fine:

https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-server/blob/master/HOWTO.md

If you follow it, you end up with a fully functional electrum server  

I have a vps, what i need? 1gb ram? x gb? transfer size?

I'm not an expert on this... I followed the complete how-to on a clean debian box (8 XEON cores, 16Gb RAM). When i look at my server, it's load is around 0.2, and about 2,5 Gb memory was used... So i guess you can run an electrum server on a VPS, given that you have some swap space. Altough, during the loading fase where you install bitcoind and load the blockchain, a sufficient amount of processing power and ram might speed things up

[HeXaN]

In the meantime, i've found that the tutorial here works just fine:

https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-server/blob/master/HOWTO.md

If you follow it, you end up with a fully functional electrum server  

I have a vps, what i need? 1gb ram? x gb? transfer size?

I'm not an expert on this... I followed the complete how-to on a clean debian box (8 XEON cores, 16Gb RAM). When i look at my server, it's load is around 0.2, and about 2,5 Gb memory was used... So i guess you can run an electrum server on a VPS, given that you have some swap space. Altough, during the loading fase where you install bitcoind and load the blockchain, a sufficient amount of processing power and ram might speed things up

Thanks!
Im going to try it this weekend

[OmegaStarScream]

I'm not an expert on this... I followed the complete how-to on a clean debian box (8 XEON cores, 16Gb RAM). When i look at my server, it's load is around 0.2, and about 2,5 Gb memory was used... So i guess you can run an electrum server on a VPS, given that you have some swap space. Altough, during the loading fase where you install bitcoind and load the blockchain, a sufficient amount of processing power and ram might speed things up

Totally agree with mocacinno.  I am running an Electrum Server for Bitcoin and Litecoin on the same VPS.  The processing power and ram is crucial during the Bitcoin "catching up" phase (synching to the blockchain, AND later creating the UTXOs for Electrum).   SSD is essential during the catching up phase - I have tried with rotational HardDisks (7200RPM) and it is not possible for Bitcoin anymore (Litecoin, still possible).  With rotational drives, the new blocks come in faster than the HD/CPU can process.

You will need 70GB of storage for the Bitcoin blockchain and 30 GB for the Electrum UTXOs, plus your Linux operating system, and dependancies requirement: I suggest a minimum of 150GB SSD.  

Litecoin needs 10GB for its blockchain and 5 GB for the Electrum UTXOs.

When all are in synch, the VPS uses about 5GB of RAM and 10% CPU (total, including system, bitcoind, litecoind, electrum-servers).

Summary: I use a 4 CPUs core VPS with 8GB ram, and 150GB SSD storage, and run both Litecoin and Bitcoin Electrum-servers on the same VPS.  


  

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Thank you so much for the details , but do you ahve any idea about that "Console" tab on the Electrum Interface ? is it made by the owners of the servers ? If it's the case then how come Quickseller (as you can see his above post) changed the server but the console message didn't change .

[OmegaStarScream]

Thank you so much for the details , but do you ahve any idea about that "Console" tab on the Electrum Interface ? is it made by the owners of the servers ? If it's the case then how come Quickseller (as you can see his above post) changed the server but the console message didn't change .

Yes, the console msg is created by the owner of the Electrum-server.

If you look in the Electrum.conf file (electrum.conf.sample of the Github directory), you can create your own "/etc/electrum.banner" file that will display whatever you want.

EDIT: There is a default console msg for Electrum-server.  If you don't create the electrum.banner file, it will display the standard msg. 

Oh well now it make more sense then ,thank you so much for your help

[dan91]

Managed to get mine up and running now too. Seem to have quite a few connections


Out of interest anyone else who is running it if you do

Code:

electrium_server getinfo

how many sessions do you have?

[mocacinno]

Managed to get mine up and running now too. Seem to have quite a few connections


Out of interest anyone else who is running it if you do

Code:

electrium_server getinfo

how many sessions do you have?

root@dedi:~# electrum-server getinfo
{
    "blocks": 391665,
    "cached": 30996,
    "peers": 47,
    "sessions": 195,
    "watched": 517
}
root@dedi:~#

[dan91]

root@dedi:~# electrum-server getinfo
{
    "blocks": 391665,
    "cached": 30996,
    "peers": 47,
    "sessions": 195,
    "watched": 517
}
root@dedi:~#

Thanks No wonder my ram is nearly full.. My #watched and #cached :O


{
    "blocks": 391689,
    "cached": 70396,
    "peers": 47,
    "sessions": 299,
    "watched": 11089
}

[mocacinno]

It doesn't have a big impact on my RAM at the moment...
I'm using about 5Gb, and have about 11Gb free.

The numbers do seem to fluctuate a lot, at the moment i have:

Code:

root@dedi:~# electrum-server getinfo
{
    "blocks": 391726,
    "cached": 42071,
    "peers": 48,
    "sessions": 90,
    "watched": 60
}

But about 2 hour ago i had:

Code:

root@dedi:~# electrum-server getinfo
{
    "blocks": 391678,
    "cached": 32502,
    "peers": 46,
    "sessions": 224,
    "watched": 976
}