The Lightning Network FAQ

[darkv0rt3x]

I have had enough of my share of debates against franky1 about the Lighting Network, or anything, that many other people in the forum got annoyed because the topics ended with the both of us debating. He has been gaslighting/spreading disinformation everywhere. He always denies the fact that all Bitcoins in Lightning are actual Bitcoins, calling them IOUs. I give him an explanation why they’re not IOUs, he replies with a VERY LONG “technical” post of confusion to troll you.

Absolutely, and even after @Rath_ backing up many of his replies with actual examples and even code, he kept trying to kind of "unsay" (not sure if this word even exists) what @Rath_ was saying. So, I said quite early that that discussion was turning useless.

Saying that the milisatoshis are not Bitcoin, is in my perspective, almost the same that saying that cents of dollar are not dollar or cents of Euros are not Euro. Anyway, the discussing is over for me!

I agree with you that the argument about milisatoshis not being bitcoin is dumb as fuck, but it is like he is saying that if the cent is divided into 100 or 1,000 then it is not really a cent because the smallest unit that you can transact in the physical world is the cent, so dividing the cent into 100 or 1,000 is not the same thing as the cent itself because the cent does not allow being divided further.. .which again is a stupid argument.....and even a waste of time to get into discussions regarding such nonsensical claims.. and of course, that is not the ONLY nonsensical claim that franky1 makes.. some of the claims get confusing, but they largely add up to the same thing.. nonsense, misleading, irrelevant etc..

Still, even if it's not possible to use 1/100 or 1/1000 of a cent in the physical world, I still can counter that with another kind of rhetorical question (not towards you but would be towards franky1 argumentation): So, if you have a piece of wood representing the unity (or is it unit) entity and you divide it by 100, we would have cents of that unity (or is it unit), which by chance is wood, right? It doesn't lose its natural characteristics  or properties that makes us call it wood, would it? So if you divide each cent into another 100 or a 1000 parts, would it now lose those properties? Like, it would still be wood. So, how could a satoshi that is a fraction of a Bitcoin not being Bitcoin after being divided again by another 100 or 1000 parts?

Actually, darkv0rt3x, I was going to make some similar comments as you in terms of why LoyceV was giving a platform to someone like franky1 who has shown himself to be disingenuine and misleading and banned from certain parts of the forum for good reason.. and in that regard, what good is it going to do to give a platform to someone who has already shown himself over and over and over to not be posting with any intentions beyond confusing and misleading the issues... but you ended up making some of the criticisms before me.. and I have not quite made it through the whole thread, yet...

Please do. Whatever I may have said, you can always speak out your thoughts too, even if they end up being similar to mines. And I agree with you. And further, I have registered in thsi forum for quite a while, despite the fact that I only started posting more frequently more recently, and I can tell that I saw quite a few posts of mine being deleted just because they were short or apparently there were adding nothing to discussions, which I disagree, but it was what it was. However, the posts of this user, beyond confusing and many times, as you said, misleading, he kept bringing people down with all those kind of disguised insults, so my question is why was he being allowed to continue with that type of speech. Anyway, that was up to the mods, I guess.

so maybe I will say something further on the topic, not sure if I have anything to add beyond what you had already said, and likely even LoyceV is seeing some futility in having had given a platform to franky1.... sure maybe it is not completely futile.. I mean I did read several of the responses of some of the posters, and even Rath_ did get excited enough about the thread in order to share a link to it here... so Rath_ likely does not mind providing some of that information again in the context of responding to the largely disingenuine points of franky1.

I admit I couldn't read some of final posts of franky until their very end because, I also admit I don't have that much knowledge to be able to keep up and verify, confirm or deny what was being said, but I probably read more than 90% of the thread!
Rath_  is one of the persons I known with more knowledge of the intrinsics on the LN network and of course he got excited. He could put to the practice his knowledge and probably, even test himself, which is always good. Challenge ourselves!

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[d5000]

Just a quick question:

Are "channel factories", aka multiparty channels where all participants can transact with each other, already theoretically possible with the current Bitcoin protocol? Or do they depend on SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT and Eltoo?

All I found regarding this question when searching the web is this LN mailinglist post from 2020 ("Simulating Eltoo Factories using SCU Escrows (aka SCUE'd Eltoo)"), but it seems from a first glance that I'm not knowledgeable enough about LN to understand it. It seemed however, according to the answers of C. Decker, that it should be possible.

If yes, is there any project/coding currently taking place for that? Thanks already!

[LoyceV]

and likely even LoyceV is seeing some futility in having had given a platform to franky1.... sure maybe it is not completely futile..

Since franky1 isn't allowed to respond here, I think it's only fair to keep any discussion that concerns him in [self-moderated] Is LN Bitcoin? franky1: About scaling, on-chain and off-chain.
@Rath_: feel free to wipe this off-topic post of mine at any time, although I hope it stays long enough to get this topic back on the LN-topic only (and not about specific users).

[BlackHatCoiner]

I couldn't connect to your node using only the pub key! Can you provide your node URI?

Sorry for not responding! This must be it:

Code:

039a7e0982d3b0f967dfc18b8b69c9e8cafd035985eff1832258daf08de119b10e@pn4dvsmjxpkemwsuhocrytdpfgrqjzbd6zagasyrg4msce63sldxtlqd.onion:9735

Do you already have a channel from your C-Lightning node to your Electrum node?

You mean from my Electrum client? No, because I can't establish a connection. Both my Electrum node and C-Lightning node run on the same computer. (RPi 4)

Side question: why are you trying to use Electrum for Lightning all the time? Why not whip up a second C-Lightning or lnd node?

I don't know, I just like the easiness of Electrum. Do you recommend me to run another C-Lightning node on my main computer and make those communicate? What would be the benefits?

[n0nce]

Side question: why are you trying to use Electrum for Lightning all the time? Why not whip up a second C-Lightning or lnd node?

I don't know, I just like the easiness of Electrum. Do you recommend me to run another C-Lightning node on my main computer and make those communicate? What would be the benefits?

Well if you have two nodes that you both control, you can play around with channels, fees and transactions more easily. I thought that's what you were trying to do with the C-Lightning + Electrum thing.
But now I seem to understand Electrum shall act as a front-end for C-Lightning? Can it do this?
I haven't done that so far; instead I either use CLI or RTL web interface.

[BlackHatCoiner]

But now I seem to understand Electrum shall act as a front-end for C-Lightning? Can it do this?

It allows you to open channels with nodes so I acted as obviously as I could. I wanted to test if my node works just like others, but it doesn't. I've thought of installing RTL, but it's a hustle and I don't find the time to devote one whole day for the Lightning Network. 

[Rath_]

I tried opening a channel to your node through Electrum and I got the same error, but I also enabled logs:

Code:

INFO | lnworker.LNWallet.[default_wallet] | adding peer 039a7e0982d3b0f967dfc18b8b69c9e8cafd035985eff1832258daf08de119b10e@pn4dvsmjxpkemwsuhocrytdpfgrqjzbd6zagasyrg4msce63sldxtlqd.onion:9735
INFO | lnpeer.Peer.[LNWallet, pn4dvsmjxpkemwsuhocrytdpfgrqjzbd6zagasyrg4msce63sldxtlqd.onion:9735] | Disconnecting: SOCKSFailure('unknown SOCKS5 error code: 240')

I looked up your node on 1ml.com and for some reason your onion address is not listed there, which means that it is not advertised properly. There might be something wrong with your Tor setup.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Yes, I think I had forgotten to include something in the Tor configuration file. Now that I reread n0nce's C-Lightning installation guide I believe it should be working fine. (Although I have a problem with the service, but I'll make a post there as it's off-topic)

C-Lightning is running. The full URI is shown in 1ml.com so it is advertised properly. However, when I try to establish a connection from the Electrum client (again), I get the same CancelledError().

Log:

Code:

20220128T092225.634863Z |     INFO | lnworker.LNWallet.[themaintestnetwallet] | adding peer 039a7e0982d3b0f967dfc18b8b69c9e8cafd035985eff1832258daf08de119b10e@xixzo67fevmab7wytj5qp7mowvbildpbr7xgaj4hp5dbqgr36termcyd.onion:19735
20220128T092231.541283Z |     INFO | network | fee_histogram [[1.0, 18965]]
20220128T092231.677023Z |     INFO | lnpeer.Peer.[LNWallet, xixzo67fevmab7wytj5qp7mowvbildpbr7xgaj4hp5dbqgr36termcyd.onion:19735] | Disconnecting: SOCKSFailure('connection refused')

Why is it refusing to connect...

[n0nce]

But now I seem to understand Electrum shall act as a front-end for C-Lightning? Can it do this?

It allows you to open channels with nodes so I acted as obviously as I could. I wanted to test if my node works just like others, but it doesn't. I've thought of installing RTL, but it's a hustle and I don't find the time to devote one whole day for the Lightning Network. 

I will add the still missing section about RTL install and configuration later, then it won't take a day to get it running, I promise!
However, it sounds like it should be possible with Electrum, as well. Probably a misconfiguration.

C-Lightning is running. The full URI is shown in 1ml.com so it is advertised properly. However, when I try to establish a connection from the Electrum client (again), I get the same CancelledError().

Log:

Code:

20220128T092225.634863Z |     INFO | lnworker.LNWallet.[themaintestnetwallet] | adding peer 039a7e0982d3b0f967dfc18b8b69c9e8cafd035985eff1832258daf08de119b10e@xixzo67fevmab7wytj5qp7mowvbildpbr7xgaj4hp5dbqgr36termcyd.onion:19735
20220128T092231.541283Z |     INFO | network | fee_histogram [[1.0, 18965]]
20220128T092231.677023Z |     INFO | lnpeer.Peer.[LNWallet, xixzo67fevmab7wytj5qp7mowvbildpbr7xgaj4hp5dbqgr36termcyd.onion:19735] | Disconnecting: SOCKSFailure('connection refused')

Why is it refusing to connect...

Is the port correct (matching configuration - in my guide and own config I used 9735) and have you rebooted after changing configuration? Sometimes it's easiest to reboot because it restarts all the services kind of in oder.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I will add the still missing section about RTL install and configuration later, then it won't take a day to get it running, I promise!

Thank you! 

Is the port correct (matching configuration - in my guide and own config I used 9735) and have you rebooted after changing configuration? Sometimes it's easiest to reboot because it restarts all the services kind of in oder.

The port is supposed to be 19735 as that's the testnet port number. I haven't followed your guide in a detailly way; for instance I don't have openSUSE. I have just C-Lightning installed.

I don't understand how will reboot help, but once I do it I'll let you know.

[Rath_]

@BlackHatCoiner, I see that n0nce's guide includes some instructions on editing the /etc/tor/torrc file, but it appears to me that something is missing.

Try adding the following lines of code to your torrc file.

Code: (https://lightning.readthedocs.io/TOR.html)

ControlPort 9051
CookieAuthentication 1
CookieAuthFileGroupReadable 1

Also, you need to double-check your c-lightning config.

Code: (https://lightning.readthedocs.io/TOR.html)

proxy=127.0.0.1:9050
bind-addr=127.0.0.1:19735
addr=statictor:127.0.0.1:9051
always-use-proxy=true

Don't forget to restart Tor (systemctl restart tor) and c-lightning after making changes.

[BlackHatCoiner]

[...]

I just did. Same errors:

Code: (Electrum client log)

039a7e0982d3b0f967dfc18b8b69c9e8cafd035985eff1832258daf08de119b10e@xixzo67fevmab7wytj5qp7mowvbildpbr7xgaj4hp5dbqgr36termcyd.onion:19735
20220128T162054.871007Z |     INFO | lnpeer.Peer.[LNWallet, xixzo67fevmab7wytj5qp7mowvbildpbr7xgaj4hp5dbqgr36termcyd.onion:19735] | Disconnecting: SOCKSFailure('connection refused')

[Rath_]

I just did. Same errors:

Did you look at other instructions in this documentation? Maybe your user is not a member of Tor group?

Code: (https://lightning.readthedocs.io/TOR.html)

stat -c '%G' /run/tor/control.authcookie

The output is {TORGROUP} which you need for the next command.

Code: (https://lightning.readthedocs.io/TOR.html)

usermod -a -G ${TORGROUP} ${LIGHTNINGUSER}

Try restarting c-lightning afterwards.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Note: I run C-Lightning from the same user that I run Bitcoin Core. I don't know if it matters.

The output is {TORGROUP} which you need for the next command

The output of this command is debian-tor.

What exactly do I execute next? This?

Code:

usermod -a -G $debian-tor $bitcoin

It returns me:

Code:

usermod: option requires an argument -- 'G'

[Rath_]

Note: I run C-Lightning from the same user that I run Bitcoin Core. I don't know if it matters.
What exactly do I execute next? This?

You need to remove all '$' signs from the command.

Code:

usermod -a -G debian-tor bitcoin

Do you have any incoming connections in Bitcoin Core? Does it run behind Tor as well?

[BlackHatCoiner]

You need to remove all '$' signs from the command.

Code:

usermod -a -G debian-tor bitcoin

Done and restarted C-Lightning. The error remains. Something tells me that I have to reinstall C-Lightning for the 4th time. Any tutorials recommended besides n0nce's that I have to also install openSUSE?

Do you have any incoming connections in Bitcoin Core? Does it run behind Tor as well?

Yes and yes.

[Rath_]

I don't have any more ideas for now. We might find a clue in either Tor or c-lightning* logs.

* - you need to append log-level=debug:connectd to your config file and restart your node.

Any tutorials recommended besides n0nce's that I have to also install openSUSE?

Why don't you follow the official documentation? It's pretty straightforward. There are instructions for a couple of different operating systems if you want to compile the source. You can also use pre-compiled binaries if you don't have much time.

[n0nce]

Is the port correct (matching configuration - in my guide and own config I used 9735) and have you rebooted after changing configuration? Sometimes it's easiest to reboot because it restarts all the services kind of in oder.

The port is supposed to be 19735 as that's the testnet port number. I haven't followed your guide in a detailly way; for instance I don't have openSUSE. I have just C-Lightning installed.

Oh right, I see. I saw some people use 19735 for Tor connection and 9735 for clearnet, didn't know it was the convention to use the former for testnet actually. My suspicion was that it could have been an issue like setting 9735 in torrc but telling C-Lightning to use 19735, so both simply not matching.

I don't understand how will reboot help, but once I do it I'll let you know.

Sometimes when you restart only bitcoind or only lightningd, there were little bugs / issues in the past.

@BlackHatCoiner, I see that n0nce's guide includes some instructions on editing the /etc/tor/torrc file, but it appears to me that something is missing.

Try adding the following lines of code to your torrc file.

Code: (https://lightning.readthedocs.io/TOR.html)

ControlPort 9051
CookieAuthentication 1
CookieAuthFileGroupReadable 1

Nope, it's not needed. I didn't just copy-paste C-Lightning instructions for a reason.
Specifically, I don't like to open the control port and just connect 'manually'. Therefore, also the addr=statictor is not needed.
I can confirm that my guide works if followed 1:1 (even if only installing Lightning with it), because I followed it myself a while ago from a fresh install.

Code: (https://lightning.readthedocs.io/TOR.html)

proxy=127.0.0.1:9050
bind-addr=127.0.0.1:19735
addr=statictor:127.0.0.1:9051
always-use-proxy=true

Don't do this if you follow my guide.. Following this part 'standalone', should work just fine.

Don't forget to restart Tor (systemctl restart tor) and c-lightning after making changes.

Or like this, but should be equivalent: sudo service tor restart

[Amph]

there will be a version of this integrated in the main wallet? and not separated one, which may look kinda of tech savy for many normal people?

[n0nce]

there will be a version of this integrated in the main wallet? and not separated one, which may look kinda of tech savy for many normal people?

A version of what? And which main wallet? You mean whether Lightning will be integrated into Bitcoin Core?
No, Lightning will not be integrated into Bitcoin Core and it wouldn't even necessarily make anything simpler.

If you want something simpler, you can use Lightning through light clients such as:
Electrum
Breez
Wallet of Satoshi

However, if you want to help decentralize the LN network, just as is the case when decentralizing the Bitcoin L1 network, you do need to get into the 'tech savvy' intricacies of running your own full node.