How to use headless Pi3 bitcoin node over ethernet on windows GUI wallet

[btc123thatthere]

Hi there

So I've got a headless Raspberry Pi 3 full node staying synced up (bitcoind -daemon with no wallet, Ubuntu with no GUI.).
On the same LAN, I've got a Windows machine with bitcoin core.
The Pi is operated using Putty on the Windows machine.
How can I tell bitcoin-qt (I mean to say the GUI) on the windows machine to act as a dumb terminal and use the Pi to process requests over the LAN? I want to leave the wallet file on the windows machine and use the GUI on windows (I don't want to use terminal commands for transactions or requests.)
I've had a peek around this weekend but can't seem to find quite what I'm looking for.

Thanks

[Carlton Banks]

start the Windows bitcoin instance with -connect=192.168.<your rPi's>.<local ip address>  as a parameter to the command you use to start the bitcoin-qt application. Or put the line connect=192.168.<your rPi's>.<local ip address> in a file called bitcoin.conf in you bitcoin datadir (note the connect line has no preceding dash char if you go the bitcoin.conf route)


Windows node should then connect to that IP only, and thus relay transactions using the rPi node only. Configure your router to give the Pi a static IP and that'll work indefinitely.

This will only work when you're using you local network, you'd need to do one of the various different ways to make the Pi directly accessible over the internet if you want to be able to do the same thing from a different LAN


Note that Microsoft are sucking all user data from your machine, you are sacrificing your financial privacy when using Windows

[btc123thatthere]

That's actually what I'm doing at the moment, and it's good that it doesn't use unncessary internet bandwidth when syncing, but it still takes an hour or so to verify everything, even though the Pi's already done that.

How can I get the windows machine to not bother storing its own blockchain data and get the Pi to do all that for it?
Perhaps you could say so that bitcoin-qt on the windows machine connects to bitcoind on the Pi?

Thanks

[Carlton Banks]

hmmm, wait till version 0.19.0. I think what you're talking about might be possible then (depends how the developers get along with separating the wallet into a different process than the node, which is in progress right now).

But right now, I don't think it's possible to have 2 different instances of Bitcoin with access to the same block information. I'm happy to be wrong, if anyone else has an idea how to do it.

[poordeveloper]

This user seems to have done what I was thinking on proposing you (pruning), which is not the definite solution but seems to be quite near to what you're asking: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3180631.msg45680078#msg45680078

By configure with -prune=550 and -connect=xxx.xxx.xxx to limit bitcoin-qt connect to my local live node with minimum space consumption. Though, it still take up ~700MB space.

[btc123thatthere]

Thanks for all your ideas, much appreciated.

ETFbitcoin: I am biased towards bitcoin core for no strong reasons, as I see Electrum is open source too. However I do find it easier to send a whole balance from bitcoin core rather than electrum. (Bitcoin core does the sums for me )

poordeveloper: I didn't think of using a pruned node on the windows machine as a solution: I think this is the answer for quick wallet access without depending on a third party node.

I was watching & reading about people who set up a bitcoin core node on a virtual private server for the sake of anonymity, and I thought they told their wallet to connect solely to it, so I assumed it would be possible (and somewhat simpler) on a LAN.

I was assuming that bitcoin-qt (or bitcoin-cli?) could talk to the Pi node via SSH (or similar solution) to do all its work for it.

It's good to see there's a few solutions

Going by this: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7455/how-to-setup-a-lan-network-with-only-one-bitcoind-client-downloading-the-blockch:
I should try doing this:
- On the Pi, add "server=1" to its bitcoin.conf file
- On the Windows machine's bitcoin.conf file, add "rpcconnect = (Pi's local IP)" and ["connect = 0.0.0.0" to stop it from updating its own blockchain].

Carlton Banks: you've set off my curiosity regarding windows leaking user data. Have you got any interesting links on this? Thanks

[HCP]

However I do find it easier to send a whole balance from bitcoin core rather than electrum. (Bitcoin core does the sums for me )

Electrum has a "max" button, just click that... it'll send everything (subtracting the fee as set).

Or are you talking about sending X amount and having the transaction fee added so the receiving party receives exactly X and not (X-fee)? Because, as far as I'm aware, Electrum does this by default.

Or you mean a whole balance from a specific address? Because you can select specific UTXOs in Electrum and/or specific address(es) and select "Spend from" (then use MAX button) and it'll only allow you to spend the selected UTXOs... or the UTXOs related to the selected addresses.

[Carlton Banks]

Going by this: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7455/how-to-setup-a-lan-network-with-only-one-bitcoind-client-downloading-the-blockch:
I should try doing this:
- On the Pi, add "server=1" to its bitcoin.conf file
- On the Windows machine's bitcoin.conf file, add "rpcconnect = (Pi's local IP)" and ["connect = 0.0.0.0" to stop it from updating its own blockchain].

that sounds like it should achieve what you're after

Carlton Banks: you've set off my curiosity regarding windows leaking user data. Have you got any interesting links on this?

any tech site has been following this since the introduction of W10; it's an advertised feature. Microsoft collects all user input, all hardware input and as much user data as they wish. It can be switched off, but what if that's not working? :/

sticking with W7 or W8 won't work either, automatic updates including this specific "feature" are pushed to those versions too. It's ok though, Microsoft have promised to only ever use the data to improve your Windows experience!!! They're really nice people like that