[Guide] How to run a Bitcoin Core full node for under 50 bucks!

[n0nce]

Anyone ever tempted to run a node off a solar panel? I assume a single board computer would likely be the most realistic way of going about it.

Not..... yet! I plan to get something relatively large but still single panel that would easily power a node even on cloudy days.
The more ambitious part would be also developing a hashboard that is then dynamically powered on / off depending on sun availability. Mainly to show the counterintuitive concept of harvesting otherwise 'lost' energy (since the solar panel will produce much more than what a little pi needs on sunny days) and therefore run not only carbon-neutral, but you could argue carbon-negative mining.

I would disagree it's carbon-negative. You need to consider carbon footprint during production[1] and whether it's recyclable after the panel reached end of life/broken[2].

Well, my point is that without the hashboard, the same solar cell that runs your node, actually produces more power than needed most of the time (to be able to get through the shortest days of the year). So adding a hashboard uses this otherwise wasted energy for good (securing the network and getting money into your pocket that hopefully circulates in the economy); there is no need to manufacture and recycle more solar cells, the only extra hardware is the hashboard.

[1715519480]

1715519480

[1715519480]

1715519480

[1715519480]

1715519480

[dkbit98]

Soooo I picked up a bunch of surplus rugged dell laptops at auction. 8 for about $140 total

That was a pretty good deal you found, but I would pick old Thinkpad T series laptops instead of Dell, because they are built like tank and used by army for a reason.
It's easy to replace DVD drive with a cheap drive bay caddy adapter for any HDD or SSD drives, so you could have much bigger drive space than you need.
This is a perfect machine for running Bitcoin node, it will survive most drops or water spills, and spare parts with batteries can easily be found worldwide.
Local flea market should be one of the places you can visit to find one of this

[DaveF]

Soooo I picked up a bunch of surplus rugged dell laptops at auction. 8 for about $140 total

That was a pretty good deal you found, but I would pick old Thinkpad T series laptops instead of Dell, because they are built like tank and used by army for a reason.
It's easy to replace DVD drive with a cheap drive bay caddy adapter for any HDD or SSD drives, so you could have much bigger drive space than you need.
This is a perfect machine for running Bitcoin node, it will survive most drops or water spills, and spare parts with batteries can easily be found worldwide.
Local flea market should be one of the places you can visit to find one of this

There are a lot of surplus places out there selling old fire / police laptops you just have to do a bit of looking.
The Panasonic Toughbook really is the gold standard in rugged laptops but even really the really old ones still sell for a premium.

But any of them more or less are prefect for a portable node that you don't have to worry about damaging.

-Dave

[ABCbits]

1) It's not a 100% standard card and Dell has something custom either in the hardware or firmware that causes it to get funky under linux.

It's known problem that some WiFi and mobile broadband card doesn't work on linux. But what linux distro did you use? Have you tried install optional/closed-source driver (few distro require user to do it manually)?

I tried Debian and Ubuntu 1st figuring that when Debian did not work Ubuntu, although close to it may do something a bit differently. Then I switched to CentOS and still no go. Tried every driver I could find related to the card both open and closed. It's not even that smooth under Windows, after install you have to *power down* not just reboot.

Assuming you tried non-free firmware from Debian, looks like you've tried everything that i would try. I only could suggest you to try this guide (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ThinkPad_mobile_Internet#Alternative_method) which also use Qualcomm Gobi.

[DaveF]

Assuming you tried non-free firmware from Debian, looks like you've tried everything that i would try. I only could suggest you to try this guide (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ThinkPad_mobile_Internet#Alternative_method) which also use Qualcomm Gobi.

I think that was attempt number 106.

The problem is, well one of them anyway, is that although it's an off the shelf laptop so to speak, from what I can figure many municipalities along with AT&T have a custom firmware loadout on the 4G cards. I saw a mention of it on a usenet group when I was looking for help with it.
They appear normal, but were setup slightly differently so in the event of a true emergency they worked a bit differently. It is probably some little thing, but enough for linux not to work with it.

OR

They were deliberately disabled under linux to prevent something for some reason.

-Dave

[vapourminer]

Sadly I am still three years behind. I don't run my computer 24/7. But, Whenever I run, I let the core download the blocks. Meanwhile, I moved my Bitcoin into an Atomic wallet.

If you aren't running it 24/7, then you might want to consider running a pruned node instead. At least that'll be a reduction in local disk space needed. Otherwise, you'll likely be catching up for a while every day that you restart it. Especially, if you have a slow internet connection.

AnotherAlt, do note that pruning won't affect the IBD (initial block download) speed or sync speed in general. But since the node doesn't run 24/7 it doesn't provide that much utility to the network anyway, so might as well run it pruned, is what Welsh is probably saying here. Such a node needs considerably less disk space and gives you as a user all the benefits of a full node, and just lacks the ability to seed the blockchain to new nodes entering the network.

i have internet that is The Suck (satellite that is slow with caps out here in the boonies), so i specifically run it in NOT pruned mode. simply because disk space is cheap and one needs to download the complete blockchain anyway even if you throw much of it out due to pruning. so i keep it all and this allows me to run other software against it that may want a local copy of the full chain if needed (trezor wallet etc).

so i would argue that its better to just keep it all, unless youre really really pinched for space.

also because it would take me a few months to get the blockchain from scratch again if it gets hosed i have it backed up like crazy. like i keep 5 or 6 copies with regular backups, some in raid 1 and zfs z1/z2

[dkbit98]

The problem is, well one of them anyway, is that although it's an off the shelf laptop so to speak, from what I can figure many municipalities along with AT&T have a custom firmware loadout on the 4G cards. I saw a mention of it on a usenet group when I was looking for help with it.

I don't know what's the situation with spare parts for those laptops you purchased, but you could try finding hardware maintenance manual and identify all compatible wifi cards.
It's not that hard to follow manual, open laptop and replace wifi cards or any other parts you want, spare parts for used laptops can easily be found on internet or in used computer shops.
I also had issues installing Debian Linux on one of my laptops, but I managed to do it with Debian non-free iso, and alternative option was MX Linux that is based on Debian with some tweaks.

[DaveF]

The problem is, well one of them anyway, is that although it's an off the shelf laptop so to speak, from what I can figure many municipalities along with AT&T have a custom firmware loadout on the 4G cards. I saw a mention of it on a usenet group when I was looking for help with it.

I don't know what's the situation with spare parts for those laptops you purchased, but you could try finding hardware maintenance manual and identify all compatible wifi cards.
It's not that hard to follow manual, open laptop and replace wifi cards or any other parts you want, spare parts for used laptops can easily be found on internet or in used computer shops.
I also had issues installing Debian Linux on one of my laptops, but I managed to do it with Debian non-free iso, and alternative option was MX Linux that is based on Debian with some tweaks.

There are a bunch of cards that *should* work, but if you follow the link that @ETFbitcoin posted manufacturers do have the option of BIOS locking the cards.
Normally Dell does not do this, but since they / the PD did do some custom things to something in them I could wind up spending a lot of time and get nowhere.

OR it could be I just got a bad card.......

Even taking the bottom off to get to the card is a project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiGfj_Rneho

-Dave

[Welsh]

To be honest whenever I've had issues with compatibility issues, using Linux seems to always fix it due to their legacy drivers. That's not to say that it doesn't require a little bit of tinkering, but I've had machines running Windows that basically refused to operate, but switching to Linux, and it was a near seamless experience. These days I don't even run Windows at all. Completely ditched it.

Now use Debian, Fedora inside Qubes OS with Xen Hypervisor. Unfortunately, with this method a lot of the compatibility issues is hardware specific to Qubes OS due to its nature.

I don't know what's the situation with spare parts for those laptops you purchased, but you could try finding hardware maintenance manual and identify all compatible wifi cards.

They normally only specify the types of connections on hardware that are compatible, right? Probably, better looking on the internet to see what's compatible with your exact hardware, rather than using the manual which will be rather generic.

OR it could be I just got a bad card.......

Could be, if it was incompatibility issues I'd like to think there would be more users looking for support on the issue. Although, I do understand that this might be a niche issue.

[AnotherAlt]

Can anybody help me with this issue? I have been downloading the block for a while now. I am almost done now. It's happened. I was downloading the block, and suddenly, I had a power outage, and my Computer turned off. After Power-up, I tried to Open Bitcoin core and it's opens with this error "Corrupted block database detected. Do you want to rebuild the block database now?" After I click on Ok, It pops up another error " Error: Error opening block database."

Please check the screenshot below. Is there any suggestion you may suggest that could help me? It's tough to download all the blocks. I have been downloading for over a month now 

[BlackHatCoiner]

[...]

Your database is likely corrupted. Try wiping out the block index with bitcoin-qt -reindex. This will re-make the database by going all over the blk.dat files, re-validate them and rebuilding the chainstate. It'll take a lot of time.

Have you checked your debug.log for further info?

[AnotherAlt]

[...]

Your database is likely corrupted. Try wiping out the block index with bitcoin-qt -reindex. This will re-make the database by going all over the blk.dat files, re-validate them and rebuilding the chainstate. It'll take a lot of time.

I am sorry, I am totally Noob in this. Could you please help me with how to do it? Do I have to do it using the Command prompt?
ah, did you mean reinstall Bitcoin Core without uninstalling it and without deleting any data?
I have tried to open bitcoin-qt, and It opens with the same error.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I am sorry, I am totally Noob in this. Could you please help me with how to do it?

Sure. Others can also help you while I'm away from keyboard.

Do I have to do it using the Command prompt?

Yes. What's your OS?

ah, did you mean reinstall Bitcoin Core without uninstalling it and without deleting any data?

No, you shouldn't reinstall nor uninstall Bitcoin Core. Just open up your command prompt (cmd) to the directory wherein your Bitcoin Core is located. In Windows there's a "Bitcoin" directory inside "Program Files (x86)". Reply if you've found it.

Let's take it one step at a time.

[AnotherAlt]

Yes. What's your OS?

Thanks, It's Windows 10.

No, you shouldn't reinstall nor uninstall Bitcoin Core. Just open up your command prompt (cmd) to the directory wherein your Bitcoin Core is located. In Windows there's a "Bitcoin" directory inside "Program Files (x86)". Reply if you've found it.

I have chosen the directory Local Disk D because if windows crashes and I formate C drive, I won't lose the backup. That was the plan.
BTW, I have copied all the data to the C drive again and I am on that folder with CMD.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I have copied all the data to the C drive again and I am on that folder with CMD.

Good. Do you see a bitcoin-qt in that folder? If yes, enter in your cmd:

Code:

bitcoin-qt -reindex

This should open Bitcoin Core (with GUI) and start rebuilding the database. Reply me once you do it.

[AnotherAlt]

I have copied all the data to the C drive again and I am on that folder with CMD.

Good. Do you see a bitcoin-qt in that folder? If yes, enter in your cmd:

Code:

bitcoin-qt -reindex

This should open Bitcoin Core (with GUI) and start rebuilding the database. Reply me once you do it.

Woh. Thank you very much. It's started the GUI. Syncing Headers now. But looks like I am 13 years behind  

[BlackHatCoiner]

Woh. Thank you very much. It's started the GUI. Syncing Headers now. But looks like I am 13 years behind 

You're 13 years old on re-indexing. You don't download any blocks. It should take less time to finish, but still, it'll take a few hours the least.

[n0nce]

Woh. Thank you very much. It's started the GUI. Syncing Headers now. But looks like I am 13 years behind 

You're 13 years old on re-indexing. You don't download any blocks. It should take less time to finish, but still, it'll take a few hours the least.

Since this is a topic about running a cheap node: on hardware such as presented here, it takes me roughly 24h to reindex the whole blockchain. This is with 8GB of RAM though; as I've shown on page 1, upgrading to 8GB exponentially improved the verification time.

Another quick note for AnotherAlt: Make sure not to use bitcoin-qt -reindex again the next time you start it up. Been there, done that - it's easy to quickly go up arrow, enter key; as soon as you do this, it starts another reindex and you can't 'stop' or 'abort' - you'll then have to wait it through another time.

[NotATether]

Another quick note for AnotherAlt: Make sure not to use bitcoin-qt -reindex again the next time you start it up. Been there, done that - it's easy to quickly go up arrow, enter key; as soon as you do this, it starts another reindex and you can't 'stop' or 'abort' - you'll then have to wait it through another time.

You can make a bash alias for bitcoin-qt to be a shell script that checks the argument stack passed to bitcoin-qt and delete any -reindex references to it.

It doesn't even have to be a shellscript, you can make it python if you put a #!/usr/bin/python3 at the beginning.

[AnotherAlt]

Woh. Thank you very much. It's started the GUI. Syncing Headers now. But looks like I am 13 years behind  

You're 13 years old on reindexing. You don't download any blocks. It should take less time to finish, but still, it'll take a few hours at the least.

Bro, It pissed me off. It's been a couple of days now. I don't run 24/7. But, I run it for more than 12 hours daily. I feel like it's downloading the blocks again instead of reindexing. Progress per hour is literally 0.24%. I am still six years behind. I have a slow internet connection; that could be a reason, maybe? I believe 16gigs Ram should be enough with Ryzen 3 3200g.

The Bitcoin Core uses 11% of My CPU (Max) and only 400 MB Ram while reindexing.