LoyceV's 0.1 sat/vbyte Electrum Server Adventure

[joker_josue]

The main problem is high load from other tasks, which causes my host to throttle my server's CPUs (even though they said they don't do that). Ideally, I should get a better server, but I've just extended this one until December ($220).
I'll reduce the number of parallel threads for processing Trust list data.

I've been probing to mount a node on a server.
I think I've asked before, but based on these months of use, what are the features that you consider good for a node/explorer?

[LoyceV]

I think I've asked before, but based on these months of use, what are the features that you consider good for a node/explorer?

I'm not sure what you mean. With "features", do you mean just specs? CPU, RAM, disk and bandwidth?

[joker_josue]

I think I've asked before, but based on these months of use, what are the features that you consider good for a node/explorer?

I'm not sure what you mean. With "features", do you mean just specs? CPU, RAM, disk and bandwidth?

Yes, that's it.

I was thinking of something like this:

CPU - 8 cores Dedicated
RAM - 32 GB
NVMe - 2000 GB Disk
Bandwidth - 250 Mbps Unlimited (or)
10 Gbps up to 32 TB then 10 Mbps unlimited
1 IPv4 Included
Server Location: Montreal, Canada

[LoyceV]

I was thinking of something like this:

That looks excessive for just a node, so it should work quite well
From what I've seen on Lowendtalk, those newer "Slices" have better performance than mine. It says Dedicated cores, and they say they don't do overprovisioning, but they also said that with mine so I can't be sure.

Note: I haven't installed my own block explorer on this server. I don't know how demanding that is.

[joker_josue]

I was thinking of something like this:

That looks excessive for just a node, so it should work quite well
From what I've seen on Lowendtalk, those newer "Slices" have better performance than mine. It says Dedicated cores, and they say they don't do overprovisioning, but they also said that with mine so I can't be sure.

Note: I haven't installed my own block explorer on this server. I don't know how demanding that is.

I'm thinking of setting everything up on the same server.

Now I just need to get organized to make this adventure/investment a reality. 

[bitmover]

Electrum is very friendly now to make 0.x sat/vB.

I tried once without changing servers, it worked. But the second time the server refused to broadcast. THen I switched to loycev server and it worked   Thanks LoyceV

Edit: I had a little trouble finding this line. Please make it more visible, maybe even first line of OP.

Server is running: electrum.loyce.club:50002

[LoyceV]

Electrum is very friendly now to make 0.x sat/vB.

But you still need to use "wallet.relayfee = (lambda: 0)" or TryNinja's plugin, right?

I had a little trouble finding this line. Please make it more visible, maybe even first line of OP.

Server is running: electrum.loyce.club:50002

Done:

I'm currently installing my very first Electrum server electrum.loyce.club:50002 , and figured I'd start a topic to keep track of my progress.

But this may not be enough if Electrum still needs some tweaks, so don't stop reading at the first line

I just wrote the smallest Electrum plugin ever that just runs this command at start.
https://files.ninjastic.space/share/J6DgG4pG

Where did this file go?

[TryNinja]

I just wrote the smallest Electrum plugin ever that just runs this command at start.
https://files.ninjastic.space/share/J6DgG4pG

Where did this file go?

Migrated servers yada, yada...

Update to this link: https://upload.ninjastic.space/relayfeezero_0_0_1-iTXlgOIQwLme.zip

[LoyceV]

At the moment, my Electrum server isn't responding:

Code:

Error communicating with the admin RPC port at 127.0.0.1:X

    timed out

Even though my server is supposed to allow 100% CPU usage, it's giving me 62.5% CPU steal. In other words: it's overloaded running things.

This is happening again: 60% CPU steal, and my own Electrum says my server is lagging 2 blocks. I know this will pass again in maybe an hour, but it's annoying

For what it's worth: I fixed the missing "Donate to server" address. It now shows up in Electrum Feel free to send it dust change

[Cricktor]

For what it's worth: I fixed the missing "Donate to server" address. It now shows up in Electrum Feel free to send it dust change

What did you need to change?

I know that the Fulcrum config file has an option where you can specify the donation address, but when I changed it for my Fulcrum server, an Electrum client connected to my server didn't recognise or show the set donation address. So, something else is needed which I couldn't figure out so far (not of great importance for me as my Fulcrum Electrum server isn't public).

Or did you only adjust the banner message which your Fulcrum server transmits to a connected client?

[LoyceV]

What did you need to change?

It was a dumb thing. The default was this:

Code:

donation = bitcoincash:qplw0d304xxxxxxxxxxx

I used "bitcoin:" in front of my address. After I removed that, it works:

Code:

donation = bc1q49wn3lzffl0c89ajeuaqqq8j2aasnmhvhkqm4a

Or did you only adjust the banner message which your Fulcrum server transmits to a connected client?

No, but you have a point, so I've added a custom message:

Code:

Connected to LoyceV's Fulcrum Electrum server at electrum.loyce.club
See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5554840.0 for my experience running this

[joker_josue]

For what it's worth: I fixed the missing "Donate to server" address. It now shows up in Electrum Feel free to send it dust change

It might be interesting if Electrum created an option in the "sent" tab, allowing users to choose something like "send change to donate to the server." Then, whenever you make a transaction and want the change to go as a donation, you could simply activate that option.

[LoyceV]

It might be interesting if Electrum created an option in the "sent" tab, allowing users to choose something like "send change to donate to the server."

That would be a huge risk if someone makes a mistake, so Electrum shouldn't add this. You can't even turn the donate tab into "Send to many", so you'll need to manually copy the address to send change there. And that's totally fine, it's for advanced users only.

[joker_josue]

It might be interesting if Electrum created an option in the "sent" tab, allowing users to choose something like "send change to donate to the server."

That would be a huge risk if someone makes a mistake, so Electrum shouldn't add this. You can't even turn the donate tab into "Send to many", so you'll need to manually copy the address to send change there. And that's totally fine, it's for advanced users only.

As it happens, after writing, I spent some time thinking about this type of case. 

In fact, it's best not to take the risk... especially since many users don't even choose which server they want to use.

[Cricktor]

I used "bitcoin:" in front of my address. After I removed that, it works:

Code:

donation = bc1q49wn3lzffl0c89ajeuaqqq8j2aasnmhvhkqm4a

Oh, well, I just looked up my config and I did the same "smart" change because it seemed logical to me. The documentation of this config option on Github isn't very specific about this part: https://github.com/cculianu/Fulcrum/blob/ff93ce5a690ed86c65fecfd176bee0e8c8b7aad7/doc/fulcrum-example-config.conf#L285

Code:

Connected to LoyceV's Fulcrum Electrum server at electrum.loyce.club
See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5554840.0 for my experience running this

That's a good idea and I like the reference for those who are willing to see it.


Those options are currently of very low importance for me, but good to know how to set them up properly for a public server.

I'm running Fulcrum 2.1.0 btw and so far am happy with it. I chose to build the database from scratch and not go the conversion path from Fulcrum 1.12.0 database. I had very few unintentional shutdowns of older Fulcrum and my database didn't seem to catch any corruption, but frankly I wasn't sure and confident it was still flawless.

I hope Fulcrum v2 does its magic properly and fulfills its claim that database corruption should be a thing of the past. Keeping fingers crossed.

In fact, it's best not to take the risk... especially since many users don't even choose which server they want to use.

I would want to keep important dialogs of Electrum as clean as possible and free of potentially distracting options. And I don't think many Electrum users would donate anyway.

As you say, few users even care to which Electrum server they connect. They probably just expect it to work and not being too slow. I can't say much about it as I moved to a personal Electrum server quite some years ago.

[LoyceV]

As you say, few users even care to which Electrum server they connect.

I never cared, until I was missing out on lower fees

[nc50lc]

It might be interesting if Electrum created an option in the "sent" tab, allowing users to choose something like "send change to donate to the server."

That would be a huge risk if someone makes a mistake, so Electrum shouldn't add this. You can't even turn the donate tab into "Send to many", so you'll need to manually copy the address to send change there. And that's totally fine, it's for advanced users only.

I think @joker_josue is thinking about "dust change" instead of "change" in general, perhaps.
It's not difficult to imagine what will happen to a scenario where a non-tech-savvy end-user user with a single large value UTXO who has no idea what "change" is but ticked the "Donate change to server" option out of curiosity.
On the other hand, "Send dust change as donation to server" may have a valid reason to be implemented (if someone were to work on the idea)

On a side note, in this Pull Request on 2015: github.com/spesmilo/electrum/pull/1062;
Someone thought that it's a good idea to have an automated donation,
The developer pointed a few possibilities on how can it be adequately implemented but the author never followed through, so it's closed.

[DireWolfM14]

CPU - 8 cores Dedicated
RAM - 32 GB
NVMe - 2000 GB Disk
Bandwidth - 250 Mbps Unlimited (or)
10 Gbps up to 32 TB then 10 Mbps unlimited
1 IPv4 Included
Server Location: Montreal, Canada

That's more than you need, even if you are planning to have everything on the same server.  I've ran Bitcoin Core, ElectrmX, BTCPay, LND, and a mempool docker container on my own hardware with 4 cores and 8GB of ram.  Never had an issue, but my system wasn't available to the public.

Eventually I upgraded to 16GB of ram because I wanted to run a Monero node on it as well.  It probably wasn't necessary, but synchronizing the blockchain may have taken a bit longer.  The ram usage spiked during synch, but became very low after that.

Electrum is very friendly now to make 0.x sat/vB.

But you still need to use "wallet.relayfee = (lambda: 0)" or TryNinja's plugin, right?

That hasn't been necessary since version 4.6.2

# Release 4.6.2 (Aug 25, 2025)
 * General:
   - changed: minrelayfee clamps from [1, 50] to [0.1, 50] sat/vbyte (#10096)

[joker_josue]

That's more than you need, even if you are planning to have everything on the same server.  I've ran Bitcoin Core, ElectrmX, BTCPay, LND, and a mempool docker container on my own hardware with 4 cores and 8GB of ram.  Never had an issue, but my system wasn't available to the public.

Eventually I upgraded to 16GB of ram because I wanted to run a Monero node on it as well.  It probably wasn't necessary, but synchronizing the blockchain may have taken a bit longer.  The ram usage spiked during synch, but became very low after that.

Any server suggestions?

The biggest difficulty I've had in my research is finding a server with enough disk space so I don't have to worry about it.
This was the one I found that was at a minimally affordable price. Otherwise, everything I've found is very expensive.

[LoyceV]

I've ran Bitcoin Core, ElectrmX, BTCPay, LND, and a mempool docker container on my own hardware with 4 cores and 8GB of ram.  Never had an issue, but my system wasn't available to the public.

The moment my server went public, it quickly had 200+ users connected. I just checked Fulcrum for a minute: it went from 10% to 180% CPU (so 1.8 cores), and uses 3% of 32 GB RAM. Bitcoind uses more memory, but seems to be a bit less demanding on CPU.

That hasn't been necessary since version 4.6.2

Good to know, time for me to upgrade

The biggest difficulty I've had in my research is finding a server with enough disk space so I don't have to worry about it.
This was the one I found that was at a minimally affordable price. Otherwise, everything I've found is very expensive.

A hybrid server may work: Bitcoin Core's blocks directory can be on a cheap HDD, as long as the rest is on SSD. Mine is on slow "SAN" network storage, and after the initial sync that isn't much of a limitation.