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Table of Contents

Installation

There are multiple ways to install lnd. For most users the easiest way is to download and install an official release binary. Those release binaries are always built with production in mind and have all RPC subservers enabled.

More advanced users that want to build lnd from source also have multiple options. To build a tagged version, there is a docker build helper script that allows users to build lnd from source without needing to install golang. That is also the preferred way to build and verify the reproducible builds that are released by the team. See release.md for more information about reproducible builds.

Finally, there is the option to build lnd fully manually. This requires more tooling to be set up first but allows to produce non-production (debug, development) builds.

Installing a binary release

Downloading and installing an official release binary is recommended for use on mainnet. Visit the release page on GitHub and select the latest version that does not have the "Pre-release" label set (unless you explicitly want to help test a Release Candidate, RC).

Choose the package that best fits your operating system and system architecture. It is recommended to choose 64bit versions over 32bit ones, if your operating system supports both.

Extract the package and place the two binaries (lnd and lncli or lnd.exe and lncli.exe on Windows) somewhere where the operating system can find them.

Building a tagged version with Docker

To use the Docker build helper, you need to have the following software installed and set up on your machine:

  • Docker
  • make
  • bash

To build a specific git tag of lnd, simply run the following steps (assuming v0.x.y-beta is the tagged version to build):

git clone https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd
cd lnd
git checkout v0.x.y-beta
make docker-release tag=v0.x.y-beta

This will create a directory called lnd-v0.x.y-beta that contains the release binaries for all operating system and architecture pairs. A single pair can also be selected by specifying the sys=linux-amd64 flag for example. See release.md for more information on reproducible builds.

Building a development version from source

Building and installing lnd from source is only recommended for advanced users and/or developers. Running the latest commit from the master branch is not recommended for mainnet. The master branch can at times be unstable and running your node off of it can prevent it to go back to a previous, stable version if there are database migrations present.

In order to work with lnd, the following build dependencies are required:

Installing Go

lnd is written in Go, with a minimum version of 1.19. To install, run one of the following commands for your OS:

Linux (x86-64) 
wget https://dl.google.com/go/go1.19.7.linux-amd64.tar.gz
sha256sum go1.19.7.linux-amd64.tar.gz | awk -F " " '{ print $1 }'

The final output of the command above should be 7a75720c9b066ae1750f6bcc7052aba70fa3813f4223199ee2a2315fd3eb533d. If it isn't, then the target REPO HAS BEEN MODIFIED, and you shouldn't install this version of Go. If it matches, then proceed to install Go:

sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.19.7.linux-amd64.tar.gz
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin
Linux (ARMv6) 
wget https://dl.google.com/go/go1.19.7.linux-armv6l.tar.gz
sha256sum go1.19.7.linux-armv6l.tar.gz | awk -F " " '{ print $1 }'

The final output of the command above should be 93b1f621ddfc2c2b4e383e185fa7801e80f8b546918cb96afea2723677928312. If it isn't, then the target REPO HAS BEEN MODIFIED, and you shouldn't install this version of Go. If it matches, then proceed to install Go:

tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.19.7.linux-armv6l.tar.gz
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin
macOS

First, install Homebrew if you don‘t already have it.

Then

brew install go
FreeBSD 
pkg install go

Alternatively, one can download the pre-compiled binaries hosted on the Golang download page. If one seeks to install from source, then more detailed installation instructions can be found here.

Important

At this point, you should set your $GOPATH environment variable, which represents the path to your workspace. By default, $GOPATH is set to ~/go. You will also need to add $GOPATH/bin to your PATH. This ensures that your shell will be able to detect the binaries you install.

export GOPATH=~/go
export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin

We recommend placing the above in your .bashrc, .zshrc or in a setup script so that you can avoid typing this every time you open a new terminal window.

Go modules

This project uses Go modules to manage dependencies as well as to provide reproducible builds.

Usage of Go modules (with Go 1.13) means that you no longer need to clone lnd into your $GOPATH for development purposes. Instead, your lnd repo can now live anywhere!

Note: For mobile development, having the source code in $GOPATH is still required due to a current limitation in Go mobile. Take a look at the documentation for building mobile libraries to learn more.

Installing lnd from source

With the preliminary steps completed, to install lnd, lncli, and all related dependencies run the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd
cd lnd
make install

The command above will install the current master branch of lnd. If you wish to install a tagged release of lnd (as the master branch can at times be unstable), then visit then release page to locate the latest release. Assuming the name of the release is v0.x.x, then you can compile this release from source with a small modification to the above command:

git clone https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd
cd lnd
git checkout v0.x.x
make install

NOTE: Our instructions still use the $GOPATH directory from prior versions of Go, but with Go 1.13, it's now possible for lnd to live anywhere on your file system.

For Windows WSL users, make will need to be referenced directly via /usr/bin/make/, or alternatively by wrapping quotation marks around make, like so:

/usr/bin/make && /usr/bin/make install

"make" && "make" install

On FreeBSD, use gmake instead of make.

Alternatively, if one doesn't wish to use make, then the go commands can be used directly:

go install -v ./...

Tags

Release binaries and installations from source using make release-install will have the following tags:

The dev tag is used for development builds, and is not included in the release builds & installation.

You can specify a custom set of tags when installing from source using the tags="" parameter. For example:

make install tags="signrpc walletrpc routerrpc invoicesrpc"

Updating

To update your version of lnd to the latest version run the following commands:

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd
git pull
make clean && make && make install

On FreeBSD, use gmake instead of make.

Alternatively, if one doesn't wish to use make, then the go commands can be used directly:

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd
git pull
go install -v ./...

Tests

To check that lnd was installed properly run the following command:

 make check

This command requires bitcoind (almost any version should do) to be available in the system's $PATH variable. Otherwise some of the tests will fail.

Command-line completion for lncli

Bash: See contrib/lncli.bash-completion
Fish: Run: lncli fish-completion > $HOME/.config/fish/completions/lncli.fish

Available Backend Operating Modes

In order to run, lnd requires, that the user specify a chain backend. At the time of writing of this document, there are three available chain backends: btcd, neutrino, bitcoind. All including neutrino can run on mainnet with an out of the box lnd instance. We don't require --txindex when running with bitcoind or btcd but activating the txindex will generally make lnd run faster. Note that since version 0.13 pruned nodes are supported although they cause performance penalty and higher network usage.

The set of arguments for each of the backend modes is as follows:

btcd Options

btcd:
      --btcd.dir=                                             The base directory that contains the node's data, logs, configuration file, etc. (default: /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Btcd)
      --btcd.rpchost=                                         The daemon's rpc listening address. If a port is omitted, then the default port for the selected chain parameters will be used. (default: localhost)
      --btcd.rpcuser=                                         Username for RPC connections
      --btcd.rpcpass=                                         Password for RPC connections
      --btcd.rpccert=                                         File containing the daemon's certificate file (default: /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Btcd/rpc.cert)
      --btcd.rawrpccert=                                      The raw bytes of the daemon's PEM-encoded certificate chain which will be used to authenticate the RPC connection.

Neutrino Options

neutrino:
  -a, --neutrino.addpeer=                                     Add a peer to connect with at startup
      --neutrino.connect=                                     Connect only to the specified peers at startup
      --neutrino.maxpeers=                                    Max number of inbound and outbound peers
      --neutrino.banduration=                                 How long to ban misbehaving peers.  Valid time units are {s, m, h}.  Minimum 1 second
      --neutrino.banthreshold=                                Maximum allowed ban score before disconnecting and banning misbehaving peers.
      --neutrino.useragentname=                               Used to help identify ourselves to other bitcoin peers.
      --neutrino.useragentversion=                            Used to help identify ourselves to other bitcoin peers.

Bitcoind Options

bitcoind:
      --bitcoind.dir=                                         The base directory that contains the node's data, logs, configuration file, etc. (default: /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin)
      --bitcoind.rpchost=                                     The daemon's rpc listening address. If a port is omitted, then the default port for the selected chain parameters will be used. (default: localhost)
      --bitcoind.rpcuser=                                     Username for RPC connections
      --bitcoind.rpcpass=                                     Password for RPC connections
      --bitcoind.zmqpubrawblock=                              The address listening for ZMQ connections to deliver raw block notifications
      --bitcoind.zmqpubrawtx=                                 The address listening for ZMQ connections to deliver raw transaction notifications
      --bitcoind.estimatemode=                                The fee estimate mode. Must be either "ECONOMICAL" or "CONSERVATIVE". (default: CONSERVATIVE)

Using btcd

Installing btcd

On FreeBSD, use gmake instead of make.

In order to be able to utilize the latest Taproot features, btcd version v0.23.5 MUST be used.

To install btcd, run the following commands:

Install btcd:

 make btcd

Alternatively, you can install btcd directly from its repo.

Starting btcd

Running the following command will create rpc.cert and default btcd.conf.

 btcd --testnet --rpcuser=REPLACEME --rpcpass=REPLACEME

If you want to use lnd on testnet, btcd needs to first fully sync the testnet blockchain. Depending on your hardware, this may take up to a few hours. Note that adding --txindex is optional, as it will take longer to sync the node, but then lnd will generally operate faster as it can hit the index directly, rather than scanning blocks or BIP 158 filters for relevant items.

(NOTE: It may take several minutes to find segwit-enabled peers.)

While btcd is syncing you can check on its progress using btcd's getinfo RPC command:

 btcctl --testnet --rpcuser=REPLACEME --rpcpass=REPLACEME getinfo
{
  "version": 120000,
  "protocolversion": 70002,
  "blocks": 1114996,
  "timeoffset": 0,
  "connections": 7,
  "proxy": "",
  "difficulty": 422570.58270815,
  "testnet": true,
  "relayfee": 0.00001,
  "errors": ""
}

Additionally, you can monitor btcd's logs to track its syncing progress in real time.

You can test your btcd node's connectivity using the getpeerinfo command:

 btcctl --testnet --rpcuser=REPLACEME --rpcpass=REPLACEME getpeerinfo | more

Running lnd using the btcd backend

If you are on testnet, run this command after btcd has finished syncing. Otherwise, replace --bitcoin.testnet with --bitcoin.simnet. If you are installing lnd in preparation for the tutorial, you may skip this step.

 lnd --bitcoin.active --bitcoin.testnet --debuglevel=debug \
       --btcd.rpcuser=kek --btcd.rpcpass=kek --externalip=X.X.X.X

Using Neutrino

In order to run lnd in its light client mode, you'll need to locate a full-node which is capable of serving this new light client mode. lnd uses BIP 157 and BIP 158 for its light client mode. A public instance of such a node can be found at faucet.lightning.community.

To run lnd in neutrino mode, run lnd with the following arguments, (swapping in --bitcoin.simnet if needed), and also your own btcd node if available:

 lnd --bitcoin.active --bitcoin.testnet --debuglevel=debug \
       --bitcoin.node=neutrino --neutrino.connect=faucet.lightning.community

Using bitcoind

Note that adding -txindex is optional, as it will take longer to sync the node, but then lnd will generally operate faster as it can hit the index directly, rather than scanning blocks or BIP 158 filters for relevant items.

To configure your bitcoind backend for use with lnd, first complete and verify the following:

  • Since lnd uses ZeroMQ to interface with bitcoind, your bitcoind installation must be compiled with ZMQ. Note that if you installed bitcoind from source and ZMQ was not present, then ZMQ support will be disabled, and lnd will quit on a connection refused error. If you installed bitcoind via Homebrew in the past ZMQ may not be included (this has now been fixed in the latest Homebrew recipe for bitcoin)

  • Configure the bitcoind instance for ZMQ with -zmqpubrawblock and -zmqpubrawtx. These options must each use their own unique address in order to provide a reliable delivery of notifications (e.g. -zmqpubrawblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332 and -zmqpubrawtx=tcp://127.0.0.1:28333).

  • Make sure the config setting -rpcserialversion in bitcoind is either set to 1 or NOT used because bitcoind's default behaviour is already correct (see bitcoin/issues/28730 for more infos). Lightning depends on segwit transactions therefore we need the witness data when querying the bitcoind backend for transaction details.

  • Start bitcoind running against testnet, and let it complete a full sync with the testnet chain (alternatively, use --bitcoind.regtest instead).

Here's a sample bitcoin.conf for use with lnd:

testnet=1
server=1
daemon=1
zmqpubrawblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332
zmqpubrawtx=tcp://127.0.0.1:28333

Once all of the above is complete, and you've confirmed bitcoind is fully updated with the latest blocks on testnet, run the command below to launch lnd with bitcoind as your backend (as with bitcoind, you can create an lnd.conf to save these options, more info on that is described further below):

 lnd --bitcoin.active --bitcoin.testnet --debuglevel=debug \
       --bitcoin.node=bitcoind --bitcoind.rpcuser=REPLACEME \
       --bitcoind.rpcpass=REPLACEME \
       --bitcoind.zmqpubrawblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332 \
       --bitcoind.zmqpubrawtx=tcp://127.0.0.1:28333 \
       --externalip=X.X.X.X

NOTE:

  • The auth parameters rpcuser and rpcpass parameters can typically be determined by lnd for a bitcoind instance running under the same user, including when using cookie auth. In this case, you can exclude them from the lnd options entirely.
  • If you DO choose to explicitly pass the auth parameters in your lnd.conf or command line options for lnd (bitcoind.rpcuser and bitcoind.rpcpass as shown in example command above), you must also specify the bitcoind.zmqpubrawblock and bitcoind.zmqpubrawtx options. Otherwise, lnd will attempt to get the configuration from your bitcoin.conf.
  • You must ensure the same addresses are used for the bitcoind.zmqpubrawblock and bitcoind.zmqpubrawtx options passed to lnd as for the zmqpubrawblock and zmqpubrawtx passed in the bitcoind options respectively.
  • When running lnd and bitcoind on the same Windows machine, ensure you use 127.0.0.1, not localhost, for all configuration options that require a TCP/IP host address. If you use "localhost" as the host name, you may see extremely slow inter-process-communication between lnd and the bitcoind backend. If lnd is experiencing this issue, you'll see "Waiting for chain backend to finish sync, start_height=XXXXXX" as the last entry in the console or log output, and lnd will appear to hang. Normal lnd output will quickly show multiple messages like this as lnd consumes blocks from bitcoind.
  • Don't connect more than two or three instances of lnd to bitcoind. With the default bitcoind settings, having more than one instance of lnd, or lnd plus any application that consumes the RPC could cause lnd to miss crucial updates from the backend.
  • The default fee estimate mode in bitcoind is CONSERVATIVE. You can set bitcoind.estimatemode=ECONOMICAL to change it into ECONOMICAL. Furthermore, if you start bitcoind in regtest, this configuration won't take any effect.

Creating a wallet

If lnd is being run for the first time, create a new wallet with:

 lncli create

This will prompt for a wallet password, and optionally a cipher seed passphrase.

lnd will then print a 24 word cipher seed mnemonic, which can be used to recover the wallet in case of data loss. The user should write this down and keep in a safe place.

More information about managing wallets can be found in the wallet management document.

Macaroons

lnd's authentication system is called macaroons, which are decentralized bearer credentials allowing for delegation, attenuation, and other cool features. You can learn more about them in Alex Akselrod's writeup on Github.

Running lncli create to create a wallet, will by default generate the admin.macaroon, read_only.macaroon, and macaroons.db files that are used to authenticate into lnd. They will be stored in the network directory (default: lnddir/data/chain/bitcoin/mainnet) so that it's possible to use a distinct password for mainnet, testnet, simnet, etc. Note that if you specified an alternative data directory (via the --datadir argument), you will have to additionally pass the updated location of the admin.macaroon file into lncli using the --macaroonpath argument.

To disable macaroons for testing, pass the --no-macaroons flag into both lnd and lncli.

Network Reachability

If you'd like to signal to other nodes on the network that you'll accept incoming channels (as peers need to connect inbound to initiate a channel funding workflow), then the --externalip flag should be set to your publicly reachable IP address.

Simnet vs. Testnet Development

If you are doing local development, such as for the tutorial, you'll want to start both btcd and lnd in the simnet mode. Simnet is similar to regtest in that you'll be able to instantly mine blocks as needed to test lnd locally. In order to start either daemon in the simnet mode use simnet instead of testnet, adding the --bitcoin.simnet flag instead of the --bitcoin.testnet flag.

Another relevant command line flag for local testing of new lnd developments is the --debughtlc flag. When starting lnd with this flag, it'll be able to automatically settle a special type of HTLC sent to it. This means that you won't need to manually insert invoices in order to test payment connectivity. To send this "special" HTLC type, include the --debugsend command at the end of your sendpayment commands.

There are currently two primary ways to run lnd: one requires a local btcd instance with the RPC service exposed, and the other uses a fully integrated light client powered by neutrino.

For testing scenarios like integration tests where wallet security is not important, the itest/lnd-itest binary can be used which uses very weak password stretching for the wallet encryption and therefore starts up faster than a production/mainnet/release build. The binary can be built by running make build-itest.

Creating an lnd.conf (Optional)

Optionally, if you'd like to have a persistent configuration between lnd launches, allowing you to simply type lnd --bitcoin.testnet --bitcoin.active at the command line, you can create an lnd.conf.

On MacOS, located at: /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Lnd/lnd.conf

On Linux, located at: ~/.lnd/lnd.conf

Here's a sample lnd.conf for btcd to get you started:

[Application Options]
debuglevel=trace
maxpendingchannels=10

[Bitcoin]
bitcoin.active=1

Notice the [Bitcoin] section. This section houses the parameters for the Bitcoin chain. See a more detailed sample config file available here and explore the other sections for node configuration, including [Btcd], [Bitcoind] and [Neutrino] depending on which chain and node type you're using.