Choosing Hardware
Choosing hardware for your Lightning Node is an important step. Pay attention carefully because the requirements might not be obvious.
Set up a ZFS Pool
A ZFS pool allows you to redundantly store data on two drives, which is an important reliability measure.
Let's chat about network connections
Check whether your network connection is stable enough for a Lightning node, because uptime and latency matter for payments and channels.
What Implementation Should I Run?
You'll need to choose an implementation. Right now your choices are: LND, CLN, Eclair, and LDK.
Introducing Docker
Use Docker to set up LND, Bitcoin Core, and Tor in a repeatable environment that keeps the node easier to run, inspect, and recover.
Clone the Git repository
This tutorial uses the LND-With-Docker git repository//github.com/MegalithicBTC/LND-With-Docker
Set up TOR with Docker
Start the Tor container for your Lightning node, inspect the Dockerfile, and confirm the proxy is ready for private network access.
Set up Bitcoin Core with Docker
At this point, you should have one open terminal window on your Ubuntu desktop, and it should be running Tor. You should be seeing logs like...
Set up LND with Docker
Configure and start LND in Docker, connect it to Bitcoin Core and Tor, and prepare your node for wallet creation and channel work.
Set Up Disaster Recovery With Docker
Your LND node is running, and I'm sure you're ready to start opening some channels and sending payments around.
Connect to a Watchtower
As we've seen while discussing Lightning's security guarantees, a node can at any time close a channel, and receive their current channel balance as an on-chain transaction.