regtest-manager

Quick and dirties bash functions to start a Bitcoin and Lightning Network regtest

Rationale

Setup a regtest is both cumbersome (/repetitive) and pretty useful for a lot of Bitcoin / Lightning Network applications (e.g. you might need one for plugins). I needed that automation. So I did it and published it here. This does not intend to be robust (or clean :-)), just an utility (source it in your bashrc). For a more complete solution, check out lnet.

Usage

Quick setup:

source regtest_manager
start_regtest 3 && fund_regtest # A minute later you have a fully set up LN regtest

By sourcing the regtest_manager script you can use 2 functions to start a test network of any number of nodes.

source regtest_manager
start_regtest # Default is 2 nodes, otherwise the number can be specified as an argument

==>

$ start_regtest 3

Started bitcoind 1 with P2P port 10001, RPC port 9001 and datadir /home/darosior/projects/regtest_manager/regtest/bcdir1
Started lightningd on top of it with directory /home/darosior/projects/regtest_manager/regtest/lndir1
==> You can access the lighntingd startup command line with 'lnreg1', the bitcoind startup command line with 'bdreg1', the lightning CLI with 'lcreg1', and the bitcoin CLI with 'bcreg1'.

Started bitcoind 2 with P2P port 10002, RPC port 9002 and datadir /home/darosior/projects/regtest_manager/regtest/bcdir2
Started lightningd on top of it with directory /home/darosior/projects/regtest_manager/regtest/lndir2
==> You can access the lighntingd startup command line with 'lnreg2', the bitcoind startup command line with 'bdreg2', the lightning CLI with 'lcreg2', and the bitcoin CLI with 'bcreg2'.

Started bitcoind 3 with P2P port 10003, RPC port 9003 and datadir /home/darosior/projects/regtest_manager/regtest/bcdir3
Started lightningd on top of it with directory /home/darosior/projects/regtest_manager/regtest/lndir3
==> You can access the lighntingd startup command line with 'lnreg3', the bitcoind startup command line with 'bdreg3', the lightning CLI with 'lcreg3', and the bitcoin CLI with 'bcreg3'.


Started 3 pairs of bitcoind and lightningd nodes with rpc user "test" and pass "test" (and poor alias names).

$ lcreg2 getinfo
{
   "id" : "03b1762af584f80a1b644f029d7f13c1f58e4c53a54e0e0a944454813f76a86b2f",
   "alias" : "testnode2",
   "color" : "03b176",
   "num_peers" : 0,
   "num_pending_channels" : 0,
   "num_active_channels" : 0,
   "num_inactive_channels" : 0,
   "address" : [],
   "binding" : [
      {
         "type" : "ipv4",
         "address" : "127.0.0.1",
         "port" : 11002
      }
   ],
   "version" : "v0.7.1-217-g913a1a9",
   "blockheight" : 0,
   "network" : "regtest",
   "msatoshi_fees_collected" : 0,
   "fees_collected_msat" : "0msat"
}

You can fund a channel between all nodes (like l1 --> l2 --> l3) with:

$ fund_regtest

Getting some bitcoins on both 'bitcoind' and 'lightningd' for each node
Funding a channel between node 1 and node 2 :
Waiting for lightningd to be aware of its bitcoins
{
   "tx" : "020000000001012df2a1c4b192a2fc741f840e076b74c1506b4c0dc6f7ad8aac00c1a1b10fa93c0100000000ffffffff02a08601000000000022002033327d832c3d4a234c605c9ede6dbcb399440d6ae68bcb310be244a31a3839faa942993b00000000160014028d6e1310ab72afb6102859c0b289f686a7264602483045022100844bb79d9b007713cc7ea27ae78f9cef31829c892edcc5737311516c08142a3502207c329763740644128c0125e42421b6fa7e5e557663676af88a151eb036e95a350121026b1bf2a838e6e262d280c70007e0d1729d116f143053c35a3fffe174d9cc01a900000000",
   "txid" : "6ef07a54f59131f31ab8ce2965dd33b316a20d30a7c114973fd959eac5947a09",
   "channel_id" : "097a94c5ea59d93f9714c1a7300da216b333dd6529ceb81af33191f5547af06e"
}

Funding a channel between node 2 and node 3 :
Waiting for lightningd to be aware of its bitcoins
{
   "tx" : "0200000000010111276268ef570cd98c32fa81985d746351535b94010959e8fbb8c77cb3689d690100000000ffffffff02a0860100000000002200201eef1f82e3f08951a7ed585ded129fbee0b56fae0663294e90ae824813245f35a942993b00000000160014d67ee0343bc0189c63b2d8f2e0cd63cb8683d8ea02483045022100e0875e1d1770c9a7c439b4bbe1065ed7e5ab9b74e06c6318106febc8f7f23ec602202f6da17be93f4b83bd2acd876e9b3647d3088be3aaa3a2b14de5db07aacb6631012102a5be7ce4872a3c50cb8ed05e59bc42bd54bf796c28754984fc9c4fbfc0823f8b00000000",
   "txid" : "a7719bc2a6fc8afb604c79083b893e3cba3ab7528d64db5ea74eeb5e81c3ac72",
   "channel_id" : "72acc3815eeb4ea75edb648d52b73aba3c3e893b08794c60fb8afca6c29b71a7"
}

Note that it will also start generating blocks in the background.

You can stop all daemons with (which deletes also data directories):

$ stop_regtest

lightningd can take some time to stop. It will be fixed in v0.7.2
lightningd 1 stopped
bitcoind 1 stopped
lightningd 2 stopped
bitcoind 2 stopped
lightningd 3 stopped
bitcoind 3 stopped

You can setup a fully connected network (needs a regtest of at least 3 nodes) with

$ fund_many_regtest

If you have a network of, say, 5 nodes A B C D E, then fund_regtest will fund channels such as

A ==> B ==> C ==> D ==> E

And fund_many_regtest will fund channels such as

C ==> A,   D ==> B,   E ==> C

You can setup lightningd and bitcoind pathes, for example:

BITCOIND_PATH=$PWD/bitcoin/src/bitcoind LIGHTNINGD_PATH=$PWD/lightning/lightningd/lightningd start_regtest

There exists a dirty function to cleanup in case of quirks, kill_regtest.