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Quickly try out Liana

Just give me the TL;DR!

(Updated on February the 28th of 2023)

This document is a short set of instructions for trying out Liana on Bitcoin signet. It does not attempt to give any nuance, details or describe alternative configurations.

This guide will make use Liana as a "hot wallet". If you'd like to try out Liana using dummy hardware signing device you can use the Specter simulator or the Ledger "Speculos" emulator.

Step 0: preparation

System dependencies

Here is a list of the system dependencies: the tools and libraries you need to have installed on your system to follow the guide if you are running Linux.

TL;DR:

  • Debian/Ubuntu: apt install curl gpg udev libfontconfig1-dev libudev-dev
  • Arch Linux: check if you have all the required packages: pacman -Q coreutils tar curl gnupg fontconfig systemd-libs. If any is listed as "was not found", get it with pacman -S [missing package name]
  • Other distribution: see the link to projects below to search for the name of your distribution's packages.
  • Running binaries requires GLIBC >= 2.33 (Ubuntu >= 22.04 or Debian >= 12)

We'll use basic tools which should already be present on your system, such as:

  • shasum
  • tar

To download and verify binaries you will also need:

  • curl (On Debian/Ubuntu apt install curl)
  • gpg (On Debian/Ubuntu apt install gpg)

To run the GUI you will need some additional libraries:

  • fontconfig (On Debian/Ubuntu apt install libfontconfig1-dev)
  • Libudev (On Debian/Ubuntu apt install udev libudev-dev)

Throwaway folder

You can follow the guide from any folder of your choice. We recommend using a dedicated folder you can wipe easily. On Linux:

mkdir liana_quicktry
cd liana_quicktry

Step 1: setup bitcoind

Liana needs bitcoind to communicate with the Bitcoin network. Minimum supported version is 24.0.1.

Download

The following instructions are specific to Linux (they may work on MacOS but i'm not sure). For other platforms refer to https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/#verify-your-download.

  1. Download the bitcoind binary from the official website of the Bitcoin Core project according to your platform (in the context of this guide, it is most likely bitcoin-25.0-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz), and associated SHA256SUMS and SHA256SUMS.asc verification files.
curl -O https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-25.0/bitcoin-25.0-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz -O https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-25.0/SHA256SUMS -O https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-25.0/SHA256SUMS.asc
  1. Verify the hash of the downloaded archive.
sha256sum --ignore-missing --check SHA256SUMS
  1. Verify the signature against a key you trust. The Bitcoin Core Guix Attestations Github repo contains a folder of signers for each release and a folder of their keys. Mine is 590B7292695AFFA5B672CBB2E13FC145CD3F4304.
gpg --keyserver hkps://keys.openpgp.org --receive 590B7292695AFFA5B672CBB2E13FC145CD3F4304
gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.asc
  1. Finally, uncompress the archive to get access to the bitcoind binary.
tar -xzf bitcoin-25.0-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz

Start bitcoind on signet

Run bitcoind in the background on the public signet network. On Linux:

./bitcoin-25.0/bin/bitcoind -signet -daemon

If it is the first time you start a signet Bitcoin on this machine it will take a few minutes to synchronize (depends on your connection and hardware of course, but it shouldn't take longer than a handful of minutes). You can track the progress using the getblockchaininfo command. On Linux:

./bitcoin-25.0/bin/bitcoin-cli -signet getblockchaininfo

You do not need to wait for full synchronisation before moving on to the next step.

Step 2: start Liana

Head to the release page and download the right executable for your platform. If you are not sure what is the "right" executable for your platform, choose Liana.zip if you are on MacOS, liana-1.0.exe if you are on Windows, and liana-1.0-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz if you are on Linux.

A note for Linux users only: released binaries may not be working on your system if it is running a too old glibc. In this case you may have to build from source. See the short section about this in the README.

For every file available on the release page, there is an accompanying .asc file with the same name. This is a GPG signature made with Antoine Poinsot's key: 590B7292695AFFA5B672CBB2E13FC145CD3F4304. This key is available elsewhere for cross-checking, such as on his Twitter profile or his personal website. It is recommended you verify your download against this key.

At startup, you will have the choice between starting Liana using an existing configuration or to set up a new one. Choose to install Liana on a new Bitcoin network.

The next screen allows you to either configure a new wallet, participate in the configuration of a new wallet (if you are taking part in a multisig for instance), or to recover a wallet from backup. Choose to create a new wallet.

Choose Bitcoin Signet as network. Now you will need to configure the primary key(s), the recovery key(s), and the time delay before the recovery keys become available (in # of blocks). We'll use only one key for both the primary and recovery paths. We'll derive both keys from a "hot signer", a HD wallet whose seed is stored on the laptop.

Click on "Set" for the primary key. Click on "This computer" and set an alias for this signer. I'll name it Alice but choose whatever. Set any timelock you want but preferably something very small if you want to try the timelocked recovery feature! I'll go for "2" as the timelock. Click on "Set" for the recovery key, and choose "This computer" again.

Of course, it wouldn't make sense for a real wallet to use the same signing device to derive both the primary and recovery keys. Or even to use hot keys at all with a non-trivial amount of coins. We only do this for convenience in testing Liana on Signet. If you'd like to try out signing with a hardware wallet you can use the "testnet" mode of a Specter, the "Bitcoin testnet" app of a Ledger, or the simulator of any of them (see the links at the top of this document).

Click on next. If you want to try restoring from wallet backup later on, make sure to backup the mnemonic as well as the descriptor in the next two screens. Otherwise just make them happy by ticking the boxes. If you are using a signing device simulator you'll have a step for registering the descriptor on it.

You can then decide whether you would like to manage bitcoind yourself or let Liana configure and start/stop it while the GUI is being used:

  • If you choose to manage bitcoind yourself, the next step will be to configure the connection. The default should work for what we did in this guide.
  • If you choose to let Liana manage bitcoind, the next step will search for a bitcoind executable on your computer and start it, using <Liana data directory>/bitcoind_datadir as the data directory and creating a bitcoin.conf file therein.

Click on continue and finalize the installation.

In the case of a Liana-managed bitcoind, it will be automatically started the next time you start Liana for the given network.

Step 3: have fun

You can generate a receive address in the "Receive" menu. You can get signet coins from the signet faucet at https://signet.bc-2.jp/.

If you want to try the timelocked recovery path, receive some coins and wait for some blocks (2 for my own configuration, but it depends on what you configured previously). Then you can click on "recover funds" in "Settings" > "Recovery".

Keep in mind that signet coins have no value!

Cleanup

You need to remove:

  • The Bitcoin Core archive, binary and data directory
  • The Liana binary and data directory

Assuming you used the throwaway folder as advised in step 0 and did not use custom bitcoind or Liana data directories you can wipe everything using these commands:

cd ..
rm -rf liana_quicktry
rm -rf ~/.bitcoin/signet
rm -rf ~/.liana/signet

Tips & Tricks

Simulating multiple wallets

You can simulate multiple wallets by using different data directories. For instance:

./liana-gui --datadir test_alice
./liana-gui --datadir test_bob
./liana-gui --datadir test_charlie

The directory will be created if it doesn't exist.