How To Set Up A Watchtower For An Umbrel Bitcoin Lightning Node

This information will present you easy methods to shortly and simply shield your funds in your Bitcoin Lightning channel.

The Lightning Community is a trustless* Layer 2 community for Bitcoin and brings forth many enhancements in velocity and price of ultimate settlement. I exploit an asterisk on trustless as a result of though it’s, there are a number of caveats to think about in order that your funds are protected, apart from regular sizzling pockets dangers. Watchtowers, which we’ll cowl at present, be sure that your funds are protected from malicious channel closures, which is among the most important dangers of operating a well-capitalized Lightning node.

Lightning channels are presently constructed by establishing a two-of-two multisig deal with, through which your funds are locked up with one other celebration. Both celebration has the key to revoke the multisig contract and settle up at any time, however provided that each nodes are on-line can it’s closed instantly. In case your node did go offline, the opposite celebration has to both wait so that you can come again on-line or power shut the channel. Now, power closing isn’t all the time an enormous concern, particularly when you’re utilizing the Lightning Community with friends that you simply belief already, however because the Lightning Community grows and its use instances broaden, you’ll inevitably begin interacting with friends whom you might not know, and so it is vital to be taught to defend your node in opposition to malicious closures.

If a malicious peer had been to shut a channel with a false steadiness state, and you do not come on-line to rebroadcast and declare the precise steadiness inside sufficient time, they’ll get your whole funds within the channel. Watchtowers shield in opposition to this by conserving a operating tab of your channel balances and defending in opposition to malicious closures. If a foul actor had been to shut a channel whilst you have a watchtower energetic in your Lightning node, they may immediately be penalized by what’s known as a justice transaction as a substitute of you, and you’re going to get all of their funds as a substitute of them getting yours.

On this video, we clarify how watchtowers work to guard your funds inside Bitcoin Lightning channels and present you ways to hook up with Voltage.Cloud’s free, LND Tor-based watchtower service.

This considerably reduces the operational danger of operating a capitalized Lightning node for my part. Whereas it doesn’t essentially scale back the danger of power closures on a crashed node with static backups and will nonetheless be an costly incident to recuperate, no less than this can shield your funds in opposition to malicious channel companions who might attempt to steal your funds if a {hardware} failure occasion had been to happen.

At the moment Voltage.Cloud runs this service altruistically, too. Fairly candy, huh?

Thanks for testing our video. Full steps under.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmgh18QE4eA

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1) Right here is the code so as to add to the underside of lnd.conf file:

[wtclient]

wtclient.energetic=true

2) Then, after you restart, run from root by way of SSH:

docker exec -it lnd lncli wtclient add 0301135932e89600b3582513c648d46213dc425c7666e3380faa7dbb51f7e6a3d6@tower4excc3jdaoxcqzbw7gzipoknzqn3dbnw2kfdfhpvvbxagrzmfad.onion:9911

3) Lastly, to examine the watchtower is energetic run:

docker exec lnd lncli wtclient towers

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Video Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

0:30 Watchtowers defined

2:27 Downloading PuTTY to entry node by way of command line

3:20 Modifying lnd.conf file by way of SSH

5:40 Restarting node

6:05 Including Voltage.Cloud’s Tor Watchtower by way of SSH

7:05 Verifying the Watchtower was efficiently added

7:37 Watchtower privateness