Host a bitcoind node on Ubuntu 14.10 / Microsoft Azure

Motivation: To create comprehensive instructions for anyone to follow to allow users to deploy a full bitcoin node using bitcoind, permanlty on using Microsoft's Azure.

##Requirements

1. Secondary drive large enough for the block chain growth
2. No wallet
3. No UI
4. Allow to be discovered by opening firewall
5. Good uptime

##Create an Ubuntu VM on Azure

From the Microsoft Azure portal https://manage.windowsazure.com.

1. Select Virtual Machines -> New -> Create Quick.
2. Give the node a DNS name
3. Select Ubuntu 14.10 from the images drop down
4. Set a password
5. The size should be set to A2 as a minimum while the code is built, then scaled back to A0 after.
6. Select your region
7. Attach a second 120GB empty disk (to be used for the block chain)

User is: azureuser Password is: xxx

###Open Azure firewall port To allow other bitcoin nodes to discover yours, we need to allow TCP 8333 port to be opened. From Azure select endpoints tab. Add new endpoint Port 8333 TCP.

You may want to restrict access to port 22 (SSH port) to your own IP.

Now we can SSH into the VM, using ssh azureuser@yournode.cloudapp.net

###Prerequisites

For the software to build a few dependencies must be installed first. You can install them by the following commands.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo apt-get install build-essential libboost-all-dev automake libtool autoconf
sudo apt-get install libdb++-dev
sudo apt-get install libboost-all-dev
sudo apt-get install pkg-config
sudo apt-get install libssl-dev
sudo apt-get install libqt5gui5 libqt5core5a libqt5dbus5 qttools5-dev qttools5-dev-tools libprotobuf-dev protobuf-compiler
sudo apt-get install git

###Mount data drive Format the data drive using ext3 filesystem and mount it. The secondary drive should be named /dev/sdc

sudo fdisk /dev/sdc
n
p
1
w
sudo mkdir /media/data
sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/sdc 

###Build bitcoind Now we will get bitcoin source from github (bitcoin brisbane fork) and compile. Feel free to use the bitcoin/bitcoin repository if you like.

sudo git clone https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
cd bitcoin
sudo git checkout 0.10
sudo ./autogen.sh
sudo ./configure --with-cli=no --with-gui=no --disable-wallet
sudo make 
sudo make install

Note, if there is an error on autogen.sh, re install the pre reqs.

###Move blocks

We now will move the blocks from the default location to the secondary drive, and create a static link.

sudo cp ~/.bitcoin/blocks /media/data/
sudo rm -R ~/.bitcoin/blocks
sudo ln -s /media/data/blocks blocks

To check this has worked perform the following

cd ~/.bitcoin
ls

"Blocks" should be in a cyan colour.

###Configure Last step we need to add the bitcoin config file.

cd ~/.bitcoin
sudo nano bitcoin.conf

Add the following:

server=1
rpcuser=username
rpcpassword=xxxxxxxx

###Done The daemon should now be ready to start. Simply type bitcoind to start the node. You should see "bitcoind starting"

###Trouble shooting

You can check the drive space by using the command df -h Debug log files are located at ~/.bitcoin/debug.log You can use the command sudo tail -f ~/.bitcoin/debug.log to monitor log files.

###References https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallingANewHardDrive http://askubuntu.com/questions/73160/how-do-i-find-the-amount-of-free-space-on-my-hard-drive