README.md

bitcoin-testnet-box

This is a private, difficulty 1 testnet in a box.

The master branch is meant for bitcoind v0.8.0. Check the tags for other bitcoind versions.

You must have bitcoind installed on your system and in the path.

Starting the testnet-box

This will start-up two nodes using the two datadirs 1 and 2. They will only connect to each other in order to remain an isolated private testnet. You need two because otherwise the node won't generate blocks.

Node 1 will listen on port 19000, allowing node 2 to connect to it.

Node 1 will listen on port 19001 and node 2 will listen on port 19011 for the JSON-RPC server.

$ make start

Check the status of the nodes

$ make getinfo
bitcoind -datadir=1  getinfo
{
    "version" : 80000,
    "protocolversion" : 70001,
    "walletversion" : 60000,
    "balance" : 0.00000000,
    "blocks" : 55922,
    "connections" : 1,
    "proxy" : "",
    "difficulty" : 1.00000000,
    "testnet" : true,
    "keypoololdest" : 1362643839,
    "keypoolsize" : 101,
    "paytxfee" : 0.00000000,
    "errors" : ""
}
bitcoind -datadir=2  getinfo
{
    "version" : 80000,
    "protocolversion" : 70001,
    "walletversion" : 60000,
    "balance" : 0.00000000,
    "blocks" : 55922,
    "connections" : 1,
    "proxy" : "",
    "difficulty" : 1.00000000,
    "testnet" : true,
    "keypoololdest" : 1362643615,
    "keypoolsize" : 101,
    "paytxfee" : 0.00000000,
    "errors" : ""
}

Generating blocks

You may be interested in making it easier to mine for testing purposes on your own private testnet. An easy-mining branch of bitcoind is maintained for this purpose. You will need to compile it yourself. You should only use the output binary for your own private testnet.

To start generating blocks:

$ make generate-true

To stop generating blocks:

$ make generate-false

Stopping the testnet-box

$ make stop

To clean up any files created while running the testnet and restore to the original state:

$ make clean

Using with docker

This testnet-box can be used with docker to run it in an isolated container.

Building docker image

Pull the image

• docker pull freewil/bitcoin-testnet-box

or build it yourself from this directory

• docker build -t bitcoin-testnet-box .

Running docker container

The docker image will run two bitcoin nodes in the background and is meant to be attached to allow you to type in commands. The image also exposes the two JSON-RPC ports from the nodes if you want to be able to access them from outside the container.

• $ docker run -t -i freewil/bitcoin-testnet-box