nix-bitcoin/examples/README.md

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Examples

The easiest way to try out nix-bitcoin is to use one of the provided examples.

Flakes-based quick start

If you use a Flakes-enabled version of Nix, run the following command to start a minimal nix-bitcoin QEMU VM:

nix run github:fort-nix/nix-bitcoin/release

The VM (defined in flake.nix) runs in the terminal and has bitcoind and clightning installed.
It leaves no traces (outside of /nix/store) on the host system.

More examples

Clone this repo and enter the examples shell:

git clone https://github.com/fort-nix/nix-bitcoin
cd nix-bitcoin/examples/
nix-shell

The following example scripts set up a nix-bitcoin node according to configuration.nix and then shut down immediately. They leave no traces (outside of /nix/store) on the host system.
By default, configuration.nix enables bitcoind and clightning.

Run the examples with option --interactive or -i to start a shell for interacting with the node:

./deploy-qemu-vm.sh -i

Tests

The nix-bitcoin test suite is also useful for exploring features.

Real-world example

Check the server repo for https://nixbitcoin.org to see the configuration of a nix-bitcoin node that's used in production.

The commands in shell.nix allow you to locally run the node in a VM or container.

Flakes

Flakes make it easy to include nix-bitcoin in an existing NixOS config. The flakes example shows how to use nix-bitcoin as an input to a system flake.