Bitcoind for Docker

Docker image that runs the Bitcoin bitcoind node in a container for easy deployment.

Requirements

• Physical machine, cloud instance, or VPS that supports Docker (i.e. Vultr, Digital Ocean, KVM or XEN based VMs) running Ubuntu 14.04 or later (not OpenVZ containers!)
• At least 500 GB to store the block chain files (and always growing!)
• At least 1 GB RAM + 2 GB swap file

Recommended and tested on unadvertised (only shown within control panel) Vultr SATA Storage 1024 MB RAM/250 GB disk instance @ $10/mo. Vultr also accepts Bitcoin payments!

Really Fast Quick Start

One liner for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS machines with JSON-RPC enabled on localhost and adds upstart init script:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kylemanna/docker-bitcoind/master/bootstrap-host.sh | sh -s trusty

Quick Start

1. Create a bitcoind-data volume to persist the bitcoind blockchain data, should exit immediately. The bitcoind-data container will store the blockchain when the node container is recreated (software upgrade, reboot, etc):

    docker volume create --name=bitcoind-data
    docker run -v bitcoind-data:/bitcoin/.bitcoin --name=bitcoind-node -d \
        -p 8333:8333 \
        -p 127.0.0.1:8332:8332 \
        kylemanna/bitcoind
   

2. Verify that the container is running and bitcoind node is downloading the blockchain

    $ docker ps
    CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                         COMMAND             CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                                              NAMES
    d0e1076b2dca        kylemanna/bitcoind:latest     "btc_oneshot"       2 seconds ago       Up 1 seconds        127.0.0.1:8332->8332/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8333->8333/tcp   bitcoind-node
   

3. You can then access the daemon's output thanks to the docker logs command

    docker logs -f bitcoind-node
   

4. Install optional init scripts for upstart and systemd are in the init directory.

Documentation

• Additional documentation in the docs folder.