I want to install a command line-only full node bitcoind on a mini PC with 4GB RAM and Ubuntu. What are the steps to do it and how can I check if it works?



To get add-apt-repository, which we will use later to add the bitcoin PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bitcoin/bitcoin

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install bitcoind


Before starting bitcointd you'll want to create directory and the bitcoin.conf configuration file:

cd ~/

mkdir .bitcoin

cd .bitcoin

vim bitcoin.conf or nano bitcoin.conf

In bitcoin.conf these content are important:


If you wish to use this installation on the regular bitcoin network, remove testnet=1

  • I think is an unnecessary command mkdir .bitcoin – vincenzopalazzo Dec 1 '19 at 20:41
  • When adding ppa:bitcoin/bitcoin it says: NOT MAINTAINED. The OS-library linking packages here had a series of issues. PLEASE DOWNLOAD DIRECTLY FROM bitcoincore.org (and verify the signatures of said files). – Nick Weisser Jan 22 at 9:40
  1. useradd bitcoin and passwd bitcoin
  2. link /home/bitcoin/.bitcoin to external HDD with chown -R bitcoin:bitcoin
  3. git clone bitcoin core in /home/USER/GitStuff
  4. add bitcoin ppa repository
  5. sudo apt install libdb4.8-dev && sudo apt install libdb4.8++-dev
  6. /autogen.sh in /home/USER/GitStuff/bitcoin
  7. /configure --withoug gui
  8. make
  9. make install 10 su bitcoin
  10. start bitcoind (as user bitcoin)
  11. curl -sL https://bitnodes.earn.com/api/v1/nodes/me-8333 | jq

There is a guide in the docs of the bitcoin source code that goes over how to build bitcoin as well as the dependencies needed. Within that same directory of the source (doc/) there are various other guides and explanations that you may find useful as well.

Linux build doc

  • Thanks, I actually would have added this and others once I refine my answer. I just wanted to put it out there for a start yesterday. – Ben Nov 26 '19 at 6:52

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