# SETTING UP BTCD FOR A DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT

Bitcoin is made up of computing devices connected with each other on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network running the Bitcoin software. These computing devices participating in the network are called nodes. A Bitcoin node has a blockchain database, a routing mechanism to receive and propagate transactions and blocks, a mining function to validate and create new bitcoin, and a wallet to manage user keys. A node can have all (full node) of these features or selected features according to the needs of the user.

The first and most popular full-node client implementation is the Bitcoin core. It is the original client that was released by Satoshi Nakamoto. It is open-source and actively maintained by the Bitcoin community. Installable binaries exist on [bitcoin.org](bitcoin.org) for any platform of choice.

Another well-known client implementation is the BTCD by Conformal Systems. It is also an open-source project that has already been used in production as far back as 2014 and is actively maintained. Btcd implements most of the core functionalities of a node except wallet and chain functionality. The team has instead unbundled the wallet functionality into a separate wallet application called btcwallet.

`btcd` client also has minor differences from `bitcoind` such as enabling TLS for RPC connections by default and accepting both HTTP requests and Websockets. You can read their blog post [here](https://blog.conformal.com/btcd-not-your-moms-bitcoin-daemon/) about why they were separated.

`btcWallet` is a hierarchical deterministic (HD) bitcoin wallet client for a single user. It acts as both an RPC client to `btcd` and an RPC server for wallet clients and legacy RPC applications. It uses an HD path for address derivation (`BIP0044`) and encrypts both private keys and public data. You can read more about the wallet on their official repository [here](https://github.com/btcsuite/btcwallet).

Having been using Bitcoin core for some time, I wanted to see how well I can work with `btcd` client. So the first thing is to compile `btcd` from the source. The following sections document how I was able to set up the `btcd` node.

COMPILING BTCD

One prominent thing I have noticed while compiling BTCD is that a lot of details are abstracted. I was wondering where to place the configuration file, what is the command line tool, ports for RPC calls, etc. I will attempt to answer these questions in this article.

`btcd` is said to provide a compatible RPC interface with Bitcoin core, I am assuming that most features provided in `bitcoind` aside wallet and chain are found in `btcd`.

Following the instructions on their official [repo](https://github.com/btcsuite/btcd), first, install `go` and check the version with `go version`, root path, and path with `go env GOROOT GOPATH`.

Next, `cd $GOPATH` and create the subdirectories `mkdir -p src/github.com/btcsuite/btcd`

Clone the repo into the directory: `git clone https://github.com/btcsuite/btcd $GOPATH/src/github.com/btcsuite/btcd`

Then install: `GO111MODULE=on go install -v . ./cmd/...`

List installed btcd and its utilities: `ls $GOPATH/bin/`

We have `addblock`, `btcctl`, `btcd`, `findcheckpoint`, `gencerts`, `lncli`, `lnd`

`btcctl` - is a command line utility used to query and control `btcd` via RPC.

`gencerts`- is another command line utility used to generate TLS certificates for a specified host

`lncli` is a command line tool for querying `lnd` via RPC.

`lnd` Lightning Network Daemon is a lightning network node implementation by Lightning labs.

There are other Bitcoin-related Go packages released by the team, you can check them out [here](https://btcd.readthedocs.io/en/latest/developer_resources.html)

#### BTCD CONFIGURATION USING btcd.conf FILE

Next, we will create our configuration file. Now that `btcd` has been successfully installed, run the command `btcd —help` to see where we can place our configuration option.


For the macOS platform which I am using, the default `/Users/{username}/Library/Application Support/Btcd/btcd.conf`.

Navigate to the Btcd directory and create a config file: `cd /Users/{username}/Library/‘Application Support’/Btcd && touch btcd.conf && code btcd.conf`

Set the following options in the config file:

Network settings: `simnet=1` or `testnet=1` depending on the test network you want to use.
RPC Server: `rpcuser={username}`, `rpcpass={password}` set a strong password
Indexes: `txindex=1`
Debug: `debuglevel=info`

Summary of config file:

rpcuser="username"
rpcpass="password"
simnet=1
txindex=1
debuglevel=info

Save the file and return to the terminal and start btcd by running `btcd`.

#### SETTING UP BTCCTL COMMAND LINE TOOL

Next, we will configure `btcctl` to interact with `btcd` similar to `bitcoin-cli` for `bitcoind`.

Create a `btcctl.conf` file inside the default directory for your platform. For macOS, it is at `/Users/{username}/Library/Application Support/Btcctl/btcctl.conf`, check the default location for your platform by running `btcctl -h`.

Set the credentials to be same as those used for btcd: `rpcuser`="username", `rpcpass`="password", and network: `simnet=1`

You should be able to query btcd now.


You can use `btcctl -l` to list all available command options or visit this documentation page [here](https://btcd.readthedocs.io/en/latest/json_rpc_api.html#standard-methods) for further information.

Thank you.

References:
- Btcd official repo: https://github.com/btcsuite/btcd
- Btcd documentation: https://btcd.readthedocs.io
- Conformal blog post: https://blog.conformal.com/btcd-not-your-moms-bitcoin-daemon