I am running a full bitcoind node on a VPS and I was wondering what the general approach would be to add a Counterparty node to the mix would be.
Since I already have the Bitcoin blockchain running can I install Counterparty on the same server and let it access the same blockchain? I understand they use different ports, are installed each in their own folders and each have their own config. But can they share the same blockchain or do I have to double up and install two blockchains?
Your intuition is right - the same blockchain will do!
Instructions:
http://counterparty.io/docs/build-system/build-from-source/ (scroll down to the Linux section).
If you’re not on Ubuntu 14.04 (or 12.04, although even that is not easy), you’ll probably have a hard time setting Counterpartyd up.
You’d need to enable txindex (if you haven’t before) and reindex (if you haven’t before):
Part where almost everyone fails is they don’t set counterpartyd to authenticate against bitcoind, so don’t forget to do that.
To speed things up, you can download the “bootstrap” Counterparty database (it may even be setup automatically as you run “sudo python setup.py”, but the location is given on this page, just in case):
Awesome! Thanks! I’m on my way to set up two nodes 1) On a node that is just Testnet. I use it to provide a demo for users to actually “buy” on my site using free testnet coins. It gives the newbies a taste of Bitcoin for free. 2) A full BTC node.
The nodes provide for a PHP payment gateway that works with both nodes so I’ll be adding Counterparty to the suite. The PHP payment gateway is something I coded and released open source and is at https://github.com/Bungeebones/bitcoin_gateway if anyone is interested. It hasn’t undergone ANY peer review and I am far from being a developer so it is what it is. I am demonstrating it to our local PHP Meetup tomorrow though so hopefully it will draw some interest of people better qualified to kick the tires. It has worked, however, for many months now without incident. It lets the node on the VPS interface with a shared hosting server.
Sounds good, good luck! I think there are no Counterparty payment gateways so it’s be great to have one. Please report back if you get it done!
Although it’s written in a different language,Vennd (which is (was, but it will be again) used in Quick Buy inside of Counterwallet) may be interesting for reference purposes.
https://github.com/vennd/vennd
(It’s possible to run the both (testnet / mainnet) on a single system, but it can get heavy. There are notes about that on the same support site.)