This is a practical Bitcoin Core setup for Raspberry Pi with systemd.
Assumptions:
- 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS
- external SSD connected (recommended)
- basic Linux admin experience
1) Base system
sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y curl wget gnupg git ca-certificates
sudo reboot
2) Prepare storage
If your SSD is already formatted and mounted correctly, skip this section.
Identify the disk:
lsblk -f
Example below assumes disk /dev/sda and creates partition /dev/sda1.
sudo parted /dev/sda --script mklabel gpt
sudo parted /dev/sda --script mkpart primary ext4 1MiB 100%
sudo mkfs.ext4 -L bitcoin /dev/sda1
Mount by UUID:
sudo blkid /dev/sda1
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/bitcoin
Add to /etc/fstab (use your actual UUID):
UUID=REPLACE_WITH_UUID /mnt/bitcoin ext4 defaults,noatime 0 2
Apply mount:
sudo mount -a
df -h /mnt/bitcoin
3) Create service user
sudo adduser --system --group --home /var/lib/bitcoind bitcoin
sudo chown -R bitcoin:bitcoin /mnt/bitcoin
4) Download and verify Bitcoin Core
Set version and fetch release artifacts:
cd /tmp
VER=30.2
wget "https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-${VER}/bitcoin-${VER}-aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.gz"
wget "https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-${VER}/SHA256SUMS"
wget "https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-${VER}/SHA256SUMS.asc"
Checksum verification:
sha256sum --ignore-missing --check SHA256SUMS
Signature verification (recommended):
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/bitcoin-core/guix.sigs /tmp/guix.sigs
gpg --import /tmp/guix.sigs/builder-keys/*.gpg
gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.asc SHA256SUMS
Install binaries:
tar -xzf "bitcoin-${VER}-aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.gz"
sudo install -m 0755 -o root -g root bitcoin-${VER}/bin/* /usr/local/bin/
bitcoind --version
5) Configure Bitcoin Core
sudo mkdir -p /etc/bitcoin
sudo chown root:bitcoin /etc/bitcoin
sudo chmod 750 /etc/bitcoin
Create /etc/bitcoin/bitcoin.conf:
server=1
daemon=0
# Storage
datadir=/mnt/bitcoin
prune=100000
# Performance (adjust for your RAM)
dbcache=1024
# RPC: local-only default
rpcbind=127.0.0.1
rpcallowip=127.0.0.1
# Network
listen=1
maxconnections=40
Notes:
- remove
prune=...if you want a full archival chain - if you remove pruning, expect large and growing disk usage
6) systemd service
Create /etc/systemd/system/bitcoind.service:
[Unit]
Description=Bitcoin daemon
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/bitcoind -pid=/run/bitcoind/bitcoind.pid -conf=/etc/bitcoin/bitcoin.conf -datadir=/mnt/bitcoin
User=bitcoin
Group=bitcoin
Type=forking
PIDFile=/run/bitcoind/bitcoind.pid
RuntimeDirectory=bitcoind
RuntimeDirectoryMode=0710
Restart=on-failure
TimeoutStopSec=600
PrivateTmp=true
ProtectSystem=full
ProtectHome=true
NoNewPrivileges=true
PrivateDevices=true
MemoryDenyWriteExecute=true
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Enable and start:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable bitcoind
sudo systemctl start bitcoind
sudo systemctl status bitcoind
7) Verify node state
bitcoin-cli -datadir=/mnt/bitcoin getblockchaininfo
bitcoin-cli -datadir=/mnt/bitcoin getnetworkinfo
journalctl -u bitcoind -f
Common sync check:
bitcoin-cli -datadir=/mnt/bitcoin getblockchaininfo | grep -E "blocks|headers|verificationprogress|pruned"
8) Optional: LAN RPC access
Default config is local-only RPC. Keep that unless you need remote RPC.
If you do expose RPC on LAN:
- restrict with
rpcallowipto specific hosts/subnets - use
rpcauthinstead of plainrpcuser/rpcpassword - do not expose RPC to the public internet
Generate rpcauth (from extracted release tree):
python3 /tmp/bitcoin-${VER}/share/rpcauth/rpcauth.py yourrpcuser
Then put the generated rpcauth=... line in bitcoin.conf and restart:
sudo systemctl restart bitcoind
9) Optional: Tor outbound
Install Tor and route peer traffic through it:
sudo apt install -y tor
Add to bitcoin.conf if desired:
proxy=127.0.0.1:9050
listenonion=1
Restart:
sudo systemctl restart bitcoind
