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BONUS: Ride The Lightning

  • In this section we will install and use Ride The Lightning (RTL)!
  • RTL is a webapp GUI for lightning nodes.
  • It is compatible with LND, CLN, and Eclair.
  • We're using it with CLN, of course.

Exercise: Install and use RTL

Add RTL to your config​

Copy this into your config:

  services.rtl = {
    enable = true;
    nodes.clightning.enable = true;
  };

Switch to the new config​

sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake /etc/nixos/#btcpp-berlin-mutinynet

Start an SSH tunnel​

  • SSH tunnels are the best way to access admin interfaces like RTL which really are not meant to be exposed publicly.
  • This guarantees that only someone with SSH access to our machine can control our Lightning node.

Open a terminal window and start a new SSH session like this:

ssh -L 3000:127.0.0.1:3000 bitcoiner@<VPS IP address>

This will open an SSH tunnel from localhost on your VPS (where RTL is on port 3000) to localhost on your local machine.

  • The tunnel will continue to work as long as you keep the SSH session open.
  • If you're having trouble connecting, try deactivating any VPNs and restarting the tunnel.
  • Make sure you don't have two tunnels open to the same port.

Use RTL in your browser​

You can now open a browser to localhost:3000 and this should open RTL.

Go back to your SSH session and grab your RTL password:

sudo cat /etc/nix-bitcoin-secrets/rtl-password

Paste your RTL password into your browser window and you're in!

You can now control your CLN node from a user-friendly UI.

  • Install RTL
  • Create an SSH tunnel to your RTL instance
  • Use RTL for great glory