elements-docker-compose

Run an elements regtest network with docker-compose.

Three nodes are launched: a bitcoin node, and two elements nodes. The elements nodes have test coins.

The node configuration is based on the http://elementsproject.org Code Tutorial at https://elementsproject.org/elements-code-tutorial/overview

This docker compose configuration provides an alternative to installing elements and bitcoin nodes locally.

Pre-requisites

To use this code, you will need to install docker and docker-compose:

• Docker installation instructions https://docs.docker.com/get-docker
• docker compose installation instructions https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/

If you are installing on Linux, please follow the Linux post-installation steps at https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/linux-postinstall/, so that you can run docker as a non-root user.

Running

Build the containers:

$ docker compose build

Launch the three containers:

$ docker compose up -d

A bitcoin node running in regtest mode and two elements nodes running in elementsregtest mode are launched. After a few seconds, the network will be fully connected.

Verify that the three containers are running:

$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                                 COMMAND                  CREATED         STATUS         PORTS                                 NAMES
38719b9d2a03   elements-docker-compose_bitcoind      "/usr/local/bin/bitc…"   3 minutes ago   Up 3 minutes   0.0.0.0:18888->18888/tcp, 18889/tcp   docker-compose-bitcoind
4cf27baea81e   elements-docker-compose_elementsd-1   "/docker-entrypoint.…"   3 minutes ago   Up 3 minutes   0.0.0.0:18884->18884/tcp              docker-compose-elementsd-1
7228e131fa57   elements-docker-compose_elementsd-2   "/docker-entrypoint.…"   3 minutes ago   Up 3 minutes   0.0.0.0:18886->18886/tcp              docker-compose-elementsd-2

The daemon RPC ports are exposed to the host and will be listed in the output of docker ps.

Stopping the network

$ docker compose down

Node data, including chains and wallets, will persist in docker volumes after shutdown.

Cleanup

$ docker compose down -v --remove-orphans

will stop all containers and delete all volumes.

Running Commands

RPC

The daemons support RPC access and expose their RPC ports to the host. See the docker-compose.yml file for credentials.

Quickstart

Bash aliases are provided in aliases.sh, that allow you run elements RPC commands on each of the nodes:

$ source ./aliases.sh

Create a wallet on one elements node, and claim the free coins:

$ e1-cli createwallet '' || true $ e1-cli rescanblockchain $ e1-cli getwalletinfo

...
{
  "walletname": "",
  "walletversion": 169900,
  "format": "bdb",
  "balance": {
    "bitcoin": 21000000.00000000
  },

Create a wallet in the second elements node:

$ e2-cli createwallet '' || true
$ e2-cli rescanblockchain
$ e2-cli getwalletinfo

Step-by-step ELements tutorial

You can now continue with the (Elements Tutorial)[https://elementsproject.org/elements-code-tutorial/basic-operations]

Complete tutorial steps

The elementsproject.org tutorial is included here as a bash script, and can be run directly:

$ ./tutorial-excerpt.sh