Configuration Guide ¶

BTCnDash is generates and displays a status dashboard for a Bitcoin node. It uses a JSON-based configuration file which defaults to config.json in the root folder of the script, but can also be specified on the command line.

Table of contents

Configuration Guide

Command-line Options ¶

Several command-line options are available

config

The default config file location can be overridden using the config option:

btcndash --config=/my/absolute/path/here/myconfig.json

clearcache

Clears any cached static html files before continuing to load BTCnDash:

btcndash --clearcache

RPC and Bitcoin Node Settings ¶

rpc_urn

This is the complete URN used to contact the bitcoin RPC server. It must start with http:// or https://. Note that v0.12 of Bitcoin Core no longer supports https connections! The URN must take the form of:

http://username:password@ip.add.re.ss:port

username: RPC username. Used to log into the bitcoind RPC server. The RPC functionality must be enabled in the bitcoin.conf file by setting server=1 along with rpcuser and rpcpassword.
password: RPC password. Used to log into the bitcoind RPC server. Because RPC is done over http, this password should contain only characters that can be included in a URL. This means some special characters like # should not be used.
ip address: IP address of server to which RPC calls will be made (the computer on which bitcoind is running). This is typically the same machine this script is running on, but doesn’t have to be. If it is not the same machine, be sure that your firewall allows the rpc_port through.
port: The port on which bitcoind listens for RPC requests.

node_port

The port on which the bitcoind daemon is listening for bitcoin protocol requests. This is used for informational purposes only.

General settings ¶

header_title: This text will appear in the header of all pages to the right of the bitcoin logo.
node_name: This is the text that appears in the Node Information tile as the name of the Node.
donate_address: Bitcoin address to which donations can be sent for this bitcoin node server. This will be displayed on the dashboard and used to automatically generate a qr code.
cache_time: How often, in seconds, the status pages will be refreshed. The pages are refreshed by a background task.
cache_time_loc: How often, in seconds, the IP address and location will be refreshed. This is done by a background task. Location is refreshed independently because it should rarely change so will typically have a much longer refresh time.

Local Server Settings ¶

server_ip_local: The local, internal IP address of the server running BTCnDash. Used by the Bottle framework to decide which IP to listen on.
server_ip_public: The public, external IP address of the server running BTCnDash. Used to find the location of the server and for informational purposes. This will be auto-detected if set to detect.
server_port: The port on which BTCnDash will listen for requests. Can’t be the standard port 80 unless you run BTCnDash as root, which is not recommended.
server_type: The type of server that the Bottle framework will use to serve pages. More information on the choices is available in the Bottle documentation. The default is Python’s built-in wsgi server wsgiref.
server_location: Physical location of the BTCnDash server. This will be auto-detected if set to detect.
server_latitude: The latitude of the BTCnDash server. This will be auto-detected if set to detect as long as either server_ip_public or server_location is also set to detect.
server_longitude: The longitude of the BTCnDash server. This will be auto-detected if set to detect as long as either server_ip_public or server_location is also set to detect.
debug: Sets whether or not the Bottle framework server will run in debug mode. Disable this on production servers!
log_level: Level of detail for logging. Use typical Python logger values such as INFO, WARN, ERROR, DEBUG and CRITICAL.
alternate_views: Defines a location which will be added as an additional search path for template files. Defaults to "".
alternate_static: Defines a location where user-defined static files may be placed for use in custom tiles. Custom tiles can access resources located here by directing tiles to the static_alt directory at the BTCnDash web root - for example http://mysite.com/static_alt/mypng.png. Defaults to "".

External API settings ¶

qr_url: Address to use for generating qr codes.
qr_param: Parameters to pass to the qr code generating service.
block_height_url: Address to use when displaying information about the current block height.
ip_info_url: Address to use when displaying information about a peer connected to the node.
tx_info_url: Address to use when displaying information about a Bitcoin transaction.
hash_diff_url: Address to use when displaying information about the Bitcoin network hash rate and difficulty.
loc_url: Service to use to get current IP address and location.
map_url: Address to use to create link to map of current location. Must use {} within the URL to define where the latitude and longitude will be substituted.
donate_url: Address to use when directing a visitor to the donate address.
bitnodes_url: Address used when querying the Bitnodes API.
fee_url: Address used for retrieving fee information.

Page and Tile Settings ¶

tx_summary_limit

Limits the number of recent transactions displayed in the data table found on the transactions page. Defaults to 500.

pages

Stores various information about the pages that make up BTCnDash.

template: The name of the .tpl file that contains the template for this page.
static: The name of the static file to be generated as an output of the template for this page.
title: The text to appear at the top of the page.
tiles: the individual tiles (components that make up the dashboard) to be displayed on the given page and in which order. This is a list of lists with each sub-list being a row on the page.

tiles

Stores information about the tiles that can be assembled on pages.

template: The name of the .tpl file that contains the template for this page.
rpc_commands: A list of RPC commands which must be called in order for this tile to have access to the required data while populating its template. A mostly up-to-date list of RPC commands is available at the Bitcoin Wiki.