Prepare the system

Update the system and install dependencies before compiling Bitcoin Core.

Update the system

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Disable SSH Password Login

In the SSH configuration, make sure password login is disabled (PasswordAuthentication no)

sudo cat /etc/ssh/sshd_config | grep PasswordAuthentication

Setup a firewall

We need to setup a firewall to restrict inbound traffic for our node.

First we install it:

sudo apt install ufw

By default ufw denies all incoming traffic so we must allow inbound SSH traffic before we enable it:

sudo ufw allow 22/tcp

Now we can enable the firewall:

sudo ufw enable

We can check the status with those commands:

sudo ufw status

sudo ufw status verbose

Install Tor

Install Tor:

sudo apt install tor

Add your user:

sudo usermod -a -G debian-tor your-user

You must log out and log back in for the changes to take effect.

Finally we can enable Tor at boot and start it:

sudo systemctl enable tor

sudo systemctl start tor

Install Bitcoin Core dependencies

The following packages will be needed to install Bitcoin Core:

sudo apt install git automake autoconf autotools-dev build-essential cmake make pkg-config protobuf-compiler libminiupnpc-dev libprotobuf-dev libdb++-dev libzmq3-dev libsqlite3-dev libboost-thread-dev libboost-test-dev libboost-all-dev libevent-dev libtool libssl-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-filesystem-dev capnproto libcapnp-dev

If you get the error Error: Unable to locate package libdb++-dev then you must specify the version number. Run apt search 'libdb.*++-dev'and install the latest version displayed. Example: libdb5.3++-dev

Install Node.js

This is only required if you plan to install BTC RPC Explorer.

The steps to install Node.js 23 are detailed here.

Install curl:

sudo apt install curl

Download the setup script:

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_23.x -o nodesource_setup.sh

Run it:

sudo -E bash nodesource_setup.sh

Install node:

sudo apt install nodejs

Verify the installation:

node -v

And also update npm to the latest version:

sudo npm install -g npm@latest

Install Rust and Cargo

This will be needed by the Electrum server if you plan on installing it.

Install dependencies:

sudo apt install -y clang cmake

Install Rust and Cargo:

curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh