CHILLYCALENDAR's Posts

Hi Everyone,

I hope you're all well.

I wanted to let you all know about some work I have been doing recently with  Grafana which may be of interest to you as fellow node runners.

Using Grafana and the forwarding logs from my RTL instance I have created a public dashboard of my primary Bitcoin Lightning Network node CHILLYCALENDAR (which is currently the 3rd highest ranked node in terms of capacity in Australia and the highest ranked in Melbourne thanks to you, my amazing fellow node runners and this fantastic website).   My dashboard contains a connect now button which links to a lightning page on my website where other node runners can easily connect to my node and open channels.  I might add an additional button that links to this website as well.

The dashboard can be seen at this link: https://grafana.intjbilling.com/d/ba0e94bc-3b0c-465f-bab6-fc640da6997b/chillycalendar-node-statistics?orgId=1

I was greatly inspired by the dashboard that LQWD the publicly listed Lightning Network company in Canada developed.  I became aware of their dashboard when they opened a channel to my node recently.  My dashboard is a work in progress and it could use some further refinements but I think most of the basics are there.

As most of you will know, creating dashboards like this for Bitcoin and the Bitcoin Lightning Network at the moment is quite difficult.  It will get easier as more developers build tools which automate a lot of the programming, configuration and integration work I had to do to get all this working. 

I used Grafana with a MariaDB.  I exported the forwarding data from RTL, populated the database, connected it up to Grafana as a data source and then created the dashboards.  I utilised ChatGPT as well for some of the queries.  At the moment it's a manual process to export the forwarding logs from RTL and import them into MariaDB but I have reached out to the developers of RTL to find out the MySQL queries they use on the underlying lightning sqlite database to form the view and CSV file from RTL.  I did look at the underlying schema of the sqlite db but I thought it would be better to reach out to the RTL devs directly and find out exactly how they do it.  My Grafana instance has been set up on another VPS and not on CHILLYCALENDAR.  I created a new A record on my webhost for grafana.intjbilling.com and pointed it to my VPS where I have Grafana running.  That VPS is running Apache with a number of virtual hosts one of which is Grafana.

As we know Bitcoin is a pseudo anonymous open public ledger.  Public dashboards like these I think can give regulators more confidence in those of you who like myself are running lightning network digital exchanges.

If any of you as my fellow node runners would like more details about how I did this and would like to set up a similar dashboard for your nodes or would like to collaborate with me on improving and refining my dashboard so we can come up with an even better one by working together on it please do feel free to reach out to me and I'll provide you with all the code and details.

I have also been hard at work recently populating links at the bottom section of my website https://intjbilling.com/index.html some of those links will be of interest to you as fellow node runners as they make it easier for us to run our nodes keeping access to all the important websites  in the one place for quick access.

Almost everything I'm doing with lightning is open source and free for you all.  Just reach out to me if you see anything I have done that you like and I'll provide it to you.

With Very Best Regards,

Clarke

Clarke Towson, BCMS (Bachelor of Computer & Mathematical Science)

CEO

INTJ Billing

m: +61 432 359 166

a: 7 Cullen Court Spotswood Victoria 3015 AUSTRALIA

w: https://intjbilling.com

e: clarketowson@intjbilling.com

 

Bitcoin Lightning Network Node Name: CHILLYCALENDAR 

Node Public Key: 025124c73ef7ecf527e0114ead02a0cc6e3ecbc0c99474ee3f5506c4503b089693 

Status Page: https://intjbilling.com/INTJBillingStatusPage.php

 

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick note to let you know that I have upgraded my primary lightning node.  

I'm now running the latest version of BTCPay Server with lightning v23.08 and bitcoin 26.0.  

This brings CHILLYCALENDAR up to date with CHILLYCALENDAR2 and  CHILLYCALENDAR3.

With Very Best Regards,

Clarke

Hi Everyone,

INTJ Billing's primary and secondary lightning network nodes were down for maintenance this morning for approx 24 minutes.  This was to implement a new more reliable power configuration.  An APC Line-R voltage regulator and a new CyberPower UPS were added to the setup for even more reliability and server uptime.  The setup also has an Ecoflow Delta battery connected to it so in the event of a power outage the UPS will kick in and then if the power doesn't come back on in quick fashion the Ecoflow battery will then kick in and provide another 3 hours of uptime which by then the power would hopefully be restored.

The reasoning for this new setup is due to a number of recent brownouts by my power distributor which were causing my main UPS to spike and go into an overload condition.  Less load has also been placed on this UPS.

Kind Regards,

Clarke

Dear Fellow Lightning Network Node Operators,

I hope it's OK for me to announce this here.  I have created a new community over on Amboss Space for Bitcoin Lightning Network node operators that would like to help support the payments of businesses involved in providing sex related products and services or adult entertainment including sex work, strip clubs, host and hostess clubs, online adult entertainment and so on. 

The link to the community is: https://amboss.space/community/f34223dc-c881-4b93-a631-70f751e775f0

I want to create a network of lightning network nodes that are committed to achieving censorship free payments for the sex industry worldwide to permanently solve the issue of debanking and payments censorship for the industry and to use this as a test case for other industries that have similar issues with payments censorship and banks. 

The overarching goal of the community is to create a network of sex industry and sex industry friendly lightning nodes connected to each other with payment channels open between nodes so the sex industry globally can process payments 100% free from censorship.  Payments that cannot be blocked, censored or frozen. 

My ultimate goal: A Bitcoin Lightning Network node located (or providing services to) every major red light district in the world. 

I maintain a website where I have created an interactive map of lightning nodes that have joined me in this quest:

https://intjbilling.com/redlight/map/contents/jsmap/INTJBillingSexIndustryLightningNodes.html

If you're interested in this please join my new community on Amboss.space and I will add your node to the map on my website.

You can learn more about my open source project Bitcoin is for Everyone on my YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBCeDhvU_40&t=386s

Kind Regards,

Clarke

Clarke Towson
CEO
INTJ Billing

Hi Everyone,

My node CHILLYCALENDAR was down for the past 22 minutes approx.  This was caused by a brownout and a power spike in my area Spotswood Victoria which caused one of the connected UPS to cut out and alarm.   The server and associated infrastructure needed to be restarted.  This is the first time such an incident has occurred on my infrastructure where a UPS has spiked and alarmed. 

The infrastructure has been restarted and my node is back online.

Kind Regards,

Clarke

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick note to let you know that my node is currently down.  It's due to an issue with my BTCPay Server NBXplorer is stuck syncing meaning my node is stuck on 99%.  

I believe this is what's happening: https://github.com/btcpayserver/btcpayserver-docker/issues/519

Hopefully I should have it fixed in the next day or so.  I may take the downtime opportunity to upgrade my BTCPay Server to the latest 1.7.5 version as well.

Kind Regards,

Clarke

My node Chillycalendar has been uncontactable for around 4 hours due to a fault with my web host hostpapa which handles the DNS for my BTCPay Server.  Sorry about that to the peers connected with me that I have open channels with that I found via this website.  Hopefully the issue should be resolved shortly https://hostpapastatus.com/

Our server health team is still working on a permanent fix for the networking issue.

We will post further updates on this page until the issue is fully resolved.

Some servers (sXXX, ws01-ws09, c100/c101, and VPS) are experiencing some connectivity issues that may affect the ability of clients to access services/accounts on these servers.

This has been identified by our server health team, and they are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation in regard to troubleshooting this issue. We will post further updates on this page until the issue is resolved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0MuWmcE7_o

In this video I demonstrate purchasing drinks from The Pride of Our Footscray Community Bars new BTCPay Server online drinks app using Bitcoin via the Bitcoin Lightning Network.  The Wallet of Satoshi Bitcoin Lightning Network Wallet is installed on my iPhone.  

The Pride Bar Point of Sale App runs on an iPad which sits behind the bar.  The Pride Bar BTCPay Server Sombermontana runs on a laptop which is currently attached to INTJ Billing's corporate network but will soon likely be placed on premises at Pride Bar in Footscray and connected up to their network.  A payment channel is open between Pride Bars node Sombermontana and INTJ Billing's node Chillycalendar and inbound liquidity has been purchased from Bitrefill, Yall's and Coincept.  The laptop in the video is my laptop which is connected up to my phones wireless hotspot.  The laptop has Ride the Lightning opened on Pride Bars BTCPay Server located approx 5km down the road in Spotswood at INTJ Billings premises.

We may be one of the first if not the first bar in Australia to accept bitcoin lightning network payments!  

The bar estimates that if every customer was to pay using bitcoin via the bitcoin lightning network it would save the bar approx $40,000 AUD per year in not paying the middle men payment processors and bank transaction fees!

I have put together a YouTube video and spreadsheet based on Bitcoin LN nodes and Freedom in the World Country Freedom Scores:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDo0G_Q0DIc

I used 1ml.com for the node list.  Something similar I'm sure could be done but using the list of nodes from this website instead.  Would be interesting to see. 

I think it's really important we encourage people located in countries which are not free and partly free (if they can and if it's not illegal) for them to create LN nodes and become node operators.  It would be amazing to see more growth of the LN in these not free and partially free countries.

My node Chillycalendar has been uncontactable for around 14 hours due to a fault with my ISP.  Sorry about that to the peers connected with me that I have open channels with that I found via this website.  Hopefully the issue should be resolved shortly.  I have put through a fault notification with my service provider Aussie Broadband.   This is the longest downtime my link has ever experienced unfortunately.