I built a node, synced B-core, L-Core, Electrs. I connected to the UI via TOR on Android.
I’m currently trying to understand how and where a wallet fits in at the server level. I did some reading and like the look of the Specter wallet. My understanding is that Specter act as a proxy (the GUI front end) to the B-Core built in wallet, which is all command line?
When I installed Specter I’m faced with a compatibility issue, it reads: "Specter requires an install of Bitcoin Core satisfying >=23.0.0 <27.0.0. Bitcoin Core version 28.0.0~1 is NOT compatible."
My objectives are:
Setup a Node and a Wallet to make and receive BTC transactions.
It would be great if the Soft wallet has good interoperability with the majority of hardware wallets, as I have not learned enough to make a choice in that area, yet. Names like Coldcard, Keystone and the DYI Specter wallets have been suggested by 3rd parties.
It would also be great if the Soft wallet is supported on most exchanges and P2P platforms.
It would also be welcome to have the facility to use the soft wallet on my Android phone.
I don’t want to geek out too much with the infrastructure, my time is currently limited. I want security, longevity/compatibility/interoperability and minimal maintenance over the long term, so choices will be biased towards these criteria. If I can free up time in the future of current responsibilities, I will happily look at putting in more time in this area.
My queries are:
I’m guessing this means that Specter may be a bad choice at this point?
What other good alternatives are there?
Must I have a wallet installed on the server directly, or on the Desktop, or both? (this area really has me confused about the moving parts, as the options at server level are very limited from what I could tell but there are hundreds of wallets being mentioned elsewhere for operating systems)
I appreciate all concise feedback on my situation and assistance on choices I need to make to get this ball rolling.
A server is not a personal computer. You don’t install clients on it, a wallet is a client software that requires a backend. A backend is something a server would provide.
As you can probably deduce from the above image, you wouldn’t install all your apps from your phone or laptop on the server. But those apps need to connect to something that is always-on that does the work behind the scenes and holds the data.
In purely bitcoin terms, your server would run a bitcoin node as a service, your client would run a bitcoin wallet that would use your bitcoin node service as a backend to scan the blockchain, received new blocks and broadcast transactions.
You can install almost any wallet on your phone or computer, then point it to your node as a backend, provided the wallet supports that functionality. Most do.
You might not have come across out documentation yet, which would provide a good starting point…
Hello, and thank you Stupleb for the prompt response.
I’m aware of the Server>Client model. It is why I am confused why soft wallets are available to install in the Server via the app market (e.g. Alby Hub, LNBBits, Specter, Sparrows, etc.) and what function they serve and if/how they are required to fit in the equation.
I deduce from your response that they are not required, given that a you state a direct connection between the wallet residing in the client OS and the Node can be established to transmit transactions to the chain?
No you don’t have to install a wallet on your server, and if you did, it wouldn’t be Specter since it’s developer doesn’t update it and it will be removed from the marketplace for being abandoned.
I’d suggest you install Sparrow on a desktop or laptop.
Installing a hot wallet on your server is probably not necessary for 99% of people. The developer of this service only did it because he needed to access the same wallet from devices that were insecure and weren’t under his control. A work computer is a good example.
Currently, Electrs on StartOS only supports the .onion interface. This means you’ll need to either run a system-wide Tor daemon on your client (Win11) or use the built-in Tor feature in Sparrow. Here’s our guide to help you set it up. I hope this resolves your issue—let me know how it goes!
I’ll look into that option now and I’ll report back.
I suppose configuring the best method from the start saves time down the line, I just assumed that connecting sparrow over the LAN will be trivial, apparently not.
I read that I must have a wallet created in sparrow before I attempt to connect to core, so I did that and repeated the above. Still the same outcome.
I have various ports open outbound on the firewall of my desktop PC running sparrow. Im wondering if something is amiss in this area that I am overlooking?
I feel so stupid!