Issues in getting started with eclair-cli

[claddyy]

I have bitcoin-25.0 installed with the following bitcoin.conf:

server=1
txindex=1
regtest=1

rpcuser=claddy
rpcpassword=H-QAlqka_JTPhCBIruTjV3mcXrFmazKsCPnT7dNWO-g

zmqpubrawblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:29000
zmqpubhashblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:29000
zmqpubrawtx=tcp://127.0.0.1:29001

fallbackfee=0.0002

Then I installed eclair node from releases
My eclair.conf file is:

eclair.chain = "regtest"
eclair.node-alias=claddy
eclair.server.port=9735

eclair.trampoline-payments-enable=true

eclair.api.enabled=true
eclair.api.port=9000
eclair.api.password=password

eclair.bitcoind.rpcport=18443
eclair.bitcoind.rpcuser=claddy
eclair.bitcoind.rpcpassword=H-QAlqka_JTPhCBIruTjV3mcXrFmazKsCPnT7dNWO-g
eclair.bitcoind.zmqblock="tcp://127.0.0.1:29000"
eclair.bitcoind.zmqtx="tcp://127.0.0.1:29001"

When I start the eclair node, I'm not getting any response:

In a new terminal, when i try to connect to an endurance node as stated in the Usage.md
I' getting the following error:
claddy@claddy:~$ eclair-cli connect --uri=03933884aaf1d6b108397e5efe5c86bcf2d8ca8d2f700eda99db9214fc2712b134@endurance.acinq.co:9735 Enter host password for user 'eclair-cli': curl: (7) Failed to connect to localhost port 8080 after 0 ms: Connection refused

I'm entering the password as password, as entered in the eclair.conf file.
How, do I proceed forward?

[sstone]

In your eclair.conf file you specify eclair.api.port=9000 so you must also tell eclair-cli to use port 9000:
eclair-cli -a localhost:9000 -p password connect ...

Also, you've configured bitcoind and eclair to run in regtest mode (a local test network), so you will not be able to connect to endurance which runs on testnet.

[t-bast]

I have bitcoin-25.0 installed

Why do you use bitcoind 25.0? Our README says that you should use bitcoind 23.2, and that's what I told you when we last spoke about it.

When I start the eclair node, I'm not getting any response:

This is perfectly normal, your node is running and does not print logs to the console. But if you look for the eclair.log file, you'll see that your node was started correctly.

when i try to connect to an endurance node

As sstone explained, you're running on regtest, which is your own local test network, so you shouldn't try to connect to any node outside of your machine, that doesn't make sense. You should follow the instructions in https://github.com/t-bast/lightning-cfg/ to run multiple nodes on your local machine and connect them together.

[claddyy]

Update

• Fixed my bitcoind version. Now, it's 23.2
• I was able to setup 2 eclair node Ids, alice and bob and was able to do following:
• connect both nodes
• setup a channel between them
• create invoice for a Test Payment
• pay the invoice
• below is the log of getsentinfo command which describes it.

claddy@claddy:~$ eclair-cli -a localhost:9000 -p password getsentinfo --id=fceaf66b-55cd-4bee-bfa9-ff31f303e2f7
[
  {
    "id": "fceaf66b-55cd-4bee-bfa9-ff31f303e2f7",
    "parentId": "fceaf66b-55cd-4bee-bfa9-ff31f303e2f7",
    "paymentHash": "6375a03aeef166a277b11e75c703be152a09d9a2423015c3335224056162c561",
    "paymentType": "Standard",
    "amount": 100000,
    "recipientAmount": 100000,
    "recipientNodeId": "03e319aa4ecc7a89fb8b3feb6efe9075864b91048bff5bef14efd55a69760ddf17",
    "createdAt": {
      "iso": "2023-06-23T23:11:04.422Z",
      "unix": 1687561864
    },
    "invoice": {
      "prefix": "lnbcrt",
      "timestamp": 1687561790,
      "nodeId": "03e319aa4ecc7a89fb8b3feb6efe9075864b91048bff5bef14efd55a69760ddf17",
      "serialized": "lnbcrt1u1pjfvf37pp5vd66qwhw79n2yaa3re6uwqa7z54qnkdzggcptsen2gjq2ctzc4ssdq523jhxapqwpshjmt9de6qsp57gg0gql0lcay80ny35d9sg30s59wu68adjfjf3gn59zhmyc6y50qmqz9gxqrrsscqp79q7sqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqsqqqqqysgqalkgarqsgwmjqngaces28s5du5kmet20rwxtyg7xvw3gep7gzpf9ln0pwqg8e2w3mh2cxtmc8e9jf2hww2829y7s7vqd30g8pst8cycpqqmcza",
      "description": "Test payment",
      "paymentHash": "6375a03aeef166a277b11e75c703be152a09d9a2423015c3335224056162c561",
      "paymentMetadata": "2a",
      "expiry": 3600,
      "minFinalCltvExpiry": 30,
      "amount": 100000,
      "features": {
        "activated": {
          "trampoline_payment_prototype": "optional",
          "payment_secret": "mandatory",
          "basic_mpp": "optional",
          "option_payment_metadata": "optional",
          "var_onion_optin": "mandatory"
        },
        "unknown": []
      },
      "routingInfo": []
    },
    "status": {
      "type": "failed",
      "failures": [
        {
          "failureType": "Local",
          "failureMessage": "cannot route to self",
          "failedRoute": []
        }
      ],
      "completedAt": {
        "iso": "2023-06-23T23:11:04.426Z",
        "unix": 1687561864
      }
    }
  }
]

[t-bast]

Perfect, that shows you should now have a working setup! You should now do more tests, play around with all the APIs available for eclair (see https://acinq.github.io/eclair). For example, the response you just pasted shows that you did not succeed at making a payment ("failureMessage": "cannot route to self"). Do you understand why you got that error?

[claddyy]

This error probably is generated because I tried to pay the invoice from 'Alice' to 'Alice'(back to itself). It's not possible to route a payment back to node sending it.

The payment was successful, when I create an invoice between Alice and Bob, and Bob pays it to Alice.

[t-bast]

That's exactly it 👍

[claddyy]

Does rbfopen work in regtest mode?

claddy@claddy:~$ eclair-cli -a localhost:9000 -p password rbfopen --channelId=b91b499c7274a91b8fe698ac57df59513c89ace694e2fa7e3661641caeeca070 --targetFeerateSatByte=50000
cannot execute command=rbf in state=WAIT_FOR_FUNDING_CONFIRMED

After I mined blocks using bitcoin-cli -generate 6
then I'm getting the following output

claddy@claddy:~$ eclair-cli -a localhost:9000 -p password rbfopen --channelId=b91b499c7274a91b8fe698ac57df59513c89ace694e2fa7e3661641caeeca070 --targetFeerateSatByte=50000
cannot execute command=rbf in state=NORMAL

[t-bast]

rbfopen only works for dual-funded channels, which is fully implemented by eclair but not yet activated because the specification hasn't been accepted yet (lightning/bolts#851). You can think of dual-funded channels as the next version of the protocol to open channels between lightning nodes, but you can ignore it for now since it's not activated by default.

The goal of that API is to increase the fees of an unconfirmed transaction. Once the transaction is confirmed (which is your second test, after bitcoin-cli generate 6), it wouldn't make sense to try to increase the fees.