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Run as container with CLN

Environment

This guide assumes a headless Fedora Server 41 machine. The exact commands may be different for your setup.

These instructions were last tested with cdk-mintd v0.8.1.

Prerequisites

  • CLN is running on the same machine as the one where you're setting up the mint

Create a working directory that will be used by cdk-mintd:

mkdir ~/.cdk-mintd
cd ~/.cdk-mintd

Download the sample CDK mint configuration file and save it as config.toml:

curl -o config.toml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cashubtc/cdk/refs/tags/v0.8.1/crates/cdk-mintd/example.config.toml

Note the v0.8.1 release version in the URL. Change it according to the version you're using.

Edit the downloaded config.toml as follows:

  • change info.url to the URL under which your mint will be accessible
  • change info.listen_host to 0.0.0.0
  • change info.mnemonic to a new mnemonic
  • edit the fields in mint_info with public details of your mint (name, description, etc)
  • change ln.ln_backend to cln
  • un-comment the entire cln section
  • change cln.rpc_path to /root/.lightningd/lightning-rpc

Your mint working directory should now contain:

ls ~/.cdk-mintd
config.toml

Create and run a cdk-mintd container that also:

  • mounts your local mint working directory, so it's available from within the container
  • makes the local CLN RPC socket file available inside the container at /root/.lightningd/lightning-rpc
  • binds port 8085 (the info.listen_port defined in config.toml), so that it's reachable from outside the container, but only on your host's loopback interface
podman run -d --name cdk-mintd \
    -p 127.0.0.1:8085:8085 \
    -v ~/.cdk-mintd:/root/.cdk-mintd:Z \
    -v <path-to-lightning-rpc>:/root/.lightningd/lightning-rpc:Z \
    docker.io/thesimplekid/cdk-mintd:latest

Path to lightning-rpc

Before running the command, replace <path-to-lightning-rpc> with the path to your CLN installation's lightning-rpc Unix domain socket, which is typically found at ~/.lightning/<network>/lightning-rpc.

With the container running, check that the mint service is reachable from your host:

curl http://localhost:8085/v1/info
# JSON output

After you confirmed it's working, stop the container:

podman stop cdk-mintd

The next step is to create a system service.