Node-backed Setup

node backed setup is only available with an enterprise plan at this time the power of payments under your control this document will walk you through the required steps to get your voltage payments solution powered by your own lightning node voltage has two primary products at this time infrastructure create and manage bitcoin & lightning nodes with full control over api's, funds, keys and backups; all hosted on voltage's enterprise grade infrastructure payments api driven lightning payments solution simplified, streamlined, and featureful voltage payments api can be powered by a credit backed setup docid\ kd563u5vevsbcaymvcan or your own lightning node running your payments solution with a node will require dipping into both infrastructure and payments products while doing the initial setup and any future updates infrastructure & payments lightning node setup go into the infrastructure product and launch a new node (standard node is fine it will be ugraded internally on our side) lightning nodes page create a lightning node 2\ choose a name and password for your node it is critical that you backup and secure this password since it is used to generate your node's seed and encrypt your infrastructure learn more node password usage the node password is used to unlock your node after restart, along with decrypting the interface when the interface is being used client side encryption is one of the most important security tools we utilize node password the node will take just a minute or two to spin up! node spinning up 3\ your node should be setup and in sync now node spun up 4\ go to the payments product by clicking your account icon in the upper right and then "payments " create and name a new environment create environment go to environment 5\ make a new wallet and give it a name make a new wallet name your wallet 6\ check "i want to use a team infrastructure node" and selelct "mainnet" mainnet and node backed selection 7\ put in your password and click "create" create node backed wallet your payments solution is now backed by your own node! credentials handoff on your voltage lightning node dashboard go to manage access > macaroon bakery then click bake support macaroon button and this will create a custom permission token that voltage will use to perform white glove liquidity management for your infrastructure and ensure payment success bake support macaroon accessing balances, deposits, withdrawals through the ui to manage your node's funds, and channels through the ui you can launch thunderhub a node management dashboard for lnd from your voltage lightning node dashboard access thunderhub on your voltage lightning node dashboard thunderhub on voltage dashboard 2\ you can send lightning or onchain payments (designated with anchor icon) receiving onchain is how you will initially fund your node thunderhub send & receive 3\ you can check your balances at the top and see many more detailed transaction reports accross thunderhub's various dashboards thunderhub balances accessing balances, deposits, withdrawals through api / cli configure your desired interface for accessing your node programatically https //enterprise voltage cloud/configuration https //enterprise voltage cloud/configuration utilize lnd methods for checking balances and moving funds for both onchain and lightning https //enterprise voltage cloud/lnd api methods overview https //enterprise voltage cloud/lnd api methods overview utilize lncli methods for checking balances and moving funds for both onchain and lightning https //enterprise voltage cloud/lncli methods overview https //enterprise voltage cloud/lncli methods overview check out easy lncli for an easy secure environment for running lncli in just a few clicks withdraw / treasury management strategy treasury management strategy on an enterprise plan voltage will help you manage your lightning liquidity (using the support macaroon generated above) voltage manages liquidity in a manner to maximize payment success and speed while minimizing capital exposure to do this we setup a simple yet personalized treasury management strategy with the customer to ensure we are keeping the node's capacity above the minimum requirement and below the maximum by actively monitoring and performing simple deposit and withdraw flows in collaboration with the customer when you are above max required capacity voltage will notify you as soon as possible with the amount of funds you should withdraw from your node you can access thunderhub (explained above) to initiate with the withdraw to your treasury wallet in just a few clicks or you can use lncli to intiate the onchain withdrawal to your treasury ( described in "api / cli access" section above ) lncli sendcoins addr=\<destination bitcoin address> amt=\<amount in satoshis> when you are below min required capacity voltage will notify you as soon as possible with the amount of funds you should deposit and a bitcoin address from your node for you to deposit to this address can be verified by you through lncli send the funds to the address we provided you as soon as possible and we will deploy it immediately access / credentials / backups your node has a handful of methods for access and backups to ensure that you have simple yet robust control over your funds and infrastructure seed phrase catastrophic funds recovery if for some reason voltage ever disappears, or something completely unexpected happens, funds can be recovered with your seed phrase your seed phrase is never held nor seen by voltage it is encrypted in your node's infrastructre at creation and can be accessed through your voltage dashboard (instructions below) accessing seed phrase log in click go to payments 3\ click your wallet 4\ click your node name under "infrastructure" 5\ click seed words node password the node password is used initially to genenrate and encrypt your node and then continually to unlock your node after restart, along with decrypting the interface when the interface is being used client side encryption is one of the most important security tools we utilize your node password is set by you see "lightning node setup" above macaroons macaroons are lnd's version of permission tokens which can be baked with specific permissions macaroons grant the holder certain permission sets and methods that they can interact with remotely through any of the node's programmatic interfaces (cli, rest, grpc, websockets) you can access and create macaroons through your voltage dashboard (or directly through lncli) by default your node comes with an admin macaroon (full access to node), read macaroon (full read access), invoice macaroon (full access to read and full access to receive) and super admin macaroon (full access to node and other adjacent node tools such as taproot assets, loop, and pool all optional ) and finally the btcpay server macaroon (custom permissions macaroon for managing btcpay server on your node also optional) you can access macaroons by visiting manage access > macaroon bakery on your voltage lightning node dashboard macaroon bakery static channel backups static channel backups (scb) are a simple but crucial part of your lightning node's backup plan while your seed phrase is your master key for on chain funds, scbs are designed to help you recover funds in your lightning channels how they work an scb is an encrypted file that holds the data needed to force close your channels and safely return your funds to your on chain wallet it doesn't contain a real time record of your balances or payment history; instead, it's a list of your open channels that includes the private keys and essential details needed for recovery the file itself is encrypted with a key derived from your seed phrase , so it's only useful to you think of it this way your seed phrase is the key to a private vault that holds your bitcoin your scb file is an armored list that tells you which other vaults (channels) you have funds in if your node crashes, you use the seed phrase to access your main vault, and then the scb file lets you securely tell your peers to send the funds from those other vaults back to you you need both your seed phrase and an up to date scb to ensure all your funds are safe! how voltage handles backups voltage takes care of this for you automatically we generate and update a single scb file whenever you open or close a channel you can download it anytime from the backup & export section on your dashboard you can also use the lnd api's subscribechannelbackups endpoint to stream these updates directly to your own system for an extra layer of redundancy channel backup export node & infrastructure updates occasionally your node or voltage infrastructure will need to be updated, you see this on your wallet dashboard and easily update through the payments ui click your node name on your wallet page to access the apply updates button important after every update or restart the node must be unlocked using your password in order to keep running this is due to our security model and server side encryption after update or restart the node must be decrypted client side by you for successful startup you're ready to go! now you understand how to deploy a lightning node connect your node to the payments api access your node's features through both the ui and programattic interfaces collaborate with voltage to manage liquidity secure & backup your node update your infrastructure with this out of the way you can now focus fully on the payments api and let it drive the rest of your solution