lndmanage

lndmanage is a command line tool for advanced channel management of an LND node.

Current feature list (use the --help flag for subcommands):

• advanced node summary (status)
• compact listchannels commands:
  • list channels for rebalancing (listchannels rebalance)
  • list inactive channels for channel hygiene (listchannels inactive)
  • list forwarding statistics for each channel (listchannels forwardings)
• rebalancing of channels (rebalance)
• doing circular self-payments (circle)

DISCLAIMER: This is BETA software, so please be careful (All actions are executed as a dry run unless you call lndmanage with the --reckless flag though). No warranty is given.

Rebalancing a channel

The workflow for rebalancing a channel goes as follows:

• take a look at all your unbalanced channels with:

  $ ./lndmanage.py listchannels rebalance

  The output will look like:

  -------- Description --------
  ub         unbalancedness (see --help)
  cap        channel capacity [sats]
  lb         local balance [sats]
  rb         remote balance [sats]
  bf         peer base fee [msats]
  fr         peer fee rate
  cid        channel id
  a          alias
  
  -------- Channels --------
         cid            ub       cap        lb        rb     bf        fr  a       
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -0.78   1000000    888861     99480     10  0.000200 abc                
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -0.63   1000000    814537    173768    300  0.000010 def
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  0.55   2000000    450792   1540038     35  0.000002 ghi
  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  0.59    400000     81971    306335    400  0.000101 jkl
  ...
  

• the ub field tells you how unbalanced your channel is and in which direction

• take a channel_id from the list you wish to rebalance (target is a 50:50 balance)

• do a dry run to see what's waiting for you

  $ ./lndmange.py rebalance --max-fee-sat 20 --max-fee-rate 0.00001 channel_id

• read the output and if everything looks well, then run with the --reckless flag

Doing channel hygiene

Inactive channels lock up capital, which can be used elsewhere. In order to close those channels it is useful to take a look at the inactive channels with $ ./lndmanage.py listchannels inactive.

You will get an output like:

-------- Description --------
p          true if private channel
ini        true if we opened channel
lup        last update time [days ago]
age        channel age [days]
cap        capacity [sats]
lb         local balance [sats]
sr/w       satoshis sent + received per week of lifespan
cid        channel id
a          alias

-------- Channels --------
       cid         p ini   lup   age       cap        lb     sr/w  a       
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx F   F    66    71   2000000     10000      100 abc
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx T   F    20   113     40000         0        0 def
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx F   T    19    21   1200000      1000        0 ghi
...

Channels, which were updated a long time ago (lup) are likely to be inactive in the future and may be closed.

Another way to see if funds have to be reallocated is to have a look at the forwarding statistics of, e.g., the last two months of the individual channels with $./lndmanage.py listchannels forwardings --from-days-ago 60 --sort-by='fees' (here sorted by total fees, but it can be sorted by any column field).

The output will look like:

-------- Description --------
cid        channel id
nfwd       number of forwardings
age        channel age [days]
fees       fees total [sats]
f/w        fees per week [sats]
ub         unbalancedness
flow       flow direction (positive is outwards)
r          rebalance required if marked with X
cap        channel capacity [sats]
in         total forwardings inwards [sats]
imed       median forwarding inwards [sats]
imax       largest forwarding inwards [sats]
out        total forwardings outwards [sats]
omed       median forwarding outwards [sats]
omax       largest forwarding outwards [sats]
a          alias

-------- Channels --------
       cid         nfwd   age  fees     f/w    ub  flow r      cap         in    imed    imax        out    omed    omax    a
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx    6   103   907 106.950  0.30  1.00 X  6000000 |        0     nan     nan |  1935309   20000 1800902 | abc
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx    3    82   300  35.374  0.74 -0.08    1000000 |   700008  700008  700008 |   600000  600000  600000 | def
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx    4    32   216  25.461  0.38  0.42 X  6000000 |   993591  993591  993591 |  2450000  750000 1000000 | ghi
...

Setup

Requirements: python3.6, lnd 0.6

$ virtualenv -p python3 ~/.venvs/lndmanage
$ source ~/.venvs/lndmanage/bin/activate
$ git clone https://github.com/bitromortac/lndmanage
$ cd lndmanage
$ pip install -r requirements.txt
$ cp config_sample.ini config.ini

Edit configuration (config.ini):

• lnd_grpc_host: ip and port of the grpc API
• tls_cert_file: location of the tls certificate
• admin_macaroon_file: location of the admin macaroon

Test:

$ ./lndmanage.py status 

If if works, you should see the node status.

Docker

If you prefer to run lndmanage from a docker container, cd docker and follow README there.

Compiling grpc in python [development]

$ cd grpc_compile
$ pip install grpcio grpcio-tools googleapis-common-protos
$ git clone https://github.com/googleapis/googleapis.git
$ curl -o rpc.proto -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/master/lnrpc/rpc.proto
$ python -m grpc_tools.protoc --proto_path=googleapis:. --python_out=. --grpc_python_out=. rpc.proto