Dockerized Bitcoin Inquisition

This guide provides a Dockerfile and instructions to build and run the Bitcoin Inquisition node in an isolated and reproducible Docker environment.

The resulting Docker image is optimized for a server-only deployment (no wallet, no GUI), includes ZeroMQ (ZMQ) support for notifications, and is pre-configured to run on the Signet network by default.

Quick Start

# 1. Save the Dockerfile from this guide into a local file.

# 2. Build the Docker image
docker build -t bitcoin-inquisition .

# 3. Create a volume to store the Signet blockchain data
docker volume create inquisition-signet-data

# 4. Run the container on Signet
docker run -d --name inquisition-signet \
  -v inquisition-signet-data:/home/bitcoin/.bitcoin \
  -p 38332:38332 \
  -p 38333:38333 \
  bitcoin-inquisition

Prerequisites

• Docker Engine installed and running.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Build the Image

Navigate to the directory containing your Dockerfile and run the following command. This will build the image and tag it as bitcoin-inquisition.

docker build -t bitcoin-inquisition .

2. Run the Container

Running on Signet (Default)

This is the default mode for the image. It is highly recommended to use a named volume to persist the blockchain data.

1. Create the Docker Volume:

   docker volume create inquisition-signet-data

2. Run the Container:

   docker run -d --name inquisition-signet \
     -v inquisition-signet-data:/home/bitcoin/.bitcoin \
     -p 38332:38332 \
     -p 38333:38333 \
     bitcoin-inquisition

Running on Regtest (for Local Development)

For local testing, you can override the default command to run in regtest mode.

docker run -d --name inquisition-regtest \
  -p 18444:18444 \
  bitcoin-inquisition \
  bitcoind -printtoconsole -regtest -rpcbind=0.0.0.0 -rpcallowip=0.0.0.0/0

3. Interacting with Your Node

Viewing Logs

To see the real-time output from your node (e.g., to monitor sync progress), use the docker logs command.

# For the Signet container
docker logs -f inquisition-signet

# For the Regtest container
docker logs -f inquisition-regtest

Using bitcoin-cli

To execute RPC commands, use docker exec to run bitcoin-cli inside the container.

• For the Signet container:

  docker exec inquisition-signet bitcoin-cli -signet getblockchaininfo

• For the Regtest container:

  docker exec inquisition-regtest bitcoin-cli -regtest getblockchaininfo