BTCPayServer on Google Cloud

Instructions to deploy BTCPay Server in production environment hosted in Google Cloud.

The following instructions assume

1. You already get a domain name from Google Cloud Domain e.g. hypergori.com
2. You decided the hostname with the domain name e.g. btcpay.hypergori.com

You can see our video for an overview:

You can find more details about the tooling install in the Virtual Machine in the tooling section of BTCPayServer-Docker repository.

Overview

To install BTCPay server with this google cloud deployment template. Here is the steps

1. Click Google Cloud Shell the link above
2. Create Google cloud project if you haven't and set default project
3. Set the server host name of your to-be-BCTPAY server in deploy.sh
4. Run deploy script
5. Test to access https://<your host name> and sign up to sign up the admin user

Setup gcloud tool

There are two ways to deploy from this document.

1. deploy from Google Cloud shell
2. deploy from your local computer

This document focuses only on #1 for brievity.

In case that you run the deploy script from local computer, you need to install gcloud sdk tool. https://cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/, clone this github repo and follow the same steps basically.

If you prefer the Google cloud shell, you dont need to install anything. It's already in the cloud shell environment. Just click the link above.

Let's get started !

First, we need google cloud project if you haven't created. I assume you haven't. Let's say the project name is 'btcpay-test'

$ cd btcpayserver-googlecloud
$ gcloud projects create btcpay-test --set-as-default

If you already have a project, set it as a default

$ gcloud config set project btcpay-test

Modify parameters in the main.btcpay.yaml

You can customize your BTCPay server install parameters by modifying the file. The default configuration is,

• hostname : btcpay.hypergori.com
• region : us-west1
• zone : us-west1-a
• vm instance type : e2-medium (1 vCPU with 4G Memory)
• linux : ubuntu 20.04 LTS
• boot disksize : 500GB
• bitcoin network: mainnet
• lightning implementation: lnd
• prune mode with 1 year data

Parameters

Mandatory fields in the red rectangle above are required and you have to decide what to set. Optional parameters are not required and normally just keep it empty. Customze parameters are for experts only and change only when you know what you are doing.

type	parameter name	description	example value
Mandatory	region	Region to deploy	asia-northeast1
Mandatory	zone	Zone to deploy	asia-northeast1-b
Mandatory	vmtype	vm type	e2-medium
Mandatory	diskSizeGb	root disk size in GB	500
Mandatory	BTCPAY_HOST	host name of the btcpay server	btcpaytest.mycompany.net
Mandatory	NBITCOIN_NETWORK	network type	mainnet
Mandatory	BTCPAYGEN_CRYPTO1	crypto currecy	btc
Mandatory	BTCPAYGEN_LIGHTNING	lightning implementation type (lnd or c-lightning)	lnd
Optional	LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL	email notified by let's encrypt free SSL
Optional	LIGHTNING_ALIAS	lightning node's alias
Optional	BTCPAYGEN_CRYPTO2	other crypto currency, ltc ,btg
Customize	BTCPAYGEN_ADDITIONAL_FRAGMENTS	bitcoind prune config	opt-save-storage
Customize	BTCPAY_DOCKER_REPO	btcpay github repo	https://github.com/btcpayserver/btcpayserver-docker
Customize	BTCPAY_DOCKER_REPO_BRANCH	btcpay github repo branch	master
Customize	BTCPAYGEN_REVERSEPROXY	reverse proxy	nginx
Customize	ACME_CA_URI	let's encrpt url	https://acme-staging.api.letsencrypt.org/directory

let's undetstand what the Deployment script does

1. It creates the VM instance as you configured in the yaml, that is CPU, Memory, Disk size.
2. create hostname of your domain zone in Google DNS
3. It creates 1 public static IP and attached to the hostname
4. On the VM side, install BTCPay server as root using docker compose from BTCPay Github repo
5. setup SSL certificate for free! with let's encrypt.

It would cost USD 45 with above default vm machine, excluding Domain name cost and DNS (12 bucks?). You can adjust the vm machine spec by changing vmtype.

Deploy VM instance

Once you configure the configuration in deployment.sh You are ready to deploy it to GCP. Do "chmod" to the shell scripts and run it.

chmod 755 *.sh && ./deploy

Around 3+ minutes later, it will say "vm was deployed. Access the url." But it may take a few more minuts because docker compose download many of docker images of BTCPay components. Also, it talks to Let's encrypt and have it verify the host name is legitimit and issue SSL certification and install.

UnDeploy

With bash, pass the host name.

./undeploy.sh btcpay.hypergori.com

DNS Mapping and generate ssl certificate

This will be done automatically by the deployment script.

Test the install by accessing https://<your host name> and signup the first user who becomes the powerful admin user. So, Don't let the server runing without creating the user. You will see the BTCPay top page like this.