How to set a name and color for the Umbrel node

People running Umbrel the first time a quite happy being part of the lightning network. But soon you recognize due website like 1ML.COM that other nodes have names and not a combination of numbers and letters. So the question rises how to give my own node a name and a color? This quick tutorial is focused on this topic.

1. First of all you need to connect to the umbrel node. The user is umbrel the password is the same as for the weblogin.

2. Linux:

   ssh umbrel@<internal ip/external ip/tor-name>
   

If Umbrel runs on a raspi, the directory structure looks like this:

umbrel@umbrel:~ $ ls
umbrel
umbrel@umbrel:~ $ cd umbrel/
umbrel@umbrel:~/umbrel $ ls
LICENSE.md  README.md  SECURITY.md  app-data  apps  bin  bitcoin  db  docker-compose.yml  electrs  events  info.json  karen  lnd  logs  nginx  scripts  statuses  templates  tor
umbrel@umbrel:~/umbrel $ id
uid=1000(umbrel) gid=1000(umbrel) groups=1000(umbrel),4(adm),20(dialout),24(cdrom),27(sudo),29(audio),44(video),46(plugdev),60(games),100(users),105(input),109(netdev),996(docker),997(gpio),998(i2c),999(spi)

• Windows ** For Windows its best to use Putty.

1. After login, and moving to the umbrel directory with the command cd umbrel (see shell snippet above), you can open the lightning daemon configuration file with nano like this.

   umbrel@umbrel:~/umbrel $ nano lnd/lnd.conf
   

   Right at the beginning of the file you will find [Application Options], as an example:

   [Application Options]
   alias=MyNodeName
   color=#000000
   listen=0.0.0.0:9735
   rpclisten=0.0.0.0:10009
   restlisten=0.0.0.0:8080
   maxpendingchannels=3
   minchansize=100000
   accept-keysend=true
   tlsextraip=10.21.21.9
   tlsextradomain=domain.local
   tlsautorefresh=1
   tlsdisableautofill=1
   

   If you dont have a name and color yet the lines alias (line 2) and color (line 3) simply add them. It is normal that they do not exist by default. For the color you can choose anything in between of #000000-#FFFFFF a colortable comes in quite handy. Please note that the choosen color must start with a sharp (#).
   For saving the file press CTRL+X, then Y and Enter/Carriage Return, so the file is saved under lnd/lnd.conf.

2. Restart lnd You have two options here, restarting via the webinterface or do it on the commandline. I will only describe the later one, as i assume you already know the webinterface good enough.

For restarting (not rebooting) Umbrel you can use the following commands in the shell:

umbrel@umbrel:~ $ sudo scripts/stop; 
umbrel@umbrel:~ $ sudo scripts/start;

1. Check if everything worked out

As soon as the restart is done, you can verify that everything works by analysing the output of docker.

docker ps|grep lnd

If everything is alright the lnd container runs normally. If it is constantly restarting, something in the lnd/lnd.conf file is wrong and you need to check your changes. And jumpt to point three (3) above.

3169d1afee7c lncm/lnd:v0.12.1 "/usr/local/bin/lnd" About a minute ago Restarting (1) 10 seconds ago                                                                                                   lnd

Attention the id (field one) will be different at your console.

The End

I hope this tutorial was helpful for someone :)