1

I use bitcoin core infrequently. I don't want to have it running all the time, but I'm willing to (for now) devote disk space to having it stay current. I'd like to be relatively current whenever I do start it up, without being weeks behind.

What I'd like to do is:

  • Once a week or so, start bitcoin-core up.
  • Have it shut down once it's caught up (I guess defined as "when the latest transaction is less than an hour old).

I know how to handle step one (via cron/launchd/etc). What I don't know how to do is step 2: either having it terminate automatically, or using some kind of CLI-command to check the sync status every so often.

If the answer to this is "put in a feature request to bitcoin core", then I'd be looking for workarounds/alternate methods to use until that worked.

For the record, I'm on OSX, but in theory this question applies to all variants of the client.

Any ideas?

Improve this question
2
  • Bitcoin-core can never complete synchronising since every 8 - 10 min there's an new block.
    – Adam
    Nov 21, 2017 at 7:29
  • Asker specified that he considers to be caught up when he's only one hour behind.
    – Murch ♦
    Nov 21, 2017 at 7:38

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

You could sleep for e.g. 10 minutes after you started bitcoind, and then do the following:

  1. bitcoin-cli getblockcount, which is the current height of the node
  2. call getpeerinfo, parse the JSON, take the median of startingheight (how far these nodes are)
  3. If difference < 10, stop bitcoind with bitcoin-cli stop and exit
  4. Sleep 1 minute, repeat

Or use something like this to determine if the last known block is less than an hour old.

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.