lnd: LND fails to start when bitcoin RPC credentials have a "!" in them

Tested with: Bitcoind 0.16 LND 0.4 Ubuntu 16.04

Issue: If the Bitcoin rpcuser or rpcpassword contain the ’ ! ’ character, LND will exit with a 401 status code after the wallet has been unlocked. The issue exits if the ’ ! ’ is present at the end, or in the middle of the string, i.e.

rcpuser=iamcool!!
or
rpcuser=iamcool!!yes

The relevant log section:

2018-03-22 13:55:55.982 [INF] LTND: Waiting for wallet encryption password. Use `lncli create` to create wallet, or `lncli unlock` to unlock already created wallet.
2018-03-22 13:56:09.260 [INF] LNWL: Opened wallet
2018-03-22 13:56:09.340 [INF] LTND: Primary chain is set to: bitcoin
2018-03-22 13:56:09.340 [INF] LTND: Initializing bitcoind backed fee estimator
2018-03-22 13:56:10.495 [INF] LNWL: Opened wallet
unable to start wallet: status code: 401, response: ""
unable to create chain control: status code: 401, response: ""
status code: 401, response: ""

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 6 years ago
Comments: 17 (4 by maintainers)

Links to this issue

solution for error message when setting up lightning network & wallet

Most upvoted comments

So the problems discovered have either been related to my unrealistic expectations of what bash can do, or to underlying problems with how Bitcoin handles certain characters, such as # or " . Should we close this issue?

CubicEarth on Mar 24, 2018

I’ll take this on as my first issue-ish

I tested with

bitcoind 0.16.0 (regtest mode) lnd 0.4.0 (commit 18e6705d97840bfe4040a8a373ba40bc6a1b4b59) Mac OS X

EDIT: I was able to reproduce this issue. There seem to be a few issues with how lnd talks to bitcoind when passing the rpcuser and rpcpass.

On my computer (Mac OS X), lnd is able to connect to bitcoind if the rpcuser or rpcpass contain a “!” anywhere
On my computer (Mac OS X), lnd is unable to connect to bitcoind if the rpcuser or rpcpass contain a “#” anywhere
If the rpcuser or rpcpass which is passed to lnd is different than the rpcuser which is passed to bitcoind, then lnd cannot start wallet, cannot create chain control and returns a 401 response.

unable to start wallet: status code: 401, response: "" unable to create chain control: status code: 401, response: "" status code: 401, response: ""

I will look into how errors are handled when the wallet starts and chain control is created to see whether we can guard against scenario “3” above.

I believe that for scenario “1” (which I was not able to reproduce) or “2”, the username and password certificate (is it a certificate) is being computed or passed incorrectly. I believe it would make sense to attempt to connect to the rpc server manually using an rpcuser that includes the “#”

Reproduction Scenario (Mac OS X)

bitcoin.conf rpcuser=kek!kek rpcpass=kek! regtest=1 txindex=1 server=1 daemon=1 zmqpubrawblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332 zmqpubrawtx=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332

lnd.conf regtest=1 txindex=1 server=1 daemon=1 zmqpubrawblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332 zmqpubrawtx=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332

Reproduction Scenario:

When I pass the rpcuser and rpcpass to lnd via the cli, I get a bash error:

$ lnd --bitcoind.rpcuser=kek!!kek --bitcoind.rpcpass=kek! -bash: !: event not found

But if I add it to the lnd.conf file, it works

lnd.conf rpcuser=kek!@#kek rpcpass=kek! regtest=1 txindex=1 server=1 daemon=1 zmqpubrawblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332 zmqpubrawtx=tcp://127.0.0.1:28332

If I drop the “!” from both rpcuser and rpc pass, I get the 401. $ lnd --bitcoind.rpcuser=kekkek --bitcoind.rpcpass=kek 2018-03-24 11:11:51.634 [INF] LTND: Version 0.4.0-beta 2018-03-24 11:11:51.634 [INF] LTND: Active chain: Bitcoin (network=regtest) 2018-03-24 11:11:51.634 [INF] CHDB: Checking for schema update: latest_version=0, db_version=0 2018-03-24 11:11:51.645 [INF] LTND: Primary chain is set to: bitcoin 2018-03-24 11:11:52.567 [INF] LNWL: Opened wallet unable to start wallet: status code: 401, response: “” unable to create chain control: status code: 401, response: “” status code: 401, response: “”

If I keep the password correct (including the “!”) $ lnd --bitcoind.rpcuser=kekkek --bitcoind.rpcpass=kek! 2018-03-24 11:12:52.698 [INF] LTND: Version 0.4.0-beta 2018-03-24 11:12:52.698 [INF] LTND: Active chain: Bitcoin (network=regtest) 2018-03-24 11:12:52.698 [INF] CHDB: Checking for schema update: latest_version=0, db_version=0 2018-03-24 11:12:52.710 [INF] LTND: Primary chain is set to: bitcoin 2018-03-24 11:12:53.656 [INF] LNWL: Opened wallet unable to start wallet: status code: 401, response: “” unable to create chain control: status code: 401, response: “” status code: 401, response: “”

Interestingly, however:

If I change the rpcuser to: rpcuser=kek!#kek

it will no longer allow me to connect.

Lldenaurois on Mar 24, 2018