SimLN

SimLN is a simulation tool that can be used to generate realistic payment activity on any lightning network topology. It is intentionally environment-agnostic so that it can be used across many environments - from integration tests to public signets.

This tool is intended to serve developers who are familiar with lightning network development. It may be useful to you if you are:

• A protocol developer looking to test proposals.
• An application developer load-testing your application.
• A signet operator interested in a hands-off way to run an active node.
• A researcher generating synthetic data for a target topology.

Pre-Requisites

SimLN requires you to "bring your own network" to generate activity on. You will need:

• A lightning network connected with any topology of channels.
• Access to execute commands on at least one node in the network.
• Rust compiler installed.

LN Implementation Support

• LND ✅
• CLN ✅
• Eclair 🏗️
• LDK-node 🏗️

See our tracking issue for updates on implementation support (contributions welcome!).

Getting Started

Clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/bitcoin-dev-project/sim-ln
cd sim-ln

Install the CLI:

cargo install --locked --path sim-cli/

To run the simulation, create a simulation file sim.json in the working directory (see setup instructions for details) and run:

sim-cli

Run sim-cli -h for details on --data-dir and --sim-file options that allow specifying custom simulation file locations.

Interested in contributing to the project? See CONTRIBUTING for more details.

Simulation File Setup

The simulator requires access details for a set of nodes that you have permission to execute commands on. Note that the current version of the simulator uses keysend to execute payments, which must be enabled in LND using --accept-keysend (for CLN node it is enabled by default).

The required access details will depend on the node implementation. For LND, the following information is required:

{
  "id": <node_id>,
  "address": https://<ip:port or domain:port>,
  "macaroon": <path_to_selected_macaroon>,
  "cert": <path_to_tls_cert>
}

Whereas for CLN nodes, the following information is required:

{ 
  "id": <node_id>,
  "address": https://<ip:port or domain:port>,
  "ca_cert": <path_to_ca_cert>,
  "client_cert": <path_to_client_cert>,
  "client_key": <path_to_client_key>
}

Note that node addresses must be declare with HTTPS transport, i.e. https://ip-or-domain:port

Payment activity can be simulated in two different ways:

• Random activity: generate random activity on the nodes provided, using the graph topology to determine payment frequency and size.
• Defined activity: provide descriptions of specific payments that you would like the generator to execute.

Setup - Random Activity

To run the simulator with random activity generation, you just need to provide a set of nodes and the simulator will generate activity based on the topology of the underlying graph. Note that payments will only be sent between the nodes that are provided so that liquidity does not "drain" from the simulation.

{
  "nodes": [
    {
      "id": "Alice",
      "address": "https://127.0.0.1:10011",
      "macaroon": "/path/admin.macaroon",
      "cert": "/path/tls.cert"
    },
    { 
      "id": "0230a16a05c5ca120136b3a770a2adfdad88a68d526e63448a9eef88bddd6a30d8",
      "address": "https://localhost:10013",
      "ca_cert": "/path/ca.pem",
      "client_cert": "/path/client.pem",
      "client_key": "/path/client-key.pem"
    }
  ]
}

Nodes can be identified by an arbitrary string ("Alice", "CLN1", etc) or by their node public key. If a valid public key is provided it must match the public key reported by the node.

There are a few cli flags that can be used to toggle the characteristics of the random activity that is generated:

• --expected-payment-amount: the approximate average amount that will be sent by nodes, randomness will be introduced such that larger nodes send a wider variety of payment sizes around this expectation.
• --capacity-multiplier: the number of times over that each node in the network sends their capacity in a calendar month, for example:
  • capacity-multiplier=2 means that each node sends double their capacity in a month.
  • capacity-multiplier=0.5 means that each node sends half their capacity in a month.

Setup - Defined Activity

If you would like SimLN to generate a specific payments between source and destination nodes, you can provide activity descriptions of the source, destination, frequency and amount for payments that you'd like to execute. Note that source nodes must be contained in nodes, but destination nodes can be any public node in the network (though this may result in liquidity draining over time).

Required fields:

"source": the payer
"destination": the payee
"interval_secs": how often the payments should be sent
"amount_msat": the amount of each payment

Optional fields:

"start_secs": the time to start sending payments
"count": the total number of payments to send

If start_secs is not provided the payments will begin as soon as the simulation starts (default=0)

If count is not provided the payments will continue for as long as the simulation runs (default=None)

The example simulation file below sets up the following simulation:

• Connect to Alice running LND to generate activity.
• Connect to Bob running CLN to generate activity.
• Dispatch 2000 msat payments from Alice to Carol every 1 seconds.
• Dispatch 140000 msat payments from Bob to Alice every 50 seconds.
• Dispatch 1000 msat payments from Bob to Dave every 2 seconds.
• Dispatch 10 payments (5000 msat each) from Erin to Frank at 2 second intervals, starting 20 seconds into the sim.

{
  "nodes": [
    {
      "id": "Alice",
      "address": "https://localhost:10011",
      "macaroon": "/path/admin.macaroon",
      "cert": "/path/tls.cert"
    },
    {
      "id": "0230a16a05c5ca120136b3a770a2adfdad88a68d526e63448a9eef88bddd6a30d8",
      "address": "https://127.0.0.1:10013",
      "ca_cert": "/path/ca.pem",
      "client_cert": "/path/client.pem",
      "client_key": "/path/client-key.pem"
    },
    {
      "id": "Erin",
      "address": "https://localhost:10012",
      "macaroon": "/path/admin.macaroon",
      "cert": "/path/tls.cert"      
    },
    {
      "id": "Frank",
      "address": "https://localhost:10014",
      "macaroon": "/path/admin.macaroon",
      "cert": "/path/tls.cert"      
    }
  ],
  "activity": [
    {
      "source": "Alice",
      "destination": "02d804ad31429c8cc29e20ec43b4129553eb97623801e534ab5a66cdcd2149dbed",
      "interval_secs": 1,
      "amount_msat": 2000
    },
    {
      "source": "0230a16a05c5ca120136b3a770a2adfdad88a68d526e63448a9eef88bddd6a30d8",
      "destination": "Alice",
      "interval_secs": 50,
      "amount_msat": 140000
    },
    {
      "source": "0230a16a05c5ca120136b3a770a2adfdad88a68d526e63448a9eef88bddd6a30d8",
      "destination": "03232e245059a2e7f6e32d6c4bca97fc4cda935c553ea3693adb3265a19050c3bf",
      "interval_secs": 2,
      "amount_msat": 1000
    },
    {
      "source": "Erin",
      "destination": "Frank",
      "start_secs": 20,
      "count": 10,
      "interval_secs": 2,
      "amount_msat": 5000
    }
  ]
}

Note that node addresses must be declare with HTTPS transport, i.e https://ip-or-domain

Nodes can be identified by their public key or an id string (as described above). Activity sources and destinations may reference the id defined in nodes, but destinations that are not listed in nodes must provide a valid public key.

Simulation Output

A summary of the results will be logged by the simulator. A full list of payments made with their outcomes is available in simulation_{timestamp}.csv within the configured {data_dir}/results.

Run sim-cli -h for details on data directory (--data-dir) and other options including --print-batch-size which affect how simulation outputs are persisted

Lightning Environments

If you're looking to get started with local lightning development, we recommend polar. For larger deployments, see the Scaling Lightning project.

Docker

If you want to run the cli in a containerized environment, see the docker set up docs here