Builder's Guide
  • Welcome to the Builder's Guide to the LND Galaxy!
  • The Lightning Network
    • Overview
    • Payment Channels
      • Lifecycle of a Payment Channel
      • Watchtowers
      • Understanding Sweeping
      • Etymology
    • The Gossip Network
      • Identifying Good Peers on the Lightning Network
    • Pathfinding
      • Finding routes in the Lightning Network
      • Channel Fees
      • Multipath Payments (MPP)
    • Lightning Network Invoices
      • Understanding Lightning Invoices
    • Making Payments
      • The Payment Cycle
      • Timelocks
      • ⭐Hashed Timelock Contract (HTLC)
      • Payment Etymology
      • ⭐What Makes a Good Routing Node
      • Understanding Submarine Swaps
      • Instant Submarine Swaps
    • Liquidity
      • ⭐Understanding Liquidity
      • Managing Liquidity on the Lightning Network
      • Liquidity Management for Lightning Merchants
      • How to Get Inbound Capacity on the Lightning Network
      • Lightning Service Provider
    • L402: Lightning HTTP 402 Protocol
      • Macaroons
      • L402
      • 📋Protocol Specification
      • Implementations and Links
    • Taproot Assets
      • Taproot Assets Protocol
      • Taproot Assets on Lightning
      • Edge Nodes
      • Taproot Assets Trustless Swap
      • FAQ
      • Glossary
  • Lightning Network Tools
    • LND
      • 🛠️Get Started
      • lnd.conf
      • First Steps With LND
      • Wallet Management
      • Sending Payments
      • Atomic Multi-path Payments (AMP)
      • Receiving Payments
      • Unconfirmed Bitcoin Transactions
      • Channel Fees
      • Inbound Channel Fees
      • Macaroons
      • Configuring Watchtowers
      • Pathfinding
      • Blinded Paths
      • Key Import
      • Secure Your Lightning Network Node
      • Configuration of a Routing Node
      • Quick Tor Setup
      • Configuring Tor
      • Enable ‘Neutrino mode’ in Bitcoin Core
      • Send Messages With Keysend
      • Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions
      • Bulk onchain actions with PSBTs
      • Sweeper
      • Debugging LND
      • Fuzzing LND
      • LND API documentation
      • Channel Acceptor
      • RPC Middleware Interceptor
      • HTLC Interceptor
      • NAT Traversal
      • Recovery: Planning for Failure
      • Migrating LND
      • Disaster recovery
      • Contribute to LND
    • Lightning Terminal
      • What is Lightning Terminal?
      • 🛠️Get litd
      • Run litd
      • Integrating litd
      • Demo: Litd Speed Run
      • Connect to Terminal
      • Recommended Channels
      • Rankings
      • Health Checks
      • Liquidity Report
      • Opening Lightning Network Channels
      • Managing Channel Liquidity
      • Autofees
      • AutoOpen
      • LND Accounts
      • Loop and Lightning Terminal
      • Loop Fees
      • Pool and Lightning Terminal
      • Command Line Interface
      • Troubleshooting
      • Lightning Node Connect: Under the hood
      • LNC Node Package
      • LITD API Documentation
      • Privacy and Security
      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms of Use
    • Loop
      • 🛠️Get Started
      • The Loop CLI
      • Autoloop
      • Static Loop In Addresses
      • Instant Loop Outs
      • Peer with Loop
      • Loop API Documentation
    • Pool
      • Overview
      • Quickstart
      • 🛠️Installation
      • First Steps
      • Accounts
      • Orders and Asks
      • Sidecar Channels
      • Zero-confirmation Channels
      • Channel Leases
      • Batch Execution
      • Account Recovery
      • Pool API Documentation
      • FAQs
    • Taproot Assets
      • Get Started
      • First Steps
      • Taproot Assets Channels
      • Asset Decimal Display
      • Become an Edge Node
      • RFQ
      • Collectibles
      • Universes
      • Asset Loop
      • Debugging Tapd
      • Multisignature
      • Minting Assets With an External Signer
      • Lightning Polar
      • Operational Safety Guidelines
      • Taproot Assets API Documentation
    • Aperture
      • ⚒️Get Aperture
      • LNC Backend
      • LNC Mailbox
      • Pricing
    • Faraday
      • 🛠️Get Started
      • The Faraday CLI
      • Faraday API Documentation
  • LAPPs
    • Guides
      • Use Polar to Build Your First LAPP
        • Setup: Local Cluster with Polar
        • Setup: Run the Completed App
        • Setup: Run the App Without LND
      • Add Features
        • Feature 1: Connect to LND
        • Feature 2: Display Node Alias and Balance
        • Feature 3: Sign and Verify Posts
        • Feature 4: Modify Upvote Action
      • Make Your own LNC-powered Application
    • Next Steps
  • Community Resources
    • Resource List
    • Lightning Bulb 💡
    • Glossary
    • FAQ
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On this page
  • Node is online
  • Plenty of channels
  • Good routing capacity
  • Many healthy channels
  • Channel stability
  • Many good peers
  • Further considerations

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  1. Lightning Network Tools
  2. Lightning Terminal

Health Checks

Lightning Terminal uses Health Checks to assess the basic qualities of a routing node.

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Last updated 18 days ago

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Lightning Terminal uses various health checks to assess a node’s ability to route payments through the Lightning Network. Health checks are far from perfect. They are not overly specific as they are a general measure for routing nodes, not a concrete target meant to gamify the process.

A node configured mainly for receiving or sending payments, such as the node of a merchant, might not pass the formal health checks, and a high performing routing node serving the edges of the network might earn more routing fees than one ranked higher. Health checks are just a general measure for routing nodes.

Passing your health checks and ranking high in Terminal is a measure of your ability to receive, make, and route payments in the general Lightning Network. Identifying these nodes helps entrants determine how they can most easily get connected to the wider network themselves, either through outbound or inbound liquidity.

When starting up your node, Terminal will suggest nodes you can establish channels to. These nodes are chosen from nodes that pass five of the health checks, but are in need of more good peers. By connecting to these nodes you can help your own node as well as your peer get closer to the goal of passing all health checks, while also decentralizing the network as a whole. As you adapt your personal Lightning Node to your personal needs, ideally, you will rely less and less on these recommendations and the scores of others. This transition is due to the fact that while onboarding into the Lightning Network can be prescriptive, further advancing as a routing node is more competitive and less supervised.

Node is online

Your node has to be online. Many high performing routing nodes are able to be reachable via Tor.

Plenty of channels

Your node needs to have plenty of channels to be considered a good routing node.

Good routing capacity

Each channel should have enough capacity to be able to route a reasonably sized Lightning payment in either direction. That does not mean the channel needs to be perfectly balanced, but rather that there is enough capacity available in either direction to pass on a payment.

Many healthy channels

Set a reasonably large minimum channel size for incoming connections, and close unused or inactive channels. Opening channels to merchants that are only periodically online, or allowing others with mobile clients to open channels to you can be a good source of income, but such channels should be set to private.

Channel stability

Not only should your own node be online as much as possible, your channels should be too. Make sure your channels are active, and monitor them regularly.

Many good peers

Your channels should be public and reach out to other good routing nodes. It can also be of advantage to reach out and connect to other pending nodes, as this elevates two nodes at once and improves network connectivity overall.

Further considerations

Health checks are vague not only because defining or measuring a good routing node exactly is difficult, but also because the Lightning Network derives its strengths from its dishomogeneity. If a strict and clear ranking mechanism existed, our nodes would become more and more homogenous and the network weaker.

Instead, it’s important for route operators to educate themselves about what it means to provision liquidity in the Lightning Network, learn where capital is allocated best and dare to take novel and unique paths to connect participants from all around the graph.

Read more about how to set up your Lightning Node.
Learn how to identity peers to open channels to.
Learn about the concept of liquidity in the Lightning Network.
A node that passes four of six Health Checks