Backport terminal.lightning.engineering UI elements to litd

[MattDHill]

Hi, Matt here from Start9. Please excuse if I misunderstand, but currently, LiT offered on StartOS has no wallet functionality. Instead, users use LNC to connect to LiT hosted at https://terminal.lightning.engineering. Will the LiT at this location eventually be merged into the LiT offered for self-hosting?

[ellemouton]

Hi Matt, when you connect via LNC, you are still connecting to your own LiT node. All https://terminal.lightning.engineering/ does is give you a way to connect to your own node. You are completely self-hosting the LiT node & the LND wallet.

[MattDHill]

Hi, thanks. Yes that makes sense. What I'm asking is when, if ever, will it be possible to self-host the LiT web client currently hosted by LL? Is this code awaiting merger, or is it LL intent to remain a counterparty?

[levmi]

Hey Matt, thanks for reaching out with the questions and feedback! We always love to hear from the developer community, especially Start9 :)

So, litd includes an lnd node/wallet, the loop daemon, the pool daemon, faraday and a few other things. litd also includes an option for a self-hosted UX. That UX gives access to Loop and Pool for liquidity management.

When you say:

LiT offered on StartOS has no wallet functionality.

What do you mean by that? I just want to make sure we're on the same page and talking about the same functionality and features. litd includes an LND wallet, which can be accessed via a wide variety of different self hosted UX options (RTL, ThunderHub, etc.). Currently, the self-hosted litd UX doesn't offer direct access to send/receive functionality so that might be what you're asking about? But, other applications can offer that functionality very easily. If your users are very interested in that functionality, perhaps we could explore adding it to the self hosted UX.

Lightning Terminal, or terminal.lightning.engineering, is an option provided to users for a simple web UX for their node if they want it. To be super clear, all the funds are stored on the litd/lnd node that the user is self hosting. The web UX is merely an easier way to interact with that self-hosted node. It leverages Lightning Node Connect to make an end-to-end encrypted connection between the browser and the node. You can read more about LNC here if you want. If you are familiar with Zeus, it leverages LNC in a similar way to Terminal whereby it's just a remote connection + UX to your self hosted node. I think all of that is important context to understand because we're not really a counterparty to any funds, all funds are self-hosted.

In terms of the feature differential between web and self-hosted, after countless user interviews and feedback from node operators, we moved forward with a web-based solution for node management in an attempt to make managing a node more accessible, simple, and straightforward. Web development also allows for us to move a bit quicker and give everyone the latest and greatest at the same time. We haven't made any decisions about what direction to take the self-hosted UX at this stage. If there is enough user demand for certain features, we could explore porting those features into the self-hosted UX. But, it's not a trivial project to just port over the web UX into the self hosted UX. It would require an immense amount of work to do so, so we'd want to have clear signals about what functionality users need.

[MattDHill]

Hey Cody thanks for the explanation. I'll share a couple screenshots to help calrify my question.

Currently, the UI included with LiT is shown below:

Whereas the UI offered by terminal.lightning.engineering is shown below:

My question is: are there plans to update the UI for LiT to the latter?

[dstadulis]

are there plans to update the UI for LiT to the latter?

hey Matt!

Lightning Terminal / terminal.lightning.engineering is a UI interface that LL quickly improves (without requiring users update their litd binaries) which communicates with user's machines running litd. If a user doesn't have an internet connection ( to access the terminal.lightning.engineering UI ) or doesn't want end-to-end encrypted traffic pass through LL's servers to their own node, they have the option to use the HTTP server in litd which LL has paused back porting UI updates.

To your point, there are UI differences and while there hasn't been a large number of requests to back port the UI changes, your request will be incorporated into gauging user demand. It's a delicate balance of extending features for node's self-sovereign operational mode but delivering a UX that's on par with traditional web2 experiences.

[MattDHill]

Understood.

We would definitely like to see this UI backported, moreso to create a clear and seamless UX than any security concerns regarding LL intermediating network requests.

Currently when a user launches the UI for LiT on their Start9 server, they are taken to the old UI where they login with their password. Then, they click "Connect to Terminal" and are taken to a third party website (terminal.lightning.engineering) where they enter a passphrase, then create a password, and then are connected with LiT on their server, right back where they started. It's circular, confusing, and also unnecessary.

Instead, if this UI were backported, users could just launch the terminal UI, enter a password, and be done with it. I understand why terminal.lightning.engineering exists and think it's great, but in the context of someone self-hosting LiT, it's redundant and creates confusion.

[levmi]

Hey Matt, appreciate the detailed feedback here, can see why you would want the UI backported into the standalone, self-hosted application. Your feedback sparked a lot of discussion internally about the path forward on this issue. We're going to continue discussing in planning meetings over the next week or so and will keep you updated on our progress. Thanks again for reaching out.

[ghost]

That's an essential request, we can't trust LL servers to offer a centralised service to nodes.