Admin UI

The LNbits Admin UI lets you change LNbits settings via the LNbits frontend. It is disabled by default and the first time you set the environment variable LNBITS_ADMIN_UI=true the settings are initialized and saved to the database and will be used from there as long the UI is enabled. From there on the settings from the database are used.

Super User

With the Admin UI we introduced the super user, it is created with the initialisation of the Admin UI and will be shown with a success message in the server logs. The super user has access to the server and can change settings that may crash the server and make it unresponsive via the frontend and api, like changing funding sources.

Also only the super user can brrrr satoshis to different wallets.

The super user is only stored inside the settings table of the database and after the settings are “reset to defaults” and a restart happened, a new super user is created.

The super user is never sent over the api and the frontend only receives a bool if you are super user or not.

We also added a decorator for the API routes to check for super user.

There is also the possibility of posting the super user via webhook to another service when it is created. you can look it up here https://github.com/lnbits/lnbits/blob/main/lnbits/settings.py class SaaSSettings

Admin Users

environment variable: LNBITS_ADMIN_USERS, comma-separated list of user ids Admin Users can change settings in the admin ui as well, with the exception of funding source settings, because they require e server restart and could potentially make the server inaccessible. Also they have access to all the extension defined in LNBITS_ADMIN_EXTENSIONS.

Allowed Users

environment variable: LNBITS_ALLOWED_USERS, comma-separated list of user ids By defining this users, LNbits will no longer be usable by the public, only defined users and admins can then access the LNbits frontend.

Setting this environment variable also disables account creation. Account creation can be also disabled by setting LNBITS_ALLOW_NEW_ACCOUNTS=false

How to activate

$ sudo systemctl stop lnbits.service
$ cd ~/lnbits
$ sudo nano .env

-> set: LNBITS_ADMIN_UI=true

Now start LNbits once in the terminal window

$ poetry run lnbits

You can now cat the Super User ID:

$ cat data/.super_user
123de4bfdddddbbeb48c8bc8382fe123

You can access your super user account at /wallet?usr=super_user_id. You just have to append it to your normal LNbits web domain.

After that you will find the Admin / Manage Server between Wallets and Extensions

Here you can design the interface, it has TOPUP to fill wallets and you can restrict access rights to extensions only for admins or generally deactivated for everyone. You can make users admins or set up Allowed Users if you want to restrict access. And of course the classic settings of the .env file, e.g. to change the funding source wallet or set a charge fee.

Do not forget

sudo systemctl start lnbits.service

A little hint, if you set RESET TO DEFAULTS, then a new Super User Account will also be created. The old one is then no longer valid.