NAME¶

bitcoin-cli - a command line interface to interact with a bitcoind/bitcoin-qt RPC server

SYNOPSIS¶

bitcoin-cli [options] <command> [params]
bitcoin-cli [options] -named <command> [name=value]...
bitcoin-cli [options] help
bitcoin-cli [options] help <command>

DESCRIPTION¶

Bitcoin Knots RPC client version v29.3.0.knots20260210

The bitcoin-cli utility provides a command line interface to interact with a Bitcoin Knots RPC server.

It can be used to query network information, manage wallets, create or broadcast transactions, and control the Bitcoin Knots server.

Use the "help" command to list all commands. Use "help <command>" to show help for that command. The -named option allows you to specify parameters using the key=value format, eliminating the need to pass unused positional parameters.

OPTIONS¶

-color=<when>

Color setting for CLI output (default: auto). Valid values: always, auto (add color codes when standard output is connected to a terminal and OS is not WIN32), never. Only applies to the output of -getinfo.

-conf=<file>

Specify configuration file. Relative paths will be prefixed by datadir location. (default: bitcoin.conf)

-confrw=<file>

Specify read/write configuration file. Relative paths will be prefixed by the network-specific datadir location. (default: bitcoin_rw.conf)

-datadir=<dir>

Specify data directory

-help

Print this help message and exit (also -h or -?)

-named

Pass named instead of positional arguments (default: false)

-rpcclienttimeout=<n>

Timeout in seconds during HTTP requests, or 0 for no timeout. (default: 900)

-rpcconnect=<ip>

Send commands to node running on <ip> (default: 127.0.0.1)

-rpccookiefile=<loc>

Location of the auth cookie. Relative paths will be prefixed by a net-specific datadir location. (default: data dir)

-rpcpassword=<pw>

Password for JSON-RPC connections

-rpcport=<port>

Connect to JSON-RPC on <port> (default: 8332, testnet: 18332, testnet4: 48332, signet: 38332, regtest: 18443)

-rpcuser=<user>

Username for JSON-RPC connections

-rpcwait

Wait for RPC server to start

-rpcwaittimeout=<n>

Timeout in seconds to wait for the RPC server to start, or 0 for no timeout. (default: 0)

-rpcwallet=<walletname>

Send RPC for non-default wallet on RPC server (needs to exactly match corresponding -wallet option passed to bitcoind). This changes the RPC endpoint used, e.g. http://127.0.0.1:8332/wallet/<walletname>

-stdin

Read extra arguments from standard input, one per line until EOF/Ctrl-D (recommended for sensitive information such as passphrases). When combined with -stdinrpcpass, the first line from standard input is used for the RPC password.

-stdinrpcpass

Read RPC password from standard input as a single line. When combined with -stdin, the first line from standard input is used for the RPC password. When combined with -stdinwalletpassphrase, -stdinrpcpass consumes the first line, and -stdinwalletpassphrase consumes the second.

-stdinwalletpassphrase

Read wallet passphrase from standard input as a single line. When combined with -stdin, the first line from standard input is used for the wallet passphrase.

-version

Print version and exit

Debugging/Testing options:

Chain selection options:

-chain=<chain>

Use the chain <chain> (default: main). Allowed values: main, test, testnet4, signet, regtest

-signet

Use the signet chain. Equivalent to -chain=signet. Note that the network is defined by the -signetchallenge parameter

-signetblocktime

Difficulty adjustment will target a block time of the given amount in seconds (only for custom signet networks, must have -signetchallenge set; defaults to 10 minutes)

-signetchallenge

Blocks must satisfy the given script to be considered valid (only for signet networks; defaults to the global default signet test network challenge)

-signetseednode

Specify a seed node for the signet network, in the hostname[:port] format, e.g. sig.net:1234 (may be used multiple times to specify multiple seed nodes; defaults to the global default signet test network seed node(s))

-testnet

Use the testnet3 chain. Equivalent to -chain=test. Support for testnet3 is deprecated and will be removed in an upcoming release. Consider moving to testnet4 now by using -testnet4.

-testnet4

Use the testnet4 chain. Equivalent to -chain=testnet4.

CLI Commands:

-addrinfo

Get the number of addresses known to the node, per network and total, after filtering for quality and recency. The total number of addresses known to the node may be higher.

-generate

Generate blocks, equivalent to RPC getnewaddress followed by RPC generatetoaddress. Optional positional integer arguments are number of blocks to generate (default: 1) and maximum iterations to try (default: 1000000), equivalent to RPC generatetoaddress nblocks and maxtries arguments. Example: bitcoin-cli -generate 4 1000

-getinfo

Get general information from the remote server, including the total balance and the balances of each loaded wallet when in multiwallet mode. Note that -getinfo is the combined result of several RPCs (getnetworkinfo, getblockchaininfo, getwalletinfo, getbalances, and in multiwallet mode, listwallets), each with potentially different state.

-netinfo

Get network peer connection information from the remote server. An optional argument from 0 to 4 can be passed for different peers listings (default: 0). If a non-zero value is passed, an additional "outonly" (or "o") argument can be passed to see outbound peers only. Pass "help" (or "h") for detailed help documentation.

COPYRIGHT¶

Copyright (C) 2009-2026 The Bitcoin Knots developers Copyright (C) 2009-2026 The Bitcoin Core developers

Please contribute if you find Bitcoin Knots useful. Visit <https://bitcoinknots.org/> for further information about the software. The source code is available from <https://github.com/bitcoinknots/bitcoin>.

This is experimental software. Distributed under the MIT software license, see the accompanying file COPYING or <https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT>

SEE ALSO¶

bitcoind(1), bitcoin-tx(1), bitcoin-wallet(1), bitcoin-util(1), bitcoin-qt(1)