LND Backup and Recovery — Static Channel Backups (SCB) Guide

Your LND channels can be recovered after hardware failure using Static Channel Backups (SCB). Here's how to set it up properly.

What SCB protects against

SCB (channel.backup file) stores enough info to request cooperative closes from all your peers after data loss. It does NOT restore balances exactly — it requests each peer to close the channel and return funds on-chain. Without SCB, you lose all channel funds if your disk dies.

Find and backup channel.backup

# Location
ls ~/.lnd/data/chain/bitcoin/mainnet/channel.backup

# Manual backup to USB/remote
cp ~/.lnd/data/chain/bitcoin/mainnet/channel.backup /media/usb/channel.backup.$(date +%Y%m%d)

# Verify backup is valid
lncli verifychanbackup --single_backup $(lncli exportchanbackup --all | python3 -c "import json,sys; print(json.load(sys.stdin)['multi_chan_backup']['multi_chan_backup'])")

Auto-backup on every channel change (recommended)

# Add to lnd.conf:
[Application Options]
backupfilepath=/home/ubuntu/channel-backups/channel.backup

# LND automatically writes to this path on channel open/close
# Sync this directory to cloud storage with rclone:
# rclone sync /home/ubuntu/channel-backups remote:lnd-backups

rclone auto-sync (set and forget)

# Install rclone, configure your remote (S3, Dropbox, etc.)
# Then create a systemd path unit to sync on change:

# /etc/systemd/system/lnd-backup.path
[Unit]
Description=Watch LND backup file

[Path]
PathModified=/home/ubuntu/channel-backups/channel.backup

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

# /etc/systemd/system/lnd-backup.service
[Unit]
Description=Upload LND backup

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/rclone copy /home/ubuntu/channel-backups/channel.backup remote:lnd-backups/

systemctl enable --now lnd-backup.path

Recovery procedure

# On new node, after wallet restore:
# 1. Restore from seed:
lncli create  # enter existing 24-word seed

# 2. Recover channels from backup:
lncli restorechanbackup --multi_file /path/to/channel.backup

# 3. Wait for peers to close channels (can take 24-48h)
lncli pendingchannels  # watch for force-closing channels
lncli listchannels     # will show 0 until recovery completes

Need LND backup/recovery help? $9

I set up automated cloud backups, rclone sync, and walk through recovery procedures. USDT TRC-20.

→ Service page