c-lightning determine channel capacity

I'm using c-lightning to experiment with sending micropayments backwards and forwards between 2 separate nodes.

One area I am experiencing great difficulty with is being able to generate an invoice and receiving this warning:

"warning_capacity": "No channels have sufficient incoming capacity"

The command that received the warning above was:

$ lightning-cli invoice 1 l1 d1

The peer hash a single connection and a single channel:

$ lightning-cli listpeers
 {
  "peers": [
    {
      "id": "03eb6cac804699e4d941d4d170d088e37e67abc27b39e483fc5b68c423135cc3d4",
      "connected": true,
      "netaddr": [
        "192.168.1.11:9735"
      ],
      "global_features": "",
      "local_features": "8a",
      "globalfeatures": "",
      "localfeatures": "8a",
      "channels": [
        {
          "state": "CHANNELD_NORMAL",
          "scratch_txid": "7c621a81ed27b5e05a3e55acb5928e74f9c111bfa26f7a07660af6613e1a4453",
          "owner": "lightning_channeld",
          "short_channel_id": "1446307:37:0",
          "channel_id": "eb6227c6ff872c09b55897f49d3394dbd129b8839d05a32f6d5f93c510c3199f",
          "funding_txid": "9f19c310c5935f6d2fa3059d83b829d1db94339df49758b5092c87ffc62762eb",
          "msatoshi_to_us": 1599884,
          "msatoshi_to_us_min": 1599884,
          "msatoshi_to_us_max": 1600000,
          "msatoshi_total": 1600000,
          "dust_limit_satoshis": 546,
          "max_htlc_value_in_flight_msat": 18446744073709551615,
          "their_channel_reserve_satoshis": 546,
          "our_channel_reserve_satoshis": 546,
          "spendable_msatoshi": 1053884,
          "htlc_minimum_msat": 0,
          "their_to_self_delay": 6,
          "our_to_self_delay": 6,
          "max_accepted_htlcs": 483,
          "status": [
            "CHANNELD_NORMAL:Reconnected, and reestablished.",
            "CHANNELD_NORMAL:Funding transaction locked. Channel announced."
          ],
          "in_payments_offered": 0,
          "in_msatoshi_offered": 0,
          "in_payments_fulfilled": 0,
          "in_msatoshi_fulfilled": 0,
          "out_payments_offered": 4,
          "out_msatoshi_offered": 116,
          "out_payments_fulfilled": 4,
          "out_msatoshi_fulfilled": 116,
          "htlcs": [
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]

My question is how can I determine what a channel's capacity is? I have made payments of 116 msatoshi from this node. Doesn't that mean I should now have that much incoming capacity to receive payments? Is the maximum incoming capacity of the channel msatoshi_total - msatoshi_to_us?

sipwiz

Posted 2018-12-03T20:00:08.350

Reputation: 685

And here's a good explanation of the channel_reserve_satoshis referred to by Rusty https://medium.com/coinmonks/how-to-spend-all-funds-from-a-lightning-channel-44eded09a6dc.

– sipwiz – 2018-12-04T18:41:21.493

1Welcome to Bitcoin SE, @Rusty! – Pieter Wuille – 2018-12-04T02:39:48.533

while the answer is on the spot (as expected if Rusty answers it) I would like to add that the reserve is needed to pay fees in case of a close and / or to have a minimum amount for punishment to deincentivise you for cheating. This amount is usually 1 % of the total capacity. – Rene Pickhardt – 2018-12-08T18:43:19.277

c-lightning determine channel capacity

Answers