This guide walks you through the process of setting up a node to join Symbol’s public network.
You can safely experiment connecting to Symbol’s network by connecting to the test network (testnet) instead of the main public network (mainnet). Testnet might be offline or replaced without notice because it is used extensively for testing purposes, though. To work in a private environment network, install a local network for learning and development purposes instead.
To run the network, you are going to use the package Symbol Bootstrap. To better understand how this package works it is highly recommended to read the Using Symbol Bootstrap guide.
Note
Symbol Bootstrap runs on all the supported Operating Systems (Windows, Mac and Linux). This guide works out-of-the-box on Ubuntu 20.04 but other Linux distributions might require some adjustments. For instructions specific to CentOS 8 please follow spizzerb’s CentOS 8 guide (developed by a NEM community member).
Running a blockchain node is very demanding in terms of disk space, memory and CPU requirements. Failure to meet the following minimum requirements will produce a node that will struggle to keep up with the rest of the network. The global blockchain will not be affected but the node will rarely be eligible to collect any node rewards.
Note
It is strongly recommended to use dedicated CPU and RAM. When they are shared (as is the case on some Virtual Server providers) performance is heavily impacted.
| Requirement | Peer node | API node | Dual & Voting node |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | 2 cores | 4 cores | 4 cores |
| RAM | 8GB | 16GB | 16GB |
| Disk size | 500 GB | 750 GB | 750 GB |
| Disk speed | 1500 IOPS SSD | 1500 IOPS SSD | 1500 IOPS SSD |
The following table shows the recommended requirements. Using these will provide a much smoother experience and provide a certain degree of future proofing.
| Requirement | Peer node | API node | Dual & Voting node |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | 4 cores | 8 cores | 8 cores |
| RAM | 16GB | 32GB | 32GB |
| Disk size | 500 GB | 750 GB | 750 GB |
| Disk speed | 1500 IOPS SSD | 1500 IOPS SSD | 1500 IOPS SSD |
testnet and mainnet presets¶Symbol Bootstrap has presets called testnet and mainnet which instantiate a node that connects to the appropriate public network. The particular capabilities of this node are selected through the assembly option.
This guide uses testnet as an example, feel free to change it to mainnet once the main network has officially launched.
Peer nodes, also called a harvester nodes, are the backbone of the network. Among other things, they verify transactions and add new blocks to the blockchain, collecting fees in the process.
symbol-bootstrap start -p testnet -a peer
API nodes provide external access to the network through a REST API.
symbol-bootstrap start -p testnet -a api
To check that the node is up and running open a new browser tab and go to localhost:3000/chain/info. You should get a response from the API node.
API nodes take up more memory and storage than Peer nodes. If you have memory or storage constraints and you are running into issues, it is recommended that you switch to running a Peer only node instead.
You really don’t need to use anything else but symbol-bootstrap start. Use any of the commands above to instantiate and boot a Symbol node and Ctrl+C to shut it down.
Alternatively, you can start in detached mode (--detached) to run in the background.
Note
Upon first launch the node will synchronize with the rest of the network, downloading the complete blockchain. This might take a few hours and during this time REST requests directed to your node (if it is an API node) might be delayed and report an incorrect chain height.
The node you just created has an associated Symbol account which you can use to interact with the node. For instance, you need this account to provide funds to the node so it can emit transactions.
The account’s keys and address can be retrieved from a YAML file in the target folder:
target/addresses.yml
As an example:
networkType: 152
nemesisGenerationHashSeed: 1082491EFE93AA7DAC6D0282634953DB8B5FDDAE669237B030695A9F308883D5
nodes:
-
name: peer-node-0
friendlyName: peer-node-0
roles: 'Peer,Voting'
main:
# Use these to access the node's account
privateKey: ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
publicKey: E8A918BD78C0D9CFA8D0B53BB721E62925ACB4BF92068533A3D94210D01E1D39
address: TBMXGFREJRVWJY756BVHLJAHZCOP3BW53ALFYOY
transport:
# Use these in Delegated Harvesting requests
privateKey: ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
publicKey: 7C63AF4CECE2690944FAFE3D9D52EB400447F30CCAC185BC9BE5D54CF536DDE3
address: TBTRVMCJ7TEZNCV74IX3INJHGAOLMQOU2JQEX7Y
remote:
privateKey: ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
publicKey: 6B1936560F85096E398AAF4647EADB6C748100E6D248D98B2916F003B806E725
address: TDN3G4REJA7BWDQ2TLB3M522RAYKV5AB55EEPGQ
voting:
privateKey: ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
publicKey: E97B99E7EDE0738CBE2C3BB13F3B0EEB8A361FAAD51271887D12389F1AEEF4EC
address: TBBK644JF2XMW35A7BUG6SADTLHAQ2M2KO7O2FQ
vrf:
privateKey: ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
publicKey: B304E6F9650CFFA52C6DC51CED29397F6C50F1E2F9AC34993549E0E3E4461027
address: TABWAGQNSI4AWPE3IVGS53CQWAN5BYRM5BHMNFA
Note
Keep your Secret Keys secret at all times!
Use the information in the main section to access the node’s account. When activating delegated harvesting, use the information in the transport section as the node’s public TLS key.
Before the node can begin harvesting or voting (see below) it needs a minimum amount of funds. In the testnet test environment you can use Symbol’s Faucet to provide these funds.
Go to faucet, insert the address of your node’s account and the amount of symbol.xym you need and click on CLAIM.
You will see that your request is first unconfirmed (pending) and after a few seconds it becomes confirmed. Your node is now funded and ready to operate!
Harvesting and Voting nodes require an extra configuration step before they can be used:
Symbol Bootstrap creates peer nodes with remote harvesting enabled by default, but they still need to be registered by announcing the AccountKeyLink and VrfKeyLink transactions to the network.
This can be done by Symbol Bootstrap too, but it needs to be a step separated from symbol-bootstrap start because funds are required to announce transactions.
Once the node is running with symbol-bootstrap start and you have funded its account, from a different terminal (but from the same folder), simply type:
symbol-bootstrap link
This creates the required AccountKeyLink and VrfKeyLink transactions and announces them to the network. If it succeeds (it might take some seconds, as the transaction needs to be confirmed) your new node is ready to harvest.
Note
Without extra parameters, symbol-bootstrap link tries to send the registration transaction to the local node (running on the other terminal) which will forward it to the rest of the network. If your node is not running at this moment, or it is not an API node, you can use the --useKnownRestGateways parameter, or provide the URL of another node using --url. Find a list of testnet nodes here.
The block finalization process requires that network nodes vote about the correctness of blocks before they are definitely added to the blockchain. For your new node to participate it has to register as a voter by announcing a VotingKeyLink transaction to the network. Symbol Bootstrap can take care of this too.
Note
We are going to create a new voting node. If you already created a non-voting node which you no longer need, you can remove the target folder or, more conveniently, use the -r switch next time you invoke symbol-bootstrap.
First, you need to configure the node as a voter, so, besides selecting the desired preset and assembly you have to provide a custom preset file with the following content:
nodes:
- voting: true
So if you call the above file enable-voting-preset.yml the whole command would be:
symbol-bootstrap start -p testnet -a <assembly> -c enable-voting-preset.yml
Once the node is running, from a different terminal (but from the same folder), simply type:
symbol-bootstrap link
Just like in the harvesting case, this creates the required VotingKeyLink transaction and submits it to the network. Upon successful completion, your new node is ready to vote.
It is possible to setup a node in such a way that the private keys are never stored in plain text on a computer connected to the Internet. Read about it in the Running a Secure Symbol node.
Follow the Configuring node properties guide to change parameters such as the public name of the node.
You can use the following tools to test the functionality of your new node:
symbol.xym units to test Symbol’s services.And don’t forget to check the rest of the guides to continue learning about Symbol!
Did you find what you were looking for? Give us your feedback.