Enrolling to the Supernode program

This guide shows how to create a node and register it as a Supernode. Make sure you know about the Supernode Program before continuing with this guide.

The Running a Symbol node guide contains more details on how to create a Symbol node and its content partially overlaps this guide. You can either follow that guide to build a regular node or this one to build a supernode, but not both.

You can create your supernode using Symbol Bootstrap, which is the easiest method, or manually.

 

Using Symbol Bootstrap

Symbol Bootstrap is the easiest way to create and run Symbol nodes. Learn about this tool if you are not familiar with it.

  1. Create a custom preset file named, for example, supernode.yml:

     nodes:
  - rewardProgram: SuperNode
    host: my-symbol-node.com # Could also be an IP address

    If you want the node to be also a Voting node (and benefit from the Voting Node rewards program) add also voting: true.

    If you already have some of the required node accounts (main, transport, remote, VRF or voting) you can provide them in the preset file too.

    注釈

    When managing your node through a multisig account, the main account in the above preset file must be the multisig account (and not any of its cosignatories).

  2. Create and run the node using the new preset file:

    Along with the standard node services, this will also download and install the monitoring agent.

     symbol-bootstrap start -p mainnet -a dual -c supernode.yml

    The start command will create the node configuration and then launch it.

    注釈

    For test purposes you can use Symbol’s TESTNET using -p testnet.

  3. Make sure your node is sufficiently funded. Your main account must hold at least 1M symbol.xym to be eligible as a supernode.

    You can find the node’s main account address in the target/addresses.yml file.

    On the TESTNET, you can send tokens to your node’s main account using the Symbol Faucet. If you need more tokens than the faucet can serve, connect to NEM’s Telegram Help Desk and contact cryptobeliever.

  4. Register the node by linking its remote, VRF and voting keys:

     symbol-bootstrap link --useKnownRestGateways

    This sends a transaction linking the supplemental keys to the main account. This transaction pays a small fee so make sure your main account has extra funds beyond the requirements of the Supernode program.

    注釈

    During the test period, heavy testing might artificially increase transaction fees. If symbol-bootstrap appears to be frozen with the message Announcing Simple Transaction hash... try increasing the transaction fee with adding a --maxFee 10000000 parameter, for example.

  5. Enroll in the Supernode program.

     symbol-bootstrap enrolRewardProgram --useKnownRestGateways

    This sends a transaction to the Controller address, which includes the node’s public key and its monitoring agent’s public URL.

    See the note regarding fees in the previous step.

    From this point, the reward programs controller on the network will monitor the node.

 

Manually

If you don’t want (or cannot) use Symbol Bootstrap you can still enroll your node in the Supernode program manually. These instructions are only available for Linux.

First off, make sure your node is up and running (or ready to run). This guide explains how to setup the catapult-server service, but you will need other services as well to fully configure a node (Guide coming soon).

The process requires installing a monitoring agent and announcing a special transaction. You are going to create a few files, so please create a folder to keep your filesystem tidy.

注釈

The following instructions are for Symbol’s test network (TESTNET). Once Symbol launches they will be updated for the main network (MAINNET).

  1. Download the node monitoring agent:

    Download the Linux binary and make it executable:

     wget https://symbol-node-reward.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/packages/0.1.0/agent_binary/agent-linux.bin
chmod +x agent-linux.bin

  2. Create certificates for the monitoring agent:

    The agent authenticates every connection to the reward programs controller, so you will need to create SSL certificates.

    Make sure you have OpenSSL installed (for example running sudo apt install openssl) and then run:

     openssl genrsa -out agent-key.pem 4096
openssl req -new -key agent-key.pem -out agent-csr.pem 
        -subj "/C=US/ST=Oregon/L=Portland/O=Company Name/OU=Org/CN=www.example.com"
openssl x509 -req -days 999 -in agent-csr.pem -out agent-crt.pem -signkey agent-key.pem

    You also need to download the Symbol network CA certificate. This allows the agent to authenticate connections to the node it is monitoring.

     wget https://symbol-node-reward.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/testnet/certs/ca-crt.pem

  3. Configure the monitoring agent:

    Create a text file named agent.properties and add the content below, replacing NODE_PRIVATE_KEY and REST_GATEWAY_URL with the appropriate values:

     ; Node's transport private key
NODE_PRIVATE_KEY=●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
LOGGER_FILE=agent.log
; Replace with the public host where your node is running (hostname or IP address)
REST_GATEWAY_URL=http://my-symbol-node.com:3000
REWARD_PROGRAM=SuperNode
CONTROLLER_PUBLIC_KEY=68B6A1D2F292E75F9BB8E9EDDA086A7C293A198C9968FF7528374075AAF4D983
CERTS_CA_FILE=ca-crt.pem
CERTS_KEY_FILE=agent-key.pem
CERTS_CERT_FILE=agent-crt.pem

    注釈

    By default the agent uses port number 7880 to communicate. If this port is already in use (by a NIS1 supernode agent, for example) add an HTTP_PORT= line with a different port number.

    You need to specify REST_GATEWAY_URL because the agent and the node’s REST gateway might be running on different machines. This URL is how the agent will contact the node’s REST interface. If they are on the same machine you can simply use REST_GATEWAY_URL=http://localhost:3000.

  4. Run the agent:

    Run this command and keep it running for as long as your node runs. Remember that the Controller will periodically query the agent and your node might be removed from the Supernode reward program if the agent fails to answer enough times.

     ./agent-linux.bin --config agent.properties

  5. Send the enrolling message

    The last bit is to notify the Controller that your node wants to enroll the Supernode program. This is done through a conventional Transfer Transaction with no mosaics and a special message:

     enrol NODE_PUBLIC_KEY AGENT_URL
    • Replace NODE_PUBLIC_KEY with your node’s transport public key. You can get it from the nodePublicKey field in http://localhost:3000/node/info, for example, when your node is running.
    • Replace AGENT_URL with https:// + the host where you are running the agent + :7880. This URL must be publicly accessible. For example: https://my-symbol-node.com:7880. IP addresses are also valid. Use the port number you specified in step 3 above if you didn’t use the standard one.

    Finally, the recipient address of this transaction is TDL73SDUMPDK7EOF7H3O4F5WB5WHG2SX7XUSFZQ.

    The transaction can be announced using symbol-cli:

     symbol-cli transaction transfer --mode normal --sync 
           --recipient-address TDL73SDUMPDK7EOF7H3O4F5WB5WHG2SX7XUSFZQ 
           --message "enrol NODE_PUBLIC_KEY AGENT_URL" 
           --mosaics @symbol.xym::0

    This transaction must be signed by your node’s main account, so make sure it is the default profile in symbol-cli.

    This transaction pays a small fee so make sure your main account has extra funds beyond the requirements of the Supernode program.

Validate the setup

You can validate your node by checking that all services are running properly. Check that the following URLs return valid data:

And then check again that they are accessible through your public host name.