Validator Installation

64 min

NOTE: This cluster is stopped. There are no active RPC on this cluster to run solana based commands. Switch to `v.01`

How To Setup a Xandeum DevNet Validator

NOTE: This guide shows commands for text editors nano and vim. A quick search can find a guide or video to operate these text editors more efficiently and make your life easier.

1) Installation of the needed binaries.

Start with a fresh instance of Linux as the root user.

These instructions use Ubuntu Server 22.04.2LTS

BEFORE YOU CONTINUE!

Make sure you see your entire drive space as available! Use df -h to see your free space. You want to see that you have all your space in a free partition. Ubuntu will want to default to 100g LVM. The preferance is to eliminate LVM and Raid and use all available space for your / mount point. If you don't show all your disk space, run the Ubuntu installer again and pay attention to the storage section.

Get root user

Run as sudo or root user. If you don't have access to the root user, then you will need to prepend all your requests in this section with sudo.

Notice in the screenshot below I start as user xand change to root user then back to xand.

Root user has ALL the privledges and won't require sudo. But some items NEED to be ran as the xand user (ie rust install, validator build, etc)

Use sudo -i to change to root user and exit to end root user

Update your installation

sudo apt-get update -y && 
sudo apt-get upgrade -y

Install prerequestite packages

sudo apt -y install sudo curl git build-essential pkg-config libssl-dev libudev-dev zlib1g-dev llvm clang cmake make libprotobuf-dev protobuf-compiler tmux vnstat

Press OK to restart services if prompted

Enable vnstat to monitor your bandwidth usage on your machine

sudo systemctl enable --now vnstat

Note: research vnstat to find many different ways to view information on your bandwidth usage.

Create Xandeum Validator Account

sudo adduser xand

Enter a password and accept defaults to the following questions:

New password: Retype new password: passwd: password updated successfully Changing the user information for xand Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default Full Name []: Room Number []: Work Phone []: Home Phone []: Other []: Is the information correct? [Y/n] y

Add new user to sudo group

sudo usermod -aG sudo xand

Change to the Xandeum User account

su xand

Switch the Xand home directory

cd ~

Install Rust, Cargo, and restmft

Run as xand user without sudo privledges.

curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh

Take care to select option #1 when prompted to.

Dont forget to set the source for .cargo

source $HOME/.cargo/env

Add rustfm

rustup component add rustfmt

rustup update

Set to compile using native cpu flags

export RUSTFLAGS="-O -C target-cpu=native"

Special Note:

If you run into issues w/ Rust compiling, or if you receive illegal instruction errors upon starting your validator (usually only if running on a hypervisor), replace the export command with the export below:

This will generally impact Antsle owners (and some other Virtualization software/hardware) where CPUs will show up as Westmere E56xx/L56xx/X56xx (Nehalem-C)
Also if your cpu doesn't support AVX2 instruction set you may need this additional RUST Flag. Check if your CPU supports AVX2 using this command: lscpu | grep --color=always -i avx2 and avx2 should show up in red if its supported.
May serverly limit efficiency of the binaries.

export RUST_REED_SOLOMON_ERASURE_ARCH=native

Clone the Xandeum Repo (Solana for now)

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/solana-labs/solana.git

cd into new repo dir

cd solana

Choose which release you want to compile

git checkout v1.16.10

Build (compile) the validator software

./cargo build --release

error: toolchain can be ignored, missing toolchains will be installed.

To use less processor, try adding jobs limit with -j 2

This process is going to take some time. Get a beverage, walk the dog, take the kids to the pool. 10-40 minutes typical depending on cpu.

2) After build completes:

Run as xand user in home dir (use cd ~)

Create directories and parent folders -p for the validator files

mkdir ~/.local/share/solana/install/releases/1.16.10/bin -p

mkdir ~/.local/share/solana/install/releases/active_release/

Move the newly created binary (application files) to the appropriate release folder

cd ~/solana/target/release

mv * .* ~/.local/share/solana/install/releases/1.16.10/bin

Ignore these errors...as these folders can't move:

mv: cannot move '.' to '/home/xand/.local/share/solana/install/releases/1.16.10/bin/.': Device or resource busy mv: cannot move '..' to '/home/xand/.local/share/solana/install/releases/1.16.10/bin/..': Device or resource busy

Create symlinks (shortcuts) to the directories. This will allow us to change the version that is loaded by creating a symlink to a newer set of binaries

ln -sf /home/xand/.local/share/solana/install/releases/1.16.10/bin/ ~/.local/share/solana/install/releases/active_release/

Backup the old $PATH for reference.

echo $PATH >> ~/PATH.bak

Using your favorite editor to open the bashrc config:

vim ~/.bashrc

Add the following lines at the very bottom and save your changes and exit.

export PATH="/home/xand/.local/share/solana/install/releases/active_release/bin:$PATH"
alias l="ls -a --color=auto"
alias ll="ls -alh --color=auto"
alias sv="solana validators --sort skip-rate --reverse"
alias sg="solana gossip"
alias se="solana epoch-info"

Fully exit all shells and come back in.

Check your Install of the software

After logging back in as xand user, time to test if everything worked.

Check solana version:

cd ~
solana -V

Results should appear simlar to the following

If you are working on a virtual machine, now would be the ideal time to take a snapshot & backup your work just in case you have any issues beyond this point. It is also advisable for bare metal too.

3) Configure your validator instance.

Please observe proper security of your private keys!

Record your 12 words (and bip39 passphrase) in a safe spot. For DevNet it's not critical if you lose them...but if on MainNet, losing the keys equals LOST FUNDS. There is no recovering from lost keys.

For MainNet, your withdraw authority key should never be on your machine!

Generate your 3 DevNet keys.

You can leave the bip39 passphrase empty (only applies to DevNet/TesNet since it is not real money).
Your 12 words and pubkey are shown immediatly after the prompt for bip39 passphrase.
Take note of the public key it provides you (copy it down). It will help us help you should there be an issue.

Run as xand user!

cd ~

solana-keygen new -o ~/validator-keypair.json

solana-keygen new -o ~/vote-keypair.json

solana-keygen new -o ~/withdraw-keypair.json

To view your public key later

solana-keygen pubkey ~/validator-keypair.json

View your current configuration information

solana config get

Switch to Xandeum cluster

solana config set --url https://api.devnet.xandeum.com:8899

Set your new keypair to be used by default.

solana config set --keypair ~/validator-keypair.json

Testing our work so far.

Check your connecrtion to the cluster

solana gossip

Request an airdrop from the Xand Faucet

solana airdrop 1 ~/validator-keypair.json

Do this again 4 more times. (We are also giving you fake XAND/SOL to get started.)

There is a daily limit per wallet...These tokens on TestNet/DevNet are not real.

Check your wallet balance.

solana balance

You should have ~5 tokens present if you do it 5x's.

Create your vote account.

Submit a transaction on the blockchain setting up your vote account

solana create-vote-account ~/vote-keypair.json ~/validator-keypair.json ~/withdraw-keypair.json

To find your Vote Account Pubkey later, use:

solana-keygen pubkey ~/vote-keypair.json

4) Configure your Start Script Configuration

Create your validator configuration file using your editor

vim ~/validator-start.sh

There will be nothing in here, so copy and paste in the following configurations. Save and Exit.

#!/bin/bash
exec solana-validator \
        --known-validator HhuygLTeS6grue95pKKzak2UPuQMXepWbvQv2ToQfbZN \
        --known-validator 6vy4sYV6nTLJQ4tBcXUGgPTuGorVh2FJkm6ToVMFSfr2 \
        --known-validator CYQCxRcrSNg2XUiM42tp6bUtbWzZEdmTNawhBg5hSLoo \
        --known-validator 3dZiYo933M7VftTSb7WudJV92cg69QwVYS1s753xRc59 \
        --known-validator 2X8DQyB88vac5yZnkVzz6JxogWzSEhJBfNz7UHbQms1i \
        --known-validator 2Ww2DYCYegUrwxC44funMmdp7Ttyu38jFvUUkrzyyLMw \
        --entrypoint xand-1.devnet.xandeum.com:8000 \
        --entrypoint xand-2.devnet.xandeum.com:8000 \
        --entrypoint xand-3.devnet.xandeum.com:8000 \
        --entrypoint xand-4.devnet.xandeum.com:8000 \
        --expected-shred-version 46090 \
        --expected-genesis-hash 9MJobEeGZJH9KjQNzMcRDuPNFUwJtAnBEEgpWgAgy4VL \
        --snapshot-interval-slots 300 \
        --full-snapshot-interval-slots 3000 \
        --identity ~/validator-keypair.json \
        --vote-account ~/vote-keypair.json \
        --ledger ~/ledger/ \
        --dynamic-port-range 8000-10000 \
        --rpc-port 8899 \
        --log ~/xand-validator.log \
        --limit-ledger-size 50000000 \
#       --expected-bank-hash 3UQBGcNj3s5jfGKVa1jhqyXyPv6anm4PADbZdMCKY3ht \
#       --wait-for-supermajority 610426 \
#       --no-snapshot-fetch \
#       --no-genesis-fetch \

Note: Every trailing \ is important! Any commented lines # must be at the bottom of the script. This is to save a command that may be needed later but not used now.

Note: Change the location of ledger in the script to your second drive if you aren't using raid0

Here are the known-validators:

Xand1-known-validator HhuygLTeS6grue95pKKzak2UPuQMXepWbvQv2ToQfbZN \ Xand2-known-validator 6vy4sYV6nTLJQ4tBcXUGgPTuGorVh2FJkm6ToVMFSfr2 \ Xand3-known-validator CYQCxRcrSNg2XUiM42tp6bUtbWzZEdmTNawhBg5hSLoo \ Xand4-known-validator 3dZiYo933M7VftTSb7WudJV92cg69QwVYS1s753xRc59 \ t3chie-known-validator 2X8DQyB88vac5yZnkVzz6JxogWzSEhJBfNz7UHbQms1i \ bernie-known-validator 2Ww2DYCYegUrwxC44funMmdp7Ttyu38jFvUUkrzyyLMw \

Make the script you just made executable.

chmod +x ~/validator-start.sh

5) System Tuning

Run as root user, use sudo -i

Optimize sysctl knobs (copy block and paste into teminal, press return)

sudo bash -c "cat >/etc/sysctl.d/21-solana-validator.conf <<EOF
# Increase UDP buffer sizes
net.core.rmem_default = 134217728
net.core.rmem_max = 134217728
net.core.wmem_default = 134217728
net.core.wmem_max = 134217728

# Increase memory mapped files limit
vm.max_map_count = 1000000

# Increase number of allowed open file descriptors
fs.nr_open = 1000000
EOF"

sudo sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/21-solana-validator.conf

Open the file /etc/systemd/system.conf in your editor

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system.conf

Add the following to the [Manager] section. Save and exit.

DefaultLimitNOFILE=1000000

Reload the daemon

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Increase process file desriptor count limit. (copy block and paste into teminal, press return)

sudo bash -c "cat >/etc/security/limits.d/90-solana-nofiles.conf <<EOF
# Increase process file descriptor count limit
* - nofile 1000000
EOF"

This section is complete. Exit all shells or reboot to activate changes!

Continue on to Setup System Service