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Run a Node

This repo contains scripts for easy management of the node, some helpful readme notes, and the P2P list for both mainnet and testnet.

Telos node template files​

To simplify the process of running a Telos node, the following example will use node template files. These examples assume you're running Ubuntu 22.04.

For a local dev node, check out the Dev setup.

Setup directories​

Create a directory to store nodes and binaries in, setup a log directory and set their permissions. Let's assume your user is named telos and you want to store everything in a directory named /telos.

Note, if you wish to have the node keep it's logs in it's own node directory, you can skip the creation and chown of the /var/log/nodeos directory.

sudo mkdir /telos
sudo mkdir /var/log/nodeos
sudo chown telos: /telos
sudo chown telos: /var/log/nodeos

Install packages​

sudo apt install schedtool

Download this template​

To create a new node at /telos/nodes/testnet1:

mkdir -p /telos/nodes/testnet1
cd /telos/nodes/testnet1
curl -L https://api.github.com/repos/telosnetwork/node-template/tarball/master | tar -xvz --strip=1

Setup peers​

Copy the contents of the peers.ini from mainnet/testnet directory into the config.ini from the template, adding/removing peers to suit your region/needs.

echo >> config.ini
echo "#TESTNET PEERS:" >> config.ini
cat testnet/peers.ini >> config.ini

Pick a version to download from https://github.com/EOSIO/eos/releases. You can find more up to date peers via the EOS Nation BP validator tool for either testnet or mainnet.

Install latest Leap AntelopeIO binaries (if needed)​

Pick a version to download from https://github.com/AntelopeIO/leap/releases.

Select a stable release, likely the latest tagged one (not RC/Release Candidate) which is built for your OS Version.

wget https://github.com/AntelopeIO/leap/releases/download/v4.0.1/leap_4.0.1-ubuntu22.04_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./leap_4.0.1-ubuntu22.04_amd64.deb

Move binaries​

Now find where the binaries installed and move the nodeos binary to somewhere that won't be changed when you install the next version, it's likely they are in /usr/bin, this will allow you to run a different version on this same machine.

The strategy here is that in the /telos/leap directory you have a directory for each version you may want to run on this machine, inside each directory is the nodeos binary matching that version. To update nodes you'll just have to change the version in the specific node's node_config file and restart it, as well as take any other measures needed for that version upgrade (reindex, etc..).

Note, installing the .deb file will put all the binaries (nodeos,cleos,keosd) in your path, if you simply use the binary name (e.g. nodeos without a path) it will use the most recently installed version. For the purposes of running a node, the only binary which needs to be copied and versioned in this way would be nodeos.

mkdir -p /telos/leap/4.0.1
cp -a /usr/bin/nodeos /telos/leap/4.0.1/

Set node version​

Now you know the path to the binaries, change that in the node_config file, set the BUILD_ROOT variable

BUILD_ROOT="/telos/leap/4.0.1"

Distribute CPU load​

The start.sh script will pin the nodeos process to a specific CPU core, this optimizes performance. If you are running multiple nodes on the same host and do not change this setting you will have all nodes fighting over the same CPU core so you should make sure each node has a different value set.

To determine how many cores you have, run cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep processor and then pick one that's not already configured on other nodes and set it in the node_config file:

CPU="0"

Optional: Configure to write logs locally to the node's directory if you prefer instead of the system-wide /var/log/nodeos path as mentioned above Set the LOCALIZE_LOG flag to true in the node_config file.

LOCALIZE_LOG=true

Setup config.ini​

Review​

Review the config.ini file to get familiar with it, adjust as needed.

Set the ports​

Make sure you set the ports to ones that are not already in use on this server by other nodes.

Start the node​

To start the node you have two options:

  • Start from genesis and sync the whole history
  • Start from a given snapshot

Start from genesis​

cd /telos/nodes/testnet1
./start.sh --genesis-json ./testnet/genesis.json

Start from snapshot​

Be sure to get the latest snapshot for either mainnet or testnet

cd /telos/nodes/testnet1
wget https://snapshots.telosunlimited.io/telos-mainet-20230615-blk-283714511.tar.gz | tar -zxvf

From there you are ready to start your node! Run ./start.sh with the --snapshot flag and the name of the snapshot binary.

./start.sh --snapshot /snapshot-10e680cfae6365b7839abffc5239cb874b61b64274a6cafd051a1610a9d0c08f.bin

Configure public access​

This assumes the node operator has reasonable system administration skills, which should be expected of a Telos block producer.

P2P​

Point DNS at the server and expose the p2p port (p2p-listen-endpoint), this is your seed/p2p endpoint and is only tcp, it does not require anything in front of it. If you wish you can use a tcp load balancer such as haproxy in front of the p2p, then you'll point the DNS at the load balancer.

API​

Install something like nginx or haproxy and point DNS at it for your API endpoint, configure it for SSL.

A popular option is to put nginx in front of it using auto-renewing and free SSL certs from Let's Encrypt - https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-secure-nginx-with-let-s-encrypt-on-ubuntu-18-04.

You'll want to configure nginx in this case for a reverse proxy, and point it at your http-server-address.