Validator Installation

47 min

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) Update and setup our user

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 solchange to root user then back to sol.

Root user has ALL the privledges and won't require sudo. But some items NEED to be ran as the sol 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 a few apps

sudo apt install -y bzip2 vnstat

sudo systemctl enable --now vnstat

Create Xandeum Validator User Account

Skip creating a user if you already have it

sudo adduser sol

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 sol

Change to the New User account

su sol

Switch the Xand home directory.

NOTE: If you log in as root and switch to sol it will bring you into the /root dir! So use cd ~ to get to home dir each time you log in!

cd ~

Test switching between root user and xand user

Note: When you are root user, your line starts with root and when you are sol user the line starts with sol

sudo -i

exit

2) Choose which release you want to install

Go to the Xandeum Binaries repo and download the tar.bz2 file to your server. This guide is using version v2.2.0-xandeum_c9b4b31d but check for newer releases. You can right-click on the file name to copy the download link. https://github.com/Xandeum/binaries/releases

Set the version and filename variables

ver="v2.2.0-xandeum_b5f66263"
file="v2.2.0-xandeum_b5f66263.tar.gz"
echo -e "\n"
echo version=$ver;
echo filename=$file
echo -e "\n"

cd ~
wget https://github.com/Xandeum/binaries/releases/download/$ver/$file

Create the needed bin folder

mkdir ~/.local/share/xandeum/install/releases/$ver -p

Extract the file into the new bin dir

Add a directory for connection info

sudo mkdir -p /var/run/xandeum && chown sol:sol /var/run/xandeum && chmod 755 /var/run/xandeum

Test a binary by running it in the local folder

cd ~/.local/share/xandeum/install/releases/$ver/bin

./agave-validator -V

Remove downloaded file if binaries are working

rm ~/$file

Set our symlink, PATH, and some convenient aliases

Set a symlink from our new release to the active_release folder we will use in our $PATH later. (This command removes an old symlink to active_release if it exists)

rm /home/sol/.local/share/xandeum/install/releases/active_release
ln -sf /home/sol/.local/share/xandeum/install/releases/$ver/bin /home/sol/.local/share/xandeum/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/sol/.local/share/xandeum/install/releases/active_release:$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"
alias sb="solana balance"

source ~/.bashrc

Check your Install of the software

As sol user, time to test if everything worked.

cd ~
agave-validator -V

Check Xandeum Software Version:
Results should appear simlar to the following (check for correct version and src)

3) Configure your validator instance.

Please observe proper security of your private keys! MainNet Keys should be created on a secure machine, not an unknown remote machine.

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.

NOTE: If you already have created keys on this machine from the previous install, DON'T CREATE NEW ONES! Skip to Switch to Xandeum Cluster instead.

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 sol user!

cd ~

Create your3 keys...note down all 3 keyphrases before you continue on.

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 SOL tokens 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 --commission 0 ~/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 agave-validator \
        --known-validator G6x4w89TJA9oDBSRNcpeanaThqBUJbEv5DJRBZGrQHYV \
        --known-validator 5PW1SsXftQqKLF9FU88898BMG1vv3tqYRrVkGkFRwobs \
        --known-validator 96wn2RrHFxXNMNJCN64qZCpBPCkHVTuKfWoeRTGrCdDy \
        --known-validator DiEyTNni4uPwXaj9AX4pvFWvYFY5FKLEo3RRgN6Q22Lc \
        --known-validator 9HKXdh8Veb278efwgPjsRkQtyJEGhyGP8vkbCSmp4HgR \
        --entrypoint xand-5.devnet.xandeum.com:8000 \
        --entrypoint xand-4.devnet.xandeum.com:8000 \
        --entrypoint xand-3.devnet.xandeum.com:8000 \
        --entrypoint xand-2.devnet.xandeum.com:8000 \
        --entrypoint xand-1.devnet.xandeum.com:8000 \
        --expected-shred-version 48698 \
        --expected-genesis-hash 7BNTf1Z8KDUb3yCsNiVS5XH1CxfYG3HQP2VeHMVqP7AW \
        --snapshot-interval-slots 500 \
        --full-snapshot-interval-slots 10000 \
        --identity ~/validator-keypair.json \
        --vote-account ~/vote-keypair.json \
        --ledger ~/ledger/ \
        --dynamic-port-range 8000-10000 \
        --rpc-port 8899 \
        --log ~/validator.log \
        --no-poh-speed-test \
        --limit-ledger-size 30000000

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:

xand-1 9HKXdh8Veb278efwgPjsRkQtyJEGhyGP8vkbCSmp4HgR xand-2 DiEyTNni4uPwXaj9AX4pvFWvYFY5FKLEo3RRgN6Q22Lc

xand-3 96wn2RrHFxXNMNJCN64qZCpBPCkHVTuKfWoeRTGrCdDy xand-4 5PW1SsXftQqKLF9FU88898BMG1vv3tqYRrVkGkFRwobs xand-5 G6x4w89TJA9oDBSRNcpeanaThqBUJbEv5DJRBZGrQHYV

Make the script you just made executable.

chmod a+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-agave-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 = 2000000

# Increase number of allowed open file descriptors
fs.nr_open = 2000000
EOF"

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

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

sudo vim /etc/systemd/system.conf

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

DefaultLimitNOFILE=2000000

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-agave-nofiles.conf <<EOF
# Increase process file descriptor count limit
* - nofile 2000000
EOF"

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

Continue on to Setup System Service