Update the Node

Introduction

These instructions will show you how to upgrade nodes installed as systemd instances.

Please read the instructions all the way through first, before applying the changes.

Prepare to update

First, if you haven’t already done so, ensure that you have backed up your keystore file (e.g. keystore.ks). This key file contains the private key that determines your node’s unique address. If anything goes wrong in the update process, if you have your key file, you can always reinstall the node from scratch and use it to recover access to your node with its previous network identity.

Next, you may want to consider using a backup node to perform a switch to the updated node with minimal interruption (especially if running a validator node) – or to provide a quick recovery if something goes wrong during the update. See our recommendations for Maintaining Uptime for more.

Download the latest node distribution

1. Go to https://github.com/radixdlt/babylon-node/releases and look for the entry with the [ Latest release ] marker.

2. Download the corresponding node distribution zip file and the native library file (see the Node Setup instructions “Downloading the Radix node software” section for details)

3. Unzip both files and place them in some directory on your system (e.g. /opt/radixdlt/babylon-node/core-v1.2.1 ), again, this is analogous to node setup docs

An example folder structure could looks like this:

tree /opt/radixdlt/babylon-node -L 2
/opt/radixdlt/babylon-node
├── core-v1.2.0
│   ├── bin
│   └── lib
└── libcorerust.so
├── core-v1.2.1
│   ├── bin
│   └── lib
└── libcorerust.so

where core-v1.2.0 is the old (current) version and core-v1.2.1 is the new one. Make sure to put a correct libcorerust.so file in a new directory! Always use the one that comes with the rest of the node dist, don’t copy it from the previous version!

Make sure that all new files have a correct owner:

sudo chown -R radixdlt:radixdlt /opt/radixdlt

Stop the node process

Before upgrading the software, you’ll need to shut the node down:

sudo systemctl stop babylon-node

Update the systemd unit file

We can now point the systemd service to use a new binary. Update the ExecStart= line in your systemd unit file (e.g. /etc/systemd/system/babylon-node.service) to point to a directory you’ve created in the previous step. E.g.:

ExecStart=/opt/radixdlt/babylon-node/core-v1.2.1/bin/core -config=/srv/radixdlt/babylon-mainnet/mainnet.config

And reload the configuration:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Save your existing nginx configuration

If you still have an existing nginx configuration from your previous installation then it’s a good idea to move it to another location, e.g.:

sudo mv babylon-nginx-fullnode-conf.zip babylon-nginx-fullnode-conf.zip.spare

Download the latest nginx configuration

1. Go to https://github.com/radixdlt/babylon-nginx/releases and look for the entry with the [ Latest release ] marker.

2. Download the babylon-nginx-fullnode-conf.zip file.

Install the new nginx configuration

1. Unzip the nginx configuration. (You can overwrite all the files)

   unzip babylon-nginx-fullnode-conf.zip

2. Copy the files to the nginx setup directory.

   sudo cp -r conf.d/ /etc/nginx/

3. And now copy the nginx configuration files for your node type. If you are running a full node then execute:

   sudo cp nginx-fullnode.conf /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Restart nginx and the node

sudo systemctl restart babylon-node
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Verify that the node has been upgraded

You can check the version of the node software by sending an information request using curl:

curl -k -u admin:nginx-password "https://localhost/system/version"

The response is a JSON string that carries the version number as its payload, e.g.:

{"version":"v1.2.1"}