Installing the node

Introduction

Using the babylonnode CLI tool, you can install dependencies, configure your node installation, and then install and start up your node.

The CLI supports running the node either using Docker or via systemd. However, we recommend Docker as the more straightforward and easy-to-maintain method.

Each step specifies the commands for each mode - you should only run the commands for the mode of your choice (e.g. only those for the “Docker mode”), not both.

1. Install the babylonnode CLI

If you haven’t done so already, install the babylonnode CLI.

2. Install the dependencies on the host machine

This is required only to be run during first time setup on a new host machine. This is done through one simple call of the babylonnode CLI script.

babylonnode docker dependencies

babylonnode systemd dependencies

Execute following commands so that the radixdlt user can use sudo commands without needing you to enter a password:

  $ sudo su
  $ echo "radixdlt ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL" > /etc/sudoers.d/radixdlt
  $ exit

3. Install the node

3.1. Create the config file

The CLI uses a two-phase config / install setup. First, you are lead through an interactive prompt to create a config.yaml file, which by default is stored at ~/babylon-node-config/config.yaml. This config file serves as a base for an actual node configuration, which is generated by babylonnode. It is also used for future upgrades, to avoid having to remember your settings later.

Record the password safely

A keystore file is created during the config command, and the password that was entered is written to the generated config.yaml file. If you wish, you can delete the line containing keystore_password, but ensure you store the keystore password value safely, as it will be required in a later step.

Back up your keystore

The keystore file contains a randomly-generated private key that determines your node’s identity for peer to peer communications, and can allow it to act as a validator, if a validator entity’s public key is set to your node’s.

We recommend that you securely back up your key file as soon as you’ve generated it, and carefully protect it.

babylonnode docker config -m CORE

babylonnode docker config -m DETAILED

sudo su - radixdlt
cd /home/radixdlt

babylonnode systemd config -m CORE

radix://node_rdx1qf2x63qx4jdaxj83kkw2yytehvvmu6r2xll5gcp6c9rancmrfsgfw0vnc65@babylon-mainnet-eu-west-1-node0.radixdlt.com,radix://node_rdx1qgxn3eeldj33kd98ha6wkjgk4k77z6xm0dv7mwnrkefknjcqsvhuu4gc609@babylon-mainnet-ap-southeast-2-node0.radixdlt.com,radix://node_rdx1qwrrnhzfu99fg3yqgk3ut9vev2pdssv7hxhff80msjmmcj968487uugc0t2@babylon-mainnet-ap-south-1-node0.radixdlt.com,radix://node_rdx1q0gnmwv0fmcp7ecq0znff7yzrt7ggwrp47sa9pssgyvrnl75tvxmvj78u7t@babylon-mainnet-us-east-1-node0.radixdlt.com

radix://node_tdx_2_1qv89yg0la2jt429vqp8sxtpg95hj637gards67gpgqy2vuvwe4s5ss0va2y@babylon-stokenet-ap-south-1-node0.radixdlt.com,radix://node_tdx_2_1qvtd9ffdhxyg7meqggr2ezsdfgjre5aqs6jwk5amdhjg86xhurgn5c79t9t@babylon-stokenet-ap-southeast-2-node0.radixdlt.com,radix://node_tdx_2_1qwfh2nn0zx8cut5fqfz6n7pau2f7vdyl89mypldnn4fwlhaeg2tvunp8s8h@babylon-stokenet-eu-west-1-node0.radixdlt.com,radix://node_tdx_2_1qwz237kqdpct5l3yjhmna66uxja2ymrf3x6hh528ng3gtvnwndtn5rsrad4@babylon-stokenet-us-east-1-node1.radixdlt.com

3.2. Install and setup the node

Run the following command and pay close attention to parameters:

babylonnode docker install

babylonnode systemd install

4. Set passwords for the nginx server

By default there are two separate users configured for accessing the APIs:

• admin: for accessing the Core API (/core/* endpoints) and the System API (/system/* endpoints)

• metrics: for accessing /prometheus/metrics

1. Execute the following commands to set the passwords for the nginx users:

   Docker mode

   User	Command to run
   admin	babylonnode auth set-admin-password --setupmode DOCKER
   metrics	babylonnode auth set-metrics-password --setupmode DOCKER

   systemd mode

   User	Command to run
   admin	babylonnode auth set-admin-password --setupmode SYSTEMD
   metrics	babylonnode auth set-metrics-password --setupmode SYSTEMD

2. Enter your password at the prompt

3. As shown on screen, enter the following commands to set an environment variable for your password (remember to fill in your own password):

   echo 'export NGINX_ADMIN_PASSWORD="nginx-password"' >> ~/.bashrc
   echo 'export NGINX_METRICS_PASSWORD="nginx-password"' >> ~/.bashrc

4. Add the new environment variable to your session by executing the following command:

   source ~/.bashrc

5. Verifying that the node works

After you’ve installed the node using the commands above, it should start automatically. It should start processing the genesis transactions. Depending on your setup mode you can use either docker logs -f ubuntu-core-1 or journalctl -f -u radixdlt-node to view the logs. You should be seeing messages that begin with “Committing data ingestion chunk…” in the output log. This may take up to 30 minutes to fully process, depending on your hardware. Usually it finishes in around 10-15 minutes.

Warning

Don’t terminate (or restart) the node while the genesis transactions are being committed!
If you do so before the whole process is completed you’ll need to wipe the data directory and start from scratch.

After the process completes you should start seeing messages like “lgr_commit{epoch= … }”, which indicate that the node is working correctly (at which point you can safely stop/restart it any time you wish).

At this point you can also query the System API and the Core API.
System API’s health endpoint provides an overall health summary of a node:

babylonnode api system health

The response should include "status":"SYNCING. All possible statuses have been described in detail here.

You can also inspect the Core API and query the current state of the ledger:

curl -k -u "admin:nginx-password" https://127.0.0.1/core/status/network-status -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' --data '{"network": "mainnet"}' | jq

There’s a current_epoch_round field in the response and both the epoch and round number should be steadily growing as you re-run the query - this indicates that the node is correctly syncing the ledger state.

Congratulations! At this point you’ve got a fully operational Radix node connected to the network.
Note that it might take some time until it’s fully synced up with the latest ledger state. You can check the current epoch using one of the community-run Radix network dashboards on the internet.

7. Stopping your node

This command will shut down a systemd or docker node, and is executed differently depending on which kind of installation you’re running.

babylonnode docker stop

babylonnode systemd stop

8. Restarting your node

Restart the node using the following command:

babylonnode docker restart

babylonnode systemd restart

10. Advanced user config

For advanced users, there is an additional file that can be optionally mounted to provide additional configuration to the babylon-node application which will be appended to the configuration when executing the install command. This allows to add configuration that the babylonnode CLI does not natively support.

This file is located by default at ~/babylon-node-config/advanced-user.env-file for Docker and at ~/babylon-node-config/advanceduserconfig for systemd. The file will be picked up when executing install without needing to rerun the config command.