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Validator Node

This guide will walk you through the process of setting up your validator node for the Oasis Network either on Mainnet or Testnet. It is designed for individuals who have basic understanding of the command line environment.

We will be using two separate physical machines for deployment:

  • your local system, referred to as localhost,
  • a remote server which will function as an Oasis node.

The guide consists of the following steps:

  1. On the localhost, we will use Oasis CLI to Initialize your Entity which is essential for deploying nodes on the network. To ensure the security of these private keys, we strongly recommend to either isolate the localhost from any network or internet connectivity, or use a hardware wallet as a secure storage, such as Ledger.

  1. After the entity has been created, we will move over to the server and Start the Oasis Node. The server needs to meet the hardware requirements and have access to the internet.

  2. Finally, we will stake assets to your entity, register it on the network, and attach the unique ID of the Oasis Node instance running on your server.

Prerequisites​

Before proceeding with this guide, ensure that you have completed the steps outlined in the Prerequisites chapter so that:

Initialize Entity​

danger

Everything in this section should be done on the localhost as there are sensitive items that will be created.

During the entity initialization process, you will generate essential components such as keys and other crucial artifacts that are necessary for the deployment of nodes on the network. This guide has been designed with a particular file structure in mind. Nonetheless, feel free to reorganize and rename directories as needed to accommodate your preferences.

Add Entity Account to Oasis CLI​

An entity is critical to operating nodes on the network as it controls the stake attached to a given individual or organization on the network. The entity is represented as a consensus-layer account using the Ed25519 signature scheme. To protect your entity private key, we strongly recommend using a hardware wallet such as Ledger.

We will be using Oasis CLI to initialize the entity and later stake our assets and register the entity on the network. If you haven't already, go ahead and install it.

Oasis CLI stores either your entity private key encrypted inside a file or a reference to an account whose keypair is stored on your hardware wallet.

danger

If you really need to use the file-based wallet using another offline/air-gapped machine for this purpose is highly recommended. Gaining access to the entity private key can compromise your tokens and the network security through proposing and signing malicious governance transactions.

On the localhost add a new entity account to Oasis CLI. This can be done in one of the following ways:

  • Create an account entry in Oasis CLI, but use your Ledger device to store the actual keypair to sign the transactions by executing oasis wallet create and passing the --kind ledger flag. For example:

    oasis wallet create my_entity --kind ledger

  • Import your existing entity.pem into Oasis CLI by executing oasis wallet import-file command, for example:

    oasis wallet import-file my_entity entity.pem

  • Generate a new keypair and store the private key in the encrypted file by executing oasis wallet create:

    oasis wallet create my_entity

Similar to the examples above we will assume that you named your entity account as my_entity in the remainder of this chapter.

Write the Entity Descriptor File​

On the localhost we begin by creating a directory named /localhostdir with the entity subdirectory that will contain the entity file descriptor.

mkdir -p /localhostdir/entity

Create a JSON file containing the public key of your entity by executing oasis account entity init and store it as entity.json, for example:

oasis account entity init -o /localhostdir/entity/entity.json --account my_entity

Now, we can move on to configuring our Oasis node with the information from freshly generated entity.json.

info

You can obtain your entity ID by running the cat entity.json command and reading out the id field.

Alternatively, if your entity account is imported into the Oasis CLI you can use the oasis wallet show command. Your entity ID will be displayed in the Public Key field.

Configuration​

There are a variety of options available when running an Oasis node. The following YAML file is a basic configuration for a validator node on the network.

Before using this configuration you should collect the following information to replace the variables present in the configuration file:

  • {{ external_ip }}: The external/public IP address you used when registering this node.
info

If you are using a Sentry Node, you should use the public IP of that machine.

  • {{ seed_node_address }}: The seed node address in the form ID@IP:port.

    You can find the current Oasis Seed Node address in the Network Parameters page (Mainnet, Testnet).

  • {{ entity_id }}: The node's entity ID from entity.json.

To use this configuration, save it in the /node/etc/config.yml file:

/node/etc/config.yml
mode: validator
common:
    # Set this to where you wish to store node data. The node's artifacts
    # should also be located in this directory.
    data_dir: /node/data
    # Logging.
    #
    # Per-module log levels are defined below. If you prefer just one unified
    # log level, you can use:
    #
    # log:
    #   level: debug
    log:
        level:
            cometbft: warn
            cometbft/context: error
            # Per-module log levels. Longest prefix match will be taken.
            # Fallback to "default", if no match.
            default: debug
        format: JSON
        # By default logs are output to stdout. If you would like to output
        # logs to a file, you can use:
        #
        # file: /var/log/oasis-node.log

consensus:
    # The external IP that is used when registering this node to the network.
    # NOTE: If you are using the Sentry node setup, this option should be
    # omitted.
    external_address: tcp://{{ external_ip }}:26656
    listen_address: tcp://0.0.0.0:26656

genesis:
    # Path to the genesis file for the current version of the network.
    file: /node/etc/genesis.json

p2p:
    port: 9200
    registration:
        addresses:
            - {{ external_ip }}:9200
    seeds:
        # List of seed nodes to connect to.
        # NOTE: You can add additional seed nodes to this list if you want.
        - {{ seed_node_address }}

registration:
    # In order for the node to register itself, the entity ID must be set.
    entity_id: {{ entity_id }}
caution

Make sure the consensus port (default: 26656) and p2p.port (default: 9200) are exposed and publicly accessible on the internet (for TCP and UDP traffic).

Starting the Oasis Node​

You can start the node by simply running the command:

oasis-node --config /node/etc/config.yml
tip

The Oasis node is configured to run in the foreground by default.

We recommend that you configure and use it with a process manager like systemd or Supervisor. Check out the System Configuration page for examples.

Node Keys​

The Oasis node requires node keys in order to register itself and to securely communicate with other nodes in the peer-to-peer network. The following keys will automatically be generated and stored in your /node/data folder as .pem files:

  • consensus.pem: The node's consensus private key. DO NOT SHARE
  • consensus_pub.pem: The node's consensus public key.
  • identity.pem: The node's identity private key. DO NOT SHARE
  • identity_pub.pem: The node's identity public key.
  • p2p.pem: The node's private key for libp2p. DO NOT SHARE
  • p2p_pub.pem: The node's public key for libp2p.
  • sentry_client_tls_identity.pem: The node's TLS private key for communicating with sentry nodes. DO NOT SHARE
  • sentry_client_tls_identity_cert.pem: The node's TLS certificate for communicating with sentry nodes.
info

If the node keys do not exist, they will be automatically generated when you launch the Oasis node. Otherwise, the existing ones will be used.

caution

You may have noticed that some files above are listed as DO NOT SHARE.

Ideally, the node keys should be stored on a separate device such as a hardware wallet or a remote signer. However, until the support is fully implemented, keep the keys on the server as secure as possible.

Ensuring Proper Permissions​

Only the owner of the process that runs the Oasis node should have access to the files in the /node/data directory. The oasis-node binary ensures that the files used by the node are as least privileged as possible so that you don't accidentally shoot yourself in the foot while operating a node.

If you followed the steps described in the Install the Oasis Node chapter, then the proper permissions are already set:

  • 700 for the /node/data directory
  • 700 for the /node/etc directory
  • 700 for the /node/runtimes directory
  • 600 for all /node/data/*.pem files

Otherwise, run the following to remove all non-owner read/write/execute permissions:

chmod -R go-r,go-w,go-x /node

Obtain the Node ID​

Now that the Oasis node is running, you can obtain your unique node ID which is needed in order to associate your node with your entity in the network registry.

oasis-node control status -a unix:/node/data/internal.sock | jq .identity.node
"5MsgQwijUlpH9+0Hbyors5jwmx7tTmKMA4c9leV3prI="

Check that your Node is Synced​

Before you can become a validator, you will have to make sure that your node is synced. To do so call this command on the server:

oasis-node control is-synced -a unix:/node/data/internal.sock

If your node is synced, the above command should output:

"ready"

If your node is not yet synced, you will need to wait before you can move forward.

Staking and Registering​

Once you have been funded, you can complete the process of connecting your node to the network by registering both your entity and your node, as described below.

Staking (Escrow) Transaction​

The current minimum stake required to register an entity and register a node as a validator is 200 tokens. We will submit the escrow transaction that delegates 200 tokens from your entity account on the consensus layer to itself by invoking the oasis account delegate command.

oasis account delegate 200 my_entity --no-paratime --account my_entity

You can also fund your entity account from a different one. If you haven't yet invoke the oasis wallet import command to import the private key of the funding account to the Oasis CLI and follow the instructions.

oasis wallet import my_funding_account

Then, invoke the oasis account delegate passing the new account name with the --account parameter. For example:

oasis account delegate 200 my_entity --no-paratime --account my_funding_account

Add your Node ID to the Entity Descriptor​

Now we can register our entity on the network and associate it with the node ID obtained in the section above. Open the entity.json file we initially generated and add the ID inside the nodes block. Your entity descriptor file should now look like this:

{
  "id": "Bx6gOixnxy15tCs09ua5DcKyX9uo2Forb32O6Hyjoc8=",
  "nodes": [
    "5MsgQwijUlpH9+0Hbyors5jwmx7tTmKMA4c9leV3prI="
  ],
  "v": 2
}

Entity Registration​

We can submit the fresh entity file descriptor by invoking the oasis account entity register command:

oasis account entity register entity.json --account my_entity

Check that Your Node is Properly Registered​

To ensure that your node is properly connected as a validator on the network, invoke the following command on your server:

oasis-node control status -a unix:/node/data/internal.sock | jq .consensus.is_validator

If your node is registered and became a validator, the above command should output:

true
info

Nodes are only elected into the validator set at epoch transitions, so you may need to wait for up to an epoch before being considered.

caution

In order to be elected in the validator set you need to have enough stake to be in the top K entities (where K is a network-specific parameter specified by the scheduler.max_validators field in the genesis document).

Congratulations, if you made it this far, you've properly connected your node to the network and became a validator on the Oasis Network.

Oasis Metadata Registry​

For the final touch, you can add some metadata about your entity to the Metadata Registry. The Metadata Registry is the same for Mainnet and the Testnet. The metadata consists of your entity name, email, Keybase handle, Twitter handle, etc. This information is also used by various applications. For example the ROSE Wallet - Web and the Oasis Scan will fetch and show the node operator's name and the avatar.

See also