Welcome to Velas Blockchain User Guides

GUIDE TO NODE SETUP

INTRODUCTION

• This manual contains a step-by-step guide for Velas node setup.

• All active nodes are candidates, currently, 19 validators are chosen per epoch, based on the list of candidates.

• When a node is chosen as a validator, it and all its delegates will receive a reward (staking) at the end of the epoch.

• Balance, uptime, stability, or computer power are some of the parameters that the Velas AI analyzes to decide who will be the next validators in the network.

• Any user on the Velas network can configure and run a node.

• For more details, please visit our website

PREREQUISITES

   

• 1,000,000 VLX or more.
• Basic Linux knowledge.
• VPS/ Dedicated server configuration knowledge.
• Predisposition to keep the node and its runtime environment always up to date and running.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS FOR VPS/DEDICATED SERVER

       

• Linux (Ubuntu LTS/Debian/Centos)
• 10 or 8 Cores CPU (Xeon E5 2630-e3, Xeon E5 2630-e4, Xeon 4114, or AMD EPYC 7282)
• 16 GB RAM
• 250 GB Disk Space
• Unlimited traffic
• 1 Gb Ethernet port

---

<STEP 1> VELAS WALLET - GENERATING AND COPYING THE SCRIPT

• Access the wallet (https://wallet.velas.com) using your ¨PIN / Password¨ and scroll to the left menu and select Staking > Node.

• From this menu, pressing ¨Generate¨ will show the script that we will have to run 24/7 on our local, VPS, or dedicated server, copy the script to your clipboard.

---

<STEP 2> RUNNING THE SCRIPT ON A DEDICATED SERVER OR VPS

• The next step is to paste the script generated in the wallet in our Linux VPS/Dedicated Server already preconfigured. There are different ways to do this, also depending on what operating system you use.

[METHOD 1] FROM WINDOWS 10 USING A GRAPHICAL ENVIRONMENT – WinSCP + PuTTY

CHECK YOUR VPS/DEDICATED SERVER PUBLIC IP

• From your VPS/Dedicated server control panel, check your public IP to login in to your machine, in my case is 185.247.117.38, also look at your username, and your password, you will need it next.

CONNECT USING WINSCP AND CREATE THE SCRIPT FILE

• Connect with your VPS/Dedicated server using WinSCP

File protocol: SFTP

Host name: Your VPS/Dedicated server IP

Port number: 22

User name: Your VPS/Dedicated server username

Password: Your VPS/Dedicated server password

• Access your Velas wallet/account containing 1M VLX or more, copy the script as we show you in <STEP 1> if you haven’t done it yet right click on the right side of WinSCP, and create a new file as shown in the image.

• Name it, for example, ¨node.sh¨ and click ¨OK¨, using ¨¨Ctrl+V¨ paste the script and save this file using the icon indicated with the red arrow.

You can close WinSCP, we are done with this program.

CONNECT WITH YOUR VPS OR DEDICATED SERVER USING PUTTY

• Open PuTTY and connect with your VPS/Dedicated server, you will need the IP, the SSH port (22), your username, and your login password for your VPS or dedicated server, click ¨Open¨ and enter your username and password to log in via SSH.

ASSIGN PERMISSIONS AND RUN THE SCRIPT

• After login, move to the directory where you have created the file ¨node.sh¨ using the ¨cd¨ command, in the example, we have the file in the root directory¨/¨, you can check this using ¨ls¨ and you should be able to see the file:

• Assign execution permissions to the file using the command ¨chmod + x¨
  <chmod +x node.sh>

• Execute the script using ¨nohup¨ or ¨screen¨ to prevent it from stopping when you log out:
  <nohup ./node.sh &>

• Using ¨htop¨ you should be able to see the script running in the background, you can identify it as ¨Velasblockchain¨

• The system clock must be synced
• Port 30304 should be visible from the outside
• Our node must be completely synchronized with the blockchain

[METHOD 2] FROM LINUX / OSX USING COMMAND LINE

CHECK YOUR VPS/DEDICATED SERVER PUBLIC IP

• From your VPS/Dedicated server control panel, check your public IP to login in to your machine, in my case is 185.247.119.44, also look at your username, and your password, you will need it next.

LOG IN VPS/DEDICATED SERVER

• Open a terminal window and log in to your VPS / Dedicated Server using ¨ssh¨ command and your server IP, user & password.
  <ssh user@IP> In this example: <ssh root@185.247.119.44>

• If it asks you if you want to establish a connection, type ¨Yes¨, and press enter, then you will have to write your password to access your server and press enter again.

• You will see the command line of your server:

CREATE NODE SCRIPT

• Create the document that will contain the script, we can name it as we wish, for example, “node sh”. For this we write the following command:

• Right-click to paste the script that we should have copied in <STEP 1>

• Press ¨Ctrl+X¨ to save the file:

• Press ¨Y¨ to confirm:

ASSIGN PERMISSIONS AND RUN THE SCRIPT

• Assign execution permissions to the file using the command ¨chmod + x¨
  <chmod +x node.sh>

• Execute the script using ¨nohup¨ or ¨screen¨ to prevent it from stopping when you log out:
  <nohup ./node.sh &>

• Using ¨htop¨ you should be able to see the script running in the background, you can identify it as ¨Velasblockchain¨

• The system clock must be synced
• Port 30304 should be visible from the outside
• Our node must be completely synchronized with the blockchain

<STEP 3> VELAS WALLET – APPLYING TO BE CANDIDATE

• Access the wallet (https://wallet.velas.com) using your ¨PIN / Password¨ and scroll to the left menu and select Staking > Node.

• Scroll to the bottom of the ¨Node¨ menu and choose how much balance you want to assign to the node/pool as an organizer, remember that it must be at least 1,000,000 VLX
  To finish, press ¨Apply¨ and execute the smart contract.

• Wait for epoch change and check the node status again

• If you have followed all the steps after the epoch changes your node will appear as ACTIVE in the ¨Node¨ menu and you will be able to see your pool in the list.