Running L1 Nodes with Initiad

Running Initia Node

Prerequisites

The minimum hardware requirements for running an Initia node are:

• CPU: 16 cores
• Memory: 32GB RAM
• Disk: 2 TB NVMe/SSD Storage with Write Throughput > 1000 MiBps
• Bandwidth: 100 Mbps

It is recommended to use Linux OS to run Initia nodes. Running Initia node has not been tested on other OS environments, and same environment settings and running conditions cannot be guaranteed.

Install Initia

Installing Initia can be done in 2 different ways.

1. Downloading the source and directly building Initia.

1. Build essential package

   To build Initia, essential utilities must be installed.

   These utilities are provided on Linux distribution, and package components for Ubuntu can be found in the following link:

   • Ubuntu focal / jammy

   sudo apt install -y build-essential
   
2. Install Golang

   golang v1.22 or above is required.

   Refer to the link to find out how to install Golang and use the command below to check the version.

   make --version # 3.8 or later
   go version # 1.22 or later
   
3. Clone and Build Initia

   Clone and build the Initia source code repo.

   git clone [e-mail]:initia-labs/initia.git
   cd initia
   git checkout $TAG # Tag the desired version
   make install
   

   Use the command below to check if the installation is successful.

   If initiad is not found, run go env and check if $GOBIN or $GOPATH/bin directories are included in $PATH.

   initiad version
   

2. Using prebuilt binaries

You can download pre-built binaries for each of Testnet or Mainnet from the initia repository.

Download the compression file for your OS.

Set Up Environment

On Linux, the number of files that can be opened in a single process can be set on configuration. Many Linux distributions limit the number to 1024, which is smaller than the number of files opened by Initia. To use Initia, this configuration has to be modified.

The current value can be checked with ulimit -n command, and root /etc/security/limits.conf file can be modified to change this parameter. By adding the below to limits.conf the maximum for all accounts can be increased to 65535. To only modify the number for the account running Initia, enter the account name instead of *.

*                soft    nofile          65535
*                hard    nofile          65535

Boot an Initia Node

Initia basic setup

The HOME directory used in this section is the default value ${HOME}/.initia. To set a different directory, add --home <YOUR_INITIA_HOME> option on each command and use a different directory as Initia’s HOME directory.

1. Initialization

   Use the command below to initialize the Initia Node.

   initiad init <moniker>
   

   A moniker is a human-readable name for your node. Moniker can contain only ASCII characters, and cannot exceed 70 characters.

   Your private key is generated during the initialization, and is saved in ${HOME}/.initia/config/priv_validator_key.json.

   Remember to backup your private key if you are running a validator node. If a private key is lost, node may never be recoverable from a hardware failure. Plan your back up through running a Testnet node, and secure your private key safely for the mainnet.

2. Setting Endpoints

   Initia supports the below endpoints for external communications.

   Validator nodes are not recommended to open any of these endpoints.

   • REST: RESTful HTTP API
   • gRPC/gRPC-WEB: gRPC API
   • RPC: Tendermint/CometBFT provided API
   • P2P: Gossip P2P with outher Initia nodes

   You can modify the below config values to turn on/off each Endpoint and change ports.

   Type	Config File Name	Item
   REST	~/.initia/config/app.toml	api.enable: Enable / disable LCD
   		api.swagger: Enable / disable swagger
   		api.address: Listen address for LCD
   gRPC/gRPC-WEB	~/.initia/config/app.toml	grpc.enable: Enable / disable GRPC
   		grpc.address: Listen address for GRPC
   		grpc-web.enable: Enable / disable GRPC-WEB
   		grpc-web.address: Listen address for GRPC-WEB
   RPC	~/.initia/config/config.toml	rpc.laddr: Listen address for RPC
   P2P	~/.initia/config/config.toml	p2p.laddr: Listen address for P2P

   The below is a config example which enables all endpoints and listens to 0.0.0.0 as a default port. Modify your config accordingly.

   • ~/.initia/config/app.toml

   # ...
   
   ###############################################################################
   ###                           API Configuration                             ###
   ###############################################################################
   
   [api]
   
   # Enable defines if the API server should be enabled.
   enable = true
   
   # Swagger defines if swagger documentation should automatically be registered.
   swagger = true
   
   # Address defines the API server to listen on.
   address = "tcp://0.0.0.0:1317"
   
   # ...
   
   
   ###############################################################################
   ###                           gRPC Configuration                            ###
   ###############################################################################
   
   [grpc]
   
   # Enable defines if the gRPC server should be enabled.
   enable = true
   
   # Address defines the gRPC server address to bind to.
   address = "0.0.0.0:9090"
   
   # ...
   
   ###############################################################################
   ###                        gRPC Web Configuration                           ###
   ###############################################################################
   
   [grpc-web]
   
   # GRPCWebEnable defines if the gRPC-web should be enabled.
   # NOTE: gRPC must also be enabled, otherwise, this configuration is a no-op.
   enable = true
   
   # Address defines the gRPC-web server address to bind to.
   address = "0.0.0.0:9091"
   
   # ...
   

   • ~/.initia/config/config.toml

   # ...
   
   #######################################################
   ###       RPC Server Configuration Options          ###
   #######################################################
   [rpc]
   
   # TCP or UNIX socket address for the RPC server to listen on
   laddr = "tcp://0.0.0.0:26657"
   
   # ...
   
   #######################################################
   ###           P2P Configuration Options             ###
   #######################################################
   [p2p]
   
   # Address to listen for incoming connections
   laddr = "tcp://0.0.0.0:26656"
   
   # ...
   
3. Set up External Address

   To allow access from external nodes to your node through P2P network, config.toml has to be modified. By entering public IP/Port to p2p.external_address field, the network settings will allow external nodes to access your node.

   The below is an example, and the values can be modified through sed, jq, and curl command lines.

   #######################################################
   ###           P2P Configuration Options             ###
   #######################################################
   [p2p]
   
   # Address to listen for incoming connections
   laddr = "tcp://0.0.0.0:26656"
   
   # Address to advertise to peers for them to dial
   # If empty, will use the same port as the laddr,
   # and will introspect on the listener or use UPnP
   # to figure out the address. ip and port are required
   # example: 159.89.10.97:26656
   external_address = "159.89.10.97:26656"
   

   Below command line requires sed, curl and jq to be installed, and sets all ports to the default value: 26656.

   #!/usr/bash
   
   sed -i -e 's/external_address = \"\"/external_address = \"'$(curl httpbin.org/ip | jq -r .origin)':26656\"/g' ~/.initia/config/config.toml
   
4. Run Initia

   All local settings are completed. But to run initiad as a blockchain node, the node has to fetch genesis block information and be set to communicate with other nodes.

   Refer to Connect to Initia Network section for more information.

   The below section is optional, but contains information on how to register the Initia daemon to the service to make it easier to run and manage. Note that this can help you run smoothly.

5. Registering Initia as a Service (Optional)

   Easily run and manage Initia by registering it as a Linux Service. The below example uses initiad as a service name.

   1. Open /etc/systemd/system/initiad.service as root permission and enter the below information:

   • Modify the Service section to match your env settings before saving
     • User: Account name to run initiad (Below example: ubuntu)
     • ExecStart: Directory where initiad is installed + start (Below example: /user/bin initiad start)

   [Unit]
   Description=initiad
   
   [Service]
   Type=simple
   User=ubuntu
   ExecStart=/usr/bin/initiad start
   Restart=on-abort
   StandardOutput=syslog
   StandardError=syslog
   SyslogIdentifier=initiad
   LimitNOFILE=65535
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   

   2. Run the below command line to activate initiad service. root permission might be required.

   systemctl enable initiad
   

   3. The below command line can be used to start or stop Initia service. root permission might be required.

   • Start: systemctl start initiad
   • Stop: systemctl stop initiad

   4. To apply the changes to /etc/systemd/system/initiad.service, run the below command line. This might require root permission, and to apply changes to a running node, a restart is required.

   systemctl daemon-reload
   systemctl restart initiad
   

   5. All logs from initiad resulting from step 1 are recorded on syslog. Use the below commands to check initiad’s logs.

   journalctl -t initiad    # Shows the current logs and ends. Can be used with the below options
   journalctl -t initiad -f # Tracks and shows the most recent logs.
   journalctl -t initiad -n <number> # Shows the recent log at line <number>
   

Connect to Initia Network

To establish a connection with the Initia Mainnet or Testnet, it is essential to obtain information about the genesis block and nodes currently connected to these networks.

The necessary information on known peers can be accessed through initia-registry.

By adhering to the subsequent steps outlined in this document, you will be able to operate an Initia node and monitor logs pertaining to block synchronization.

Genesis File

For genesis.json, you can use the below command line:

curl -s https://rpc.initia.xyz/genesis | jq -r '.result.genesis' > genesis.json

Accessing Network Information

For network connectivity, utilize the publicly available persistent peer information, or alternatively, gather peer information from the addrbook.json file of a node that is already operational.

Persistent Peer Configuration

Information on known peers for each network is available within the network-specific repositories linked above. Choose an appropriate network, then apply the corresponding values to p2p.persistent_peers in the ~/.initia/config/config.toml file.

The below is an example:

persistent_peers = "093e1b89a498b6a8760ad2188fbda30a05e4f300@35.240.207.217:26656,2c729d33d22d8cdae6658bed97b3097241ca586c@195.14.6.129:26019”

State Sync & Snapshot

Validators on Initia can now join the network using state sync and snapshot. For more details, please visit below sites.

Provider	URL
Polkachu	https://polkachu.com/testnets/initia/snapshots
bwarelabs	https://bwarelabs.com/snapshots/initia

Address Book

We highly recommend to copy addrbook.json to $INITIA_HOME/config/addrbook.json for fast peer connection.

# stop initiad

wget https://initia.s3.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/interwoven-1/addrbook.json
mv addrbook.json ~/.initia/config/addrbook.json

# start initiad