Run a Read-only node

Read-only node parameters

• Minimum hardware requirements: AWS EC2 m5.xlarge with 4 vCPUs (3.1 GHz) and at least 1 TB of Amazon EBS General Purpose SSD (gp2) storage (or equivalent or better).

What are we going to do?

1. Launch Cloud Instance

2. Set up Non-Root User

3. Install Required Tools

Launch Cloud Instance

You can either run a node on your own hardware or use a cloud provider. We would recommend choosing one of the big cloud providers, e.g. Amazon AWS.

Node Specifications

We recommend the following or better: m5.xlarge General Purpose Instance with 4 vCPUs (3.1 GHz), 16GB of memory, up to 10 Gbps network bandwidth, and at least 1 TB of disk space.

We would recommend going with Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS (64-bit). Storage 1 TB is needed if you're running with a full-size data-dir.

Network Settings

Open up port 22 for SSH, as well as port 5050 for both TCP and UDP traffic. A custom port can be used with "--port <port>" flag when running your neon node.

Set up Non-Root User

If there is already a non-root user available, you can skip this step.

# SSH into your machine
(local)$ ssh root@{IP_ADDRESS}
# Update the system
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y
# Create a non-root user
$ USER={USERNAME}
$ sudo mkdir -p /home/$USER/.ssh
$ sudo touch /home/$USER/.ssh/authorized_keys
$ sudo useradd -d /home/$USER $USER
$ sudo usermod -aG sudo $USER
$ sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /home/$USER/
$ sudo chmod 700 /home/$USER/.ssh
$ sudo chmod 644 /home/$USER/.ssh/authorized_keys

Make sure to paste your public SSH key into the authorized_keys file of the newly created user in order to be able to log in via SSH.

# Enable sudo without password for the user
$ sudo vi /etc/sudoers

Add the following line to the end of the file:

{USERNAME} ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL

Now close the root SSH connection to the machine and log in as your newly created user:

# Close the root SSH connection
$ exit
# Log in as new user
(local)$ ssh {USERNAME}@{IP_ADDRESS}

Install Required Tools

You are still logged in as the new user via SSH. Now we are going to install Go and Neon.

First, install the required build tools:

# Install build-essential
$ sudo apt-get install -y build-essential

Install Go

# Install go
$ wget https://go.dev/dl/go1.17.8.linux-amd64.tar.gz
$ sudo tar -xvf go1.17.8.linux-amd64.tar.gz
$ sudo mv go /usr/local

Export the required Go paths:

# Export go paths
$ vi ~/.bash_aliases
# Append the following lines
export GOROOT=/usr/local/go
export GOPATH=$HOME/go
export PATH=$GOPATH/bin:$GOROOT/bin:$PATH

Validate your Go installation

Run your read node

# Install NEON Protocol
(validator)$ git clone https://github.com/neon-link/go-ethereum.git
(validator)$ cd go-ethereum/
(validator)$ make

Validate your Neon installation:

$./build/galaxy help

VERSION:
1.0.2

Download a genesis file from this list of genesis files.

# Start NEON node
(validator)$ cd build/
(validator)$ wget https://github.com/neon-link/neon-binaries/raw/master/mainnet.g
(validator)$ nohup ./galaxy --genesis mainnet.g --nousb &

You can start a node with a sync mode flag. There are two possible options:

• "--syncmode snap", and

• "--syncmode full" (by default).

For the archive node and validator node, you should use full sync mode.