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Node Operation Guides

Deploying a node

This guide explains how to deploy a NEM node, either manually or using Docker.

Manually

Prerequisites

Installation

  • Download latest binary.
  • Decompress the file anywhere you want. It should be a drive with a few dozen Gigabytes of spare space (Current database size is over 20GB).

Configuration

Edit the nis/config.properties file:

  • Set the nem.folder property to point to where you installed NIS1 Client (On Windows, backslashes \ need to be doubled). For example D:\\NEM\\nis1-home or ~/nem.
  • Set nis.bootName to the name you want for your server. This is merely informational.

  • Set nis.bootKey to the private key of the account managing this node. If you don’t have such account, use the NanoWallet to create one.

    • When performing delegated harvesting this is the private key of the proxy remote account. Harvesting rewards go to the linked account (this is the recommended setup).

    • When performing local harvesting this is directly the private key of your account (This setup is not recommended).

      Retrieve this private key from the NanoWallet’s Account tab (as explained here).

Optionally, you can download a snapshot of the database at a certain height to speed up the first run of the node:

  • Go to https://bob.nem.ninja/ and download any of the nis5_mainnet-*.mv.db files. This is the latest one.

  • Decompress this file inside a folder named nis/data inside the folder where you installed NIS1 Client (this is the folder you wrote in the nem.folder property).

    You should get a file named {nem.folder}/nis/data/nis5_mainnet.mv.db.

Launch

Open a terminal and locate the appropriate command for your operating system, either:

runNis.bat

or

nix.runNis.sh

Before running them, though, edit the files:

  • Increase the amount of RAM used by the client by replacing the -Xmx1G parameter with -Xmx4G. If more than 4GB of RAM are available you can increase this parameter further.
  • Enable the G1 Garbage collector by appending the -XX:+UseG1GC parameter for increased performance.

Launch now the script and you will see a lot of output on the console indicating that the node is running.

Using Docker

These instructions only work for Linux systems (or the Linux Subsystem for Windows).

Prerequisites

Installation

Clone the nem-docker repository:

git clone git@github.com:rb2nem/nem-docker.git
cd nem-docker

Node control

To start the node:

./boot.sh

To stop the node:

./stop.sh

For additional commands read the nem-docker GitHub project.

Synchronization

The first thing the node will do is either download the whole blockchain from its peers, or, if you installed the optional database snapshot, read the database and the download the rest of blocks. At any rate, this is a long process that might take up to 12 hours.

Meanwhile, you can check:

  • A few minutes after launching your node it should already appear in the public list of nodes at: nemnodes.org. You will see its reported chain height increase as the node catches up with the rest of the network.

  • You can also ask your node its current chain height by pointing your browser to localhost:7890/chain/height.

Monitoring a node

NIS listens on port 7890, so a first way to monitor your node is to check that your server listens on that port. You can configure UptimeRobot to monitor that port, for example. This page should give you the required information to configure any other monitoring solution.

It is possible to get information from a running nis by sending HTTP requests. Several URLS are handled.

Status URLs will give JSON-formatted answers, and their meaning is detailed in the NIS API documentation.

Node URLs will give information on the node, such as the version that it is running.

Status URL /heartbeat

You configure your monitoring solution to send requests to the url http://YOUR_IP:7890/heartbeat. A NIS instance receiving this request will answer if the node is up and able to answer to requests.

Status URL /status

The URL /status of your node returns a small JSON object giving some info on your node’s status. Check the NIS API documentation linked above for its meaning.

Status URL /node/info

A request sent to that URL gets a JSON-formatted response, giving basic information on the node, such as its version and the network it is running on (mainnet, testnet)

Status URL /node/extended-info

The extended-info URL gives a bit more information. Check for yourself if this is interesting to you:

Updating a node

Updating your NIS1 Client to the latest version of the protocol is actually extremely easy: