/testnet-1

Repo contains files and guide for setting up a validator node on our testnet

Prerequisite

Please go through the whitepaper to understand the mechanics

Mande testnet-1

Managing Validator

While setting up a rudimentary validating node is easy, running a production-quality validator node with a robust architecture and security features requires an extensive setup.

The Mande node is powered by the Tendermint consensus. Validators run full nodes, participate in consensus by broadcasting votes, commit new blocks to the blockchain, and participate in governance of the blockchain. Anyone can cast votes on Validators which in turn gives them some credibility based on x(t) at that point of time. A validator’s voting power is weighted according to their total credebility. The top 175 validators make up the Active Validator Set and are the only validators that sign blocks and receive revenue.

Validators earn the following fees:

  • Gas: Fees added on to each transaction to avoid spamming and pay for computing power. Validators set minimum gas prices and reject transactions that have implied gas prices below this threshold.
  • Validators get the inflated coins as rewards proportional to their shares

If validators double sign or frequently offline, their credibility will be slashed. Penalties can vary depending on the severity of the violation.

Joining Testnet

System Requirements

  • Two or more CPU cores
  • At least 100 GB of disk storage
  • At least 4 GB of memory

** HDD not recommended **

Binaries

Download our binaries from here and place it in your bin path. Ex: /usr/local/bin/

Generate keys

mande-chaind keys add [key_name]

or

mande-chaind keys add [key_name] --recover

to regenerate keys with your BIP39 mnemonic

Claim testnet coins

curl -d '{"address":"mande...<mande wallet address>"}' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' http://35.224.207.121:8080/request

Setting up a Node

Following steps are rudimentary way of setting up a validator, For production we advise your sentry architecture to create well defined process

  • Initialize node 
     mande-chaind init {{NODE_NAME}} --chain-id mande-testnet-1
  • Replace the contents of your ${HOME}/.mande-chaind/config/genesis.json with that of genesis file on this repo
  • Verify checksum jq -S -c -M "" genesis.json | sha256sum matches def6850afe2cb311b7909cdc9bfb6dd436b36a6fc015c3d524270a5cff050dfe
  • Inside file ${HOME}/.mande-chaind/config/config.toml,
    • set seeds to "cd3e4f5b7f5680bbd86a96b38bc122aa46668399@34.171.132.212:26656".
    • set persistent_peers to "ee8a1b98e931e81d32c52f0b489fa22b52778d7c@34.171.132.212:26656,6780b2648bd2eb6adca2ca92a03a25b216d4f36b@34.170.16.69:26656"
    • If your node has a public ip, set it in external_address = "tcp://<public-ip>:26656", else leave the filed empty.
  • Set minimum-gas-prices in ${HOME}/.mande-chaind/config/app.toml with the minimum price you want (example 0.005mand) for the security of the network.
  • Start node 
     mande-chaind start
  • Make sure you have some $MAND in your address claimed from the faucet previously.
  • Wait for the blockchain to sync. You can check the sync status using the command 
     curl http://localhost:26657/status sync_info "catching_up": false
  • Once "catching_up" is false, the sync is complete.

Register the validator

Run the following command to register the validator

mande-chaind tx staking create-validator \
--from {{KEY_NAME}} \
--amount 0cred \
--pubkey "$(mande-chaind tendermint show-validator)" \
--chain-id mande-testnet-1 \
--moniker="{{VALIDATOR_NAME}}" \
--gas=auto --gas-adjustment=1.15

Setup a Metadata profile

To Improve communication with community and core team, please add the following metadata to your validator. These helps us send security and chain upgrade announcement in a clear manner

mande-chaind tx staking edit-validator \
    --identity="keybase identity"
    --security-contact="XXXXXXXX" \
    --website="XXXXXXXX"

Some helpful commands

Query outstanding rewards:

mande-chaind query distribution validator-outstanding-rewards mandevaloper...

Withdraw rewards:

mande-chaind tx distribution withdraw-rewards mandevaloper... --commission --from {{KEY_NAME}} --chain-id mande-testnet-1

Cast/Uncast vote:

  • mande-chaind --from {{KEY_NAME}} --chain-id mande-testnet-1 tx voting create-vote [validator_address_to_vote] [amount] [mode]

  • amount can be positive or negative (make sure, -1000000000 < amount < 1000000000, otherwise there might be unexpected behaviour which will be fixed in next phase), mode - 1 for cast, 0 for uncast.

  • Cast Ex: mande-chaind --from {{KEY_NAME}} --chain-id mande-testnet-1 tx voting create-vote mande... 10000000 1

  • Uncast Ex: mande-chaind --from {{KEY_NAME}} --chain-id mande-testnet-1 tx voting create-vote mande... 10000000 0

Additional node performance config

System requirements:

  • Four or more CPU cores
  • At least 100 GB of disk storage
  • At least 4 GB of RAM

Increase file limit

ulimit -n 65536

Update ~/.mande-chain/config/config.toml

  • log_level = "error"
  • send_rate = 20000000
  • recv_rate = 20000000
  • max_packet_msg_payload_size = 10240
  • flush_throttle_timeout = "50ms"
  • mempool.size = 10000
  • create_empty_blocks = false
  • indexer = "null" [If you are not running explorers using same rpc]
  • persistent_peers = "ee8a1b98e931e81d32c52f0b489fa22b52778d7c@34.171.132.212:26656,6780b2648bd2eb6adca2ca92a03a25b216d4f36b@34.170.16.69:26656" [Verify]

Delete ~/.mande-chain/config/addrbook.json [It will be generated freshly]