WARNING: THIS README IS OUTDATED

Machine Overview

Each machine is configured as similarly as possible. The solana sofware runs under the user sol as a systemd service. The name of the systemd service is the same across all nodes, sol.

The ledger is stored in /home/sol/ledger

Cluster Entrypoint Node

• DNS: cluster.solana.com
• Static IP: 35.227.139.150
• GCE Instance Name: cluster-entrypoint
• OS Image: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Minimal
• Boot disk: Standard disk, 200GB
• Machine type: n1-standard-1
• Region: us-west-1
• ssh: gcloud --project solana-cluster compute ssh cluster-entrypoint

Bootstrap Validator Node

• DNS: none
• Static IP: none
• GCE Instance Name: cluster-bootstrap-validator
• OS Image: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Minimal
• Boot disk: Standard disk, 2TB
• Machine type: n1-standard-16
• Region: us-west-1
• ssh: gcloud --project solana-cluster compute ssh cluster-bootstrap-validator

RPC Node

• DNS: api.cluster.solana.com
• Static IP: 35.197.59.229
• GCE Resource Name: cluster-api
• OS Image: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Minimal
• Boot disk: Standard disk, 2TB
• Machine type: n1-standard-16
• Region: us-west-1
• ssh: gcloud --project solana-cluster compute ssh cluster-api

Warehouse Node

• DNS: none
• Static IP: none
• GCE Instance Name: cluster-warehouse
• OS Image: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Minimal
• Boot disk: Standard disk, 2TB
• Machine type: n1-standard-16
• Region: us-west-1
• ssh: gcloud --project solana-cluster compute ssh cluster-warehouse

Watchtower Node

• DNS: none
• Static IP: none
• GCE Instance Name: cluster-watchtower
• OS Image: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Minimal
• Boot disk: Standard disk, 200GB
• Machine type: n1-standard-1
• Region: us-west-1
• ssh: gcloud --project solana-cluster compute ssh cluster-watchtower

Metrics

The following metrics configuration is used in production:

# These public credentials are a known risk
SOLANA_METRICS_CONFIG="host=https://metrics.solana.com:8086,db=cluster,u=cluster_write,p=2aQdShmtsPSAgABLQiK2FpSCJGLtG8h3vMEVz1jE7Smf"

Production metrics dashboard

Internal Workflows

Changing the deployed Solana software version

There are two places to be modified to update the Solana software version to deploy:

1. On your machine as genesis will be build on your local machine. Run solana-install init <desired version>.
2. Modify the RELEASE_CHANNEL_OR_TAG= variable in launch-cluster.sh.

Launch a development cluster

A development cluster can be created at any time by anybody. The instances will be created in the standard GCE development project, scoped by your username.

Procedure:

1. Ensure the desired Solana release is installed on your machine
2. Run ./genesis.sh to produce the genesis configuration. To override the default cluster creation time of now, include the --creation-time argument (eg ./genesis.sh --creation-time '2020-01-01T12:00:00-08:00')
3. If metrics are desired set SOLANA_METRICS_CONFIG in your environment
4. Run ./launch-cluster.sh to create the development cluster instances

When done run ./delete-cluster.sh to delete the instances.

Launch THE cluster

Same as launching a development cluster except:

1. You need access to the solana-cluster GCE project
2. SOLANA_METRICS_CONFIG is automatically configured
3. export CLUSTER=cluster before running ./launch-cluster.sh

The ./launch-cluster.sh script programmatically creates and configures the cluster instances.

Manipulating the systemd service

The file /etc/systemd/system/sol.service describes the systemd service for each of the instances.

From a shell on the instance, view the current status of the services with

$ sudo systemctl status sol

Follow logs with:

$ journalctl -u sol -f

If /etc/systemd/system/sol.service is modified, apply the changes with:

$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl restart sol

Updating the solana software

From a shell on the instance run:

$ /solana-update.sh 0.22.0

There's no mechanism to automatically update the software across all the nodes at once.

Delegating Stake to a Validator

As external validators boot they receive 1m SOL in equal stake.

To locate the online validators run:

$ solana show-validators

The solana catchup command can be used to block until a given validator has caught up to the cluster.

Then use the solana delegate-stake command for each validator using a TBD stake account.

Fetching a ledger snapshot

To view the available ledger snapshots, run:

$ ./fetch-ledger-snapshot.sh

Downloading a snapshot can be accomplished with:

$ ./fetch-ledger-snapshot.sh 2019-12-03T22:54:59Z  # <-- replace with the desired snapshot timestamp

Boot a validator from the downloaded snapshot with:

$ solana-validator \
  --ledger ledger-snapshot \
  --no-genesis-fetch \
  --no-snapshot-fetch ...

Validator Workflow

The minimal steps required of a validator participating in the initial boot of the cluster are:

Installing the software

$ curl -sSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/solana-labs/solana/v0.21.1/install/solana-install-init.sh | sh -s - 0.21.2

then configure the command-line tool's RPC endpoint URL:

$ solana set --url http://34.82.79.31/

Starting your validator:

Assuming that ~/validator-keypair.json and ~/validator-vote-keypair.json contain the validator identity and vote keypairs that were registered in the genesis configuration, run:

# These public credentials are a known risk
$ export SOLANA_METRICS_CONFIG="host=https://metrics.solana.com:8086,db=cluster,u=cluster_write,p=2aQdShmtsPSAgABLQiK2FpSCJGLtG8h3vMEVz1jE7Smf"
$ export EXPECTED_GENESIS_HASH=##### <--- To be communicated by Solana
$ solana-validator \
  --identity-keypair ~/validator-keypair.json \
  --voting-keypair ~/validator-vote-keypair.json \
  --ledger ~/validator-ledger \
  --rpc-port 8899 \
  --entrypoint 34.83.130.52:8001
  --limit-ledger-size \
  --expected-genesis-hash $EXPECTED_GENESIS_HASH \
  --expected-shred-version ${EXPECTED_SHRED_VERSION} \