sui-local-network.md

title
Create a local Sui network

Learn how to create a Sui network in your local environment. Use the Sui Client CLI to interact with the local network.

Install Sui

To create a local Sui network, first install Sui. See Install Sui to Build.

Genesis

To create the configuration files and objects for a local Sui network, run the genesis command. Genesis creates the network configuration files in the ~/.sui/sui_config folder. This includes a YAML file for fullnode, network, client, and each validator. It also creates a sui.keystore that stores client key pairs.

The network that genesis creates includes four validators and five user accounts that contain five coin objects each.

sui genesis

Run genesis after using the Client CLI

If you used the Sui Client CLI before you create a local network, it created a client.yaml file in the .sui/sui_config directory. When you run genesis to create a local network, a warning displays that the .sui/sui_config folder is not empty because of the existing client.yaml file. You can use the --force argument to replace the configuration files, or use --working-dir to specify a different directory for the network configuration files.

Use the following command to replace the configuration files in the .sui/sui_config directory.

sui genesis --force

Use the following command to use a different directory to store the configuration files.

sui genesis --working-dir /workspace/config-files

The directory must already exist, and be empty, before you run the command.

Embedded gateway

You can use an embedded gateway with your local network. The gateway.yaml file contains information about the embedded gateway. The embedded gateway will be deprecated in a future release of Sui.

Start the local network

Run the following command to start the local Sui network, assuming you accepted the default location for configuration:

sui start

This command looks for the Sui network configuration file network.yaml in the ~/.sui/sui_config directory. If you used a different directory when you ran genesis, use the --network.config argument to specify the path to that directory when you start the network.

Use the following command to use a network.yaml file in a directory other than the default:

sui start --network.config /workspace/config-files/network.yaml

When you start the network, Sui generates an authorities_db directory that stores validator data, and a consensus_db directory that stores consensus data. These directories are created alongside the other configuration files, either in the default directory or where you specified the --working-dir to be when you ran genesis.

After the process completes, use the Sui Client CLI to interact with the local network.