Lava Protocol, a crypto-market which powers a decentralized RPC layer for Web3.
Main Concepts
Lava Chain: is a cosmos PoS layer 1 with $LAVA for settlement, validator nodes secure the chain by verifying new blocks to earn rewards.
Providers: Provider nodes, are nodes running atop Lavanet connecting to Lava chain for rewards do not participate in consensus), these nodes provide RPC endpoints of other chains to any consumer.
Consumers: consumers of chain data, paying for access to RPC endpoints to providers
Setup Validator Node
This Guide will focus on the setup of a Validator node which is also a Full node for Lava chain
Hardware Requirements: 4vCPU/8GB/100GB SSD
OS: Ubuntu 20.04LTS
1. Install dependencies and setup server
Switch to root user, can exit any time with exit
sudo -i
Update your system and repositories
apt update && apt upgrade -y
Install Dependencies
The following packages required for lava node
sudo apt install make clang pkg-config libssl-dev build-essential git jq llvm libudev-dev -y
Install Go
Download and unpack installation file to /usr/local
ver="1.19.4"
wget "https://golang.org/dl/go$ver.linux-amd64.tar.gz"
rm -rf /usr/local/go
tar -C /usr/local -xzf "go$ver.linux-amd64.tar.gz"
rm "go$ver.linux-amd64.tar.gz"
Add to PATH
echo "export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin:$HOME/go/bin" >> $HOME/.bash_profile
source $HOME/.bash_profile
Confirm installed with go version
Firewall Settings
Outbound - allow all traffic. Inbound - open the following ports: 1317 - REST, 26657 - TENDERMINT_RPC, 26656 - Cosmos
sudo ufw allow 1317
sudo ufw allow 26657
sudo ufw allow 26656
sudo ufw allow ssh
sudo ufw enable
Default setting ufw is to allow all outgoing, if your server is remote ensure to allow 22 for ssh.
2. Download Lava Node (lavad)
Download lavad (genesis) binary, move to $HOME/go/bin and make executable. Check discord ‘updates’ for the latest version.
mkdir -p $HOME/go/bin
wget $HOME/go/bin/lavad "https://lava-binary-upgrades.s3.amazonaws.com/testnet/v0.4.0/lavad" -O lavad
chmod +x $HOME/go/bin/lavad
Lavad should now be accessible from PATH, to verify run lavad --help this will output available commands, if you have Error then make sure the lavad_binary_path is part of PATH
3. Download setup configurations
Copy lavad default config files to config Lava config folder, and set genesis JSON file in the configuration folder, obtain files from here
git clone https://github.com/K433QLtr6RA9ExEq/GHFkqmTzpdNLDd6T.git
cd GHFkqmTzpdNLDd6T/testnet-1
in here you can see the configurations, source setup_config/setup_config.sh
mkdir -p $HOME/.lava/config
cp default_lavad_config_files/* $HOME/.lava/config
cp genesis_json/genesis.json $HOME/.lava/config/genesis.json
This makes a folder in our working directory .lava to copy setup configurations to, that were cloned from github. 2nd line copies the folder and contents to $HOME/.lava/config, and 3rd line the file genesis.json to $HOME/.lava/config
Validator Configurations
These configurations should be set to help with performance which can be edited in the ~/.lava/config/config.toml
create_empty_blocks = true
create_empty_blocks_interval = "60s"
timeout_propose = "60s"
timeout_commit = "60s"
timeout_broadcast_tx_commit = "601s"
4 . Setup lavad to run with systemD
Make System service file
tee /etc/systemd/system/lavad.service << EOF
[Unit]
Description=Lava Node
After=network-online.target
[Service]
User=root
ExecStart=$(which lavad) start --home="$HOME/.lava"
Restart=always
RestartSec=30
LimitNOFILE=infinity
LimitNPROC=infinity
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
Enable and Start Service
systemctl enable lavad
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start lavad
Check running and Check logs with
systemctl status lavad
journalctl -u lavad -f
It might take a while to find peers, and get synced. If having trouble a number of options as follows can be tried.
Adding an address book
a number of validators are hosting address books, that you can download to help find peers quicker. Such as
curl -s https://snapshots1-testnet.nodejumper.io/lava-testnet/addrbook.json > $HOME/.lava/config/addrbook.json
Snapshot Sync (optional)
lavad tendermint unsafe-reset-all --home $HOME/.lava --keep-addr-book
This resets and deletes current chain data, next to download a snapshot of the chain from one of a number of hosts.
SNAP_NAME=$(curl -s https://snapshots1-testnet.nodejumper.io/lava-testnet/ | egrep -o ">lava-testnet-1.*\.tar.lz4" | tr -d ">")
curl https://snapshots1-testnet.nodejumper.io/lava-testnet/${SNAP_NAME} | lz4 -dc - | tar -xf - -C $HOME/.lava
Check Sync
curl localhost:26657/status
5. Wallet Setup
You need to create a wallet on Lava chain and to fund it with $LAVA (test tokens)
Option 1: Via Keplr browser extension (Experimental)
Keplr is a cosmos based browser extension for Cosmos chains, you can install and setup with keplr then connect to the Lava network below.
Option 2: Create New Via CLI
lavad keys add <your-key-name> --keyring-backend test
new account details will be output, the name, public address and your mnemonic phrase. Save your Seed Phrase as this is the only way to recover your wallet. NOTE: Your public address, starts with lava@
Restore existing wallet
If you used option 1, then run the following to import it to lavad on your device
lavad keys add <your-key-name> --keyring-backend test --recover
Once a wallet has been created, a working directory .lava becomes available and your keys will be stored in .lava/keyring-test. find out about Keyring here.
Show saved accounts/wallets
lavad keys list --keyring-backend test
Claim Tokens
This can be done from discord or via the Faucet API here.
Check Balance
Once tokens have been claimed you can query balance using your own node with
lavad query bank balances "<YOUR_ADDRESS>" --denom ulava
6. Create Validator
Create Validator Transaction
lavad tx staking create-validator \
--amount="<ammount to stake>ulava" \
--pubkey=$(lavad tendermint show-validator --home "$HOME/.lava/") \
--moniker="<your name of choice>" \
--chain-id=lava-testnet-1 \
--commission-rate="0.10" \
--commission-max-rate="0.20" \
--commission-max-change-rate="0.01" \
--min-self-delegation="1" \
--gas="auto" \
--home="$HOME/.lava/" \
--from=<name of wallet from step5>
It will broadcast your transaction and output a TX hash you can search on the blockchain explorer, or find your validator node there once confirmed
Find Valoper address
A validator node, has a unique address Valoper different from the standard derived address from the same seed.
lavad keys show <wallet-key> --bech val -a
See Validator Details
lavad q staking validator <Valoper address>
Useful Commands
Stop and Restart Node for changes to configs
systemctl stop lavad
# make changes to config files in ./lava/config
# restart service with
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl restart lavad
Delegate to validator (add more to own validator)
lavad tx staking delegate <lava@valoper1...-address> 1000000ulava --chain-id <CHAIN-ID> --from <wallet-name> --gas=auto
Withdraw all-rewards & commission
lavad tx distribution withdraw-rewards <lava@valoper1...-address> --from <wallet-name> --chain-id <CHAIN-ID> --commission --yes --gas=auto
unjail command
lavad tx slashing unjail --from <wallet_name> --chain-id <CHAIN-ID> --gas=auto
Updating Version
See HERE
If not using cosmovisor, upgrade the binaries manually with the following steps. You can check for governance to see at what block height the proposal upgrade is to be implemented, upgrades must be done when this block height is reached.
curl localhost:26657/status
Stop Lava Validator
systemctl stop lavad
Set new version
Look for releases here, and change the required_upgrade_name respectively
temp_folder=$(mktemp -d) && cd $temp_folder
required_upgrade_name="v0.5.3"
upgrade_binary_url=https://lava-binary-upgrades.s3.amazonaws.com/testnet/$required_upgrade_name/lavad
source $HOME/.bash_profile
Obtain new binary
wget "$upgrade_binary_url" -q -O $temp_folder/lavad
Make executable
chmod +x $temp_folder/lavad
Replace current binary
sudo cp $temp_folder/lavad $(which lavad)
Restart Lava Validator
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start lavad
You can confirm version with lavad version
check logs and sync with the following
lavad status | jq .SyncInfo.catching_up
Alternative- If this doesn’t work
If this doesn’t work, it may be that the file path name has changed, you can manually get the file from GitHub from here: https://github.com/lavanet/lava/releases
Manually copy the link from under assets under specific version
Example (with version 0.6.0)
wget https://github.com/lavanet/lava/releases/download/v0.6.0/lavad-v0.6.0-RC3-linux-amd64
Make Executable
chmod +x lavad-v0.6.0-RC3-linux-amd64
Move and rename to the executable files directory
sudo mv lavad-v0.6.0-RC3-linux-amd64 /root/go/bin/lavad
this method simply downloads the binary to the home folder, you grant permissions then move and rename the now executable file to the right path in the service. Can follow the remaining steps to restart the node.
Server Migration
Process for migrating validator from one server to another
1. Backup “priv_validator_key.json”
On the old server that you wish to retire Locate priv_validator_key.json it should be in here by default cd .lava/config/priv_validator_key.json
2. Start Node & Sync New Server
follow the steps for a validator up until Create wallet (Step 5) allow this node to fully sync, use snapshot for a fast migration. Allow to sync on the New server
3. Stop Node on Old Server
Before inserting the existing validator key on the new server, ensure that the Old Server validator/node is stopped
systemctl stop lavad.service
Shut down the device to be sure, and erase the data/reinstall
4. Replace the priv_validator_key.json on New Server
Stop the Node on New server
systemctl stop lavad
Open the priv_validator_key.json on the New Device for editing. Replace the contents with the contents from original server.
nano /home/$USER/.lava/config/priv_validator_key.json
5. Recover wallet on New server
lavad keys add <your-key-name> --keyring-backend test --recover
6. Restart the node on New server