Lava Protocol, a crypto-market which powers a decentralized RPC layer for Web3. How to setup a Validator node with Cosmovisor

This Guide will focus on the setup of a Validator node which is also a Full node for Lava chain, with cosmovisor

Cosmovisor: Cosmovisor is a tool for automating the upgrades process. it runs as a small process manager for Cosmos SDK application binaries that monitors the governance module for incoming chain upgrade proposals and can automatically download new binaries.

A validator can be setup without this tool, where the binaries must be updated manually

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

apt install logrotate git jq sed wget curl coreutils systemd unzip -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 installation with go version and echo $PATH

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 application configurations

git clone https://github.com/lavanet/lava-config.git
cd lava-config/testnet-1

Copy Config Files

mkdir -p $HOME/.lava/config
cp default_lavad_config_files/* $HOME/.lava/config

Copy the genesis.json file to the Lava config folder

cp genesis_json/genesis.json $HOME/.lava/config/

3. Setup Cosmovisor

from home

go install github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/cosmovisor/cmd/cosmovisor@v1.0.0

Create the Cosmovisor folder and copy config files to it

mkdir -p $HOME/.lava/cosmovisor
mkdir -p $HOME/.lava/data

Download the latest cosmovisor-upgrades from S3

wget https://lava-binary-upgrades.s3.amazonaws.com/testnet/cosmovisor-upgrades/cosmovisor-upgrades.zip
unzip cosmovisor-upgrades.zip
cp -r cosmovisor-upgrades/* $HOME/.lava/cosmovisor

Set environment variables

echo "# Setup Cosmovisor" >> ~/.bash_profile
echo "export DAEMON_NAME=lavad" >> ~/.bash_profile
echo "export CHAIN_ID=lava-testnet-1" >> ~/.bash_profile
echo "export DAEMON_HOME=$HOME/.lava" >> ~/.bash_profile
echo "export DAEMON_ALLOW_DOWNLOAD_BINARIES=true" >> ~/.bash_profile
echo "export DAEMON_LOG_BUFFER_SIZE=512" >> ~/.bash_profile
echo "export DAEMON_RESTART_AFTER_UPGRADE=true" >> ~/.bash_profile
echo "export UNSAFE_SKIP_BACKUP=true" >> ~/.bash_profile
source ~/.bash_profile

Initialize the chain

from lava-config/testnet-1 from home?

$HOME/lava_validator/cosmovisor/genesis/bin/lavad init \
my-node \
--chain-id lava-testnet-1 \
--home $HOME/lava_validator \
--overwrite cp genesis_json/genesis.json $HOME/.lava/config/genesis.json

this will create an error, but ignore for now

confirm installation with cosmovisor version

4. Create system service

echo "[Unit]
Description=Cosmovisor daemon
After=network-online.target
[Service]
Environment="DAEMON_NAME=lavad"
Environment="DAEMON_HOME=$HOME/.lava"
Environment="DAEMON_RESTART_AFTER_UPGRADE=true"
Environment="DAEMON_ALLOW_DOWNLOAD_BINARIES=true"
Environment="DAEMON_LOG_BUFFER_SIZE=512"
Environment="UNSAFE_SKIP_BACKUP=true"
User=$USER
ExecStart=$HOME/go/bin/cosmovisor start --home=$HOME/.lava
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
LimitNOFILE=infinity
LimitNPROC=infinity
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
" >cosmovisor.service
sudo mv cosmovisor.service /lib/systemd/system/cosmovisor.service

Optional: add seed node with the flag --p2p.seeds $seed_node

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable cosmovisor.service
systemctl start cosmovisor

Logs

sudo journalctl -u cosmovisor -f

Without any seeds node or addrbook it can take a while to find peers and start syncing.