Mainnet/Testnet: Running Nodes using Azure 1-click Deployment

This tutorial will use our Azure 1-click Deployment image to start and create the latest Croeseid Testnet validator or full node.

CAUTION We do not recommend directly running validator on Mainnet by 1-Click deployment. Please use it with caution! Because the 1-click deployment is not running with TMKMS and your tendermint validator key is in plain text /chain/.chain-maind/config/priv_validator_key.json. You may consider running validator with tmkms on AWS nitro-enclave

Step 1. Azure Account Creation

You will first need to create a Microsoft Azure account with a Pay-As-You-Go subscription. This will require providing your credit card information to Microsoft Azure and you may be subject to getting charged when you create a virtual machine.

Please read Microsoft Azure free trial introduction to see if you are eligible for the free-tier.

Step 2. Common Setup

Step 2-1. Search for Cronos POS Chain on Marketplace

Sign in to your Microsoft Azure account and go to Marketplace. Search for "Cronos POS Chain 1-Click Node".

Step 2-2. Create a Virtual Machine

Choose the image and click "Create" to start creating the Cronos POS Chain 1-Click Node.

1. Basic

Configuration	Value
Size	Select a recommended one or DC2s_v3
SSH public key source	Choose "existing public key"
SSH public key	Copy and paste your SSH public key
Resource group	We suggest creating a new and dedicated one so that you can easily manage resources attached to the instance

2. Disk

• Follow default setting

3. Networking

• Virtual network, Subnet, Public IP and NIC: "Create new" if you don't have any in that region

4. Management

• Follow default setting

• Boot diagnostics: default is "On". Set to "Off" if it is not required.

5. Advanced

• Follow default setting

6. Tags

• Create Tag if needed

7. Review + Create

• Click "create" to create your instance

Step 2-3. Connect to your instance

Once the deployment is completed, you can connect to your instance via SSH.

$ ssh ubuntu@PUBLIC_IP

Afterward, go to the chain directory, and you will find all the essential binaries for setting up your node:

$ cd /chain/
$ ll
total 32
drwxr-xr-x  7 crypto crypto 4096 Mar 20 14:51 ./
drwxr-xr-x 20 root   root   4096 Mar 25 09:46 ../
drwxr-xr-x  4 crypto crypto 4096 Mar 20 14:47 .chain-maind/
drwxr-xr-x  2 crypto crypto 4096 Mar 20 14:44 bin/
drwxr-xr-x  2   3434   3434 4096 Mar  5 09:41 node_exporter-1.1.2.linux-amd64/
-rwxr-xr-x  1 crypto crypto  535 Mar 20 14:43 reconfig.sh*
drwxr-xr-x  2 root   root   4096 Mar 20 14:43 release_binary/
drwxr-xr-x  2 crypto crypto 4096 Mar 20 14:47 sockets/

Step 3. Running a full node

Step 3-1. Use the reconfiguration script

Now we use the reconfiguration script reconfig.sh to choose the existing networks to join.

$ sudo -u crypto /chain/reconfig.sh
Please select either mainnet(M) or testnet(T) to join (M/T): M
You can select the following networks to join
	0. crypto-org-chain-mainnet-1
Please choose the network to join by index (0/1/...): 0
The selected network is crypto-org-chain-mainnet-1
The genesis does not exit or the sha256sum does not match the target one. Download the target genesis from github.
💾 Downloading crypto-org-chain-mainnet-1 genesis

You may also enable (Optional)STATE-SYNC. Your node will download data related to the head or near the head of the chain and verify the data. This leads to drastically shorter times for joining a network for validator. For validator, It will be amazingly fast to sync the near head of the chain and join the network.

::: warning CAUTION Blocks before state-sync trust height will NOT be queryable. If you want to run a full node or a validator with complete blockchain data; It is not suggested to use state-sync. :::

...
Do you want to enable state-sync? (Y/N): Y
State-sync require the latest version of binary to state-sync from the latest block.
The binary does not exist or the version does not match the target version. Download the target version binary from github release.
💾 Downloading crypto-org-chain-mainnet-1 binary
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100   644  100   644    0     0   6192      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  6192
100 13.7M  100 13.7M    0     0  43.6M      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 43.6M

Clean up the old blockchain data (if any)

...
Reset chain-maind and remove data if any
❗️ Enter (Y/N) to confirm to delete any old data: Y
Stopping chain-maind service
3:18PM INF Removed all blockchain history dir=/chain/.chain-maind/data
3:18PM INF Generated private validator file keyFile=/chain/.chain-maind/config/priv_validator_key.json stateFile=/chain/.chain-maind/data/priv_validator_state.json
❗️ /chain/.chain-maind/config/priv_validator_key.json already exists! Do you want to override old key? (Y/N): Y
A new priv_validator_key.json with pubkey: open /chain/.chain-maind/config/priv_validator_key.json: no such file or directory

💡 Please make sure you have a backup of /chain/.chain-maind/config/priv_validator_key.json in case of unexpected accidents!

The consensus public key information could be found in /chain/.chain-maind/config/priv_validator_key.json

Backup your old /chain/.chain-maind/config/priv_validator_key.json if you created once.

❗️ /chain/.chain-maind/config/priv_validator_key.json already exists! Do you want to override old key? (Y/N): Y
A new priv_validator_key.json with pubkey: open /chain/.chain-maind/config/priv_validator_key.json: no such file or directory

💡 Please make sure you have a backup of /chain/.chain-maind/config/priv_validator_key.json in case of unexpected accidents!

The script will also ask you to fill in the moniker value which is a human-readable display name for tendermint p2p. p2p gossip will allow you to connect with more nodes (data sources).

Replace moniker in /chain/.chain-maind/config/config.toml
Moniker is display name for tendermint p2p

moniker: YOUR_MONIKER_NAME
Do you want to add the public IP of this node for p2p gossip? (Y/N): Y
✅ Added public IP to external_address in chain-maind config.toml for p2p gossip

node_id and node_key are the unique identity of your node. Save them for later use.

...
Generate and replace node_key in /chain/.chain-maind/config/node_key.json

You may want to save node_id and node_key for later use

node_id: 62cf74XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

node_key: LyQiGlL4HsdHsPXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

chain-maind is now running at the background as a systemd service.

You can check its log by the command journalctl, for example:

$ journalctl -u chain-maind.service -f
-- Logs begin at Wed 2020-12-30 13:51:25 UTC. --
Mar 25 15:34:02 ip-172-31-69-43 chain-maind[2657]: 3:34PM INF finalizing commit of block hash=3CB6E9CFAEB6681797E02547A096C9654A4558701660DCA78182CA1B43AA05F3 height=8460 module=consensus num_txs=3 root=39878A5AC834C6D89ADBC55097A6495FCE8C9E6FF8DE8DAAC5DD7373407A5C6D
Mar 25 15:34:02 ip-172-31-69-43 chain-maind[2657]: 3:34PM INF minted coins from module account amount=7925328957basecro from=mint module=x/bank
Mar 25 15:34:02 ip-172-31-69-43 chain-maind[2657]: 3:34PM INF executed block height=8460 module=state num_invalid_txs=0 num_valid_txs=3
Mar 25 15:34:02 ip-172-31-69-43 chain-maind[2657]: 3:34PM INF updates to validators module=state updates=A7E76081779FF5EE79A765DE4D716B4903D6902B:4266505417
Mar 25 15:34:02 ip-172-31-69-43 chain-maind[2657]: 3:34PM INF commit synced commit=436F6D6D697449447B5B36352032313020313636203639203130203633203137322032372031363120313438203133322031313320313031203135203131302031353720323134203134372034302034203234362032343220323237203231362032362031363220333120313431203231342032303020313239203234345D3A323130437D
Mar 25 15:34:02 ip-172-31-69-43 chain-maind[2657]: 3:34PM INF committed state app_hash=41D2A6450A3FAC1BA1948471650F6E9DD6932804F6F2E3D81AA21F8DD6C881F4 height=8460 module=state num_txs=3
...

The consensus public key can be found by and please take a note of it for next steps:

$ sudo /chain/bin/chain-maind tendermint show-validator --home /chain/.chain-maind/
## [crocnclcons... address] ##
## [tcrocnclcons... address] ##

The latest block height can be found by:

Mainnet

$ curl -s https://rpc.mainnet.crypto.org:443/block | jq -r .result.block.header.height
8525

Testnet (testnet-croeseid-4)

$ curl -s https://testnet-croeseid-4.crypto.org:26657/block | jq -r .result.block.header.height
8525

Once the tendermint syncs to the latest block, the setup is done! You may move on to the next step if you want to join the network as a validator.

Step 4. Join as a validator

We suggest that you should do this process locally with chain-maind to avoid exposing your keys on a cloud server. If you haven't installed chain-maind yet, please follow Step 1. Get the Cronos POS Chain binary for testnet or Step 1. Get the Cronos POS Chain Mainnet binary for mainnet.

NOTE

• Check whether your chain-maind is mainnet or testnet binary

Mainnet

$ chain-maind version
3.3.9

• Mainnet binary for Mac and Windows are also available.

Or Testnet

$ chain-maind version
3.1.0-croeseid

• Testnet binary for Mac (Intel x86 / M1)and Windows are also available.

Mainnet

Create a new key and address

Please follow Step 3-1. Create a new key and address

Creating a validator node

You should obtain consensus public key from Step 3-1. Use the reconfiguration script

Please follow Step 3-5. Joining the network as a validator to create validator.

Check if the validator has been set

Back your server, and follow Step 3-6. Check your validator status

🎊 Congratulations! You've successfully joined the network as a validator! 🎊

Testnet

Create a new key and address

Please follow Step 3-1. Create a new key and address

Creating a validator node

You should obtain consensus public key from Step 3-1. Use the reconfiguration script

Please follow Step 3-5. Joining the network as a validator to create validator.

Check if the validator has been set

Back your server, and follow Step 3-6. Check your validator status

🎊 Congratulations! You've successfully joined the network as a validator! 🎊