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[Solved]New here. Questions about Masternode/Validator deployment

Hello!

Just to get straight to the point, the organization I'm part of is looking to host validators (master nodes) on the XDC network within Japan, and I have a few questions after my experiences within the past week. I'd appreciate all the help.

Regarding Apothem/XDC's test network:

  • It is stated in many places that one should use the web wallet when creating a public address for XDC. The wallet linked to from apothem.network, does not appear to exist:
~]$ dig +noall +question +an wallet.apothem.network
;wallet.apothem.network.        IN  A
~]$ # (here is mainnet for comparison):
~]$ dig +noall +question +an wallet.xinfin.network
;wallet.xinfin.network.     IN  A
wallet.xinfin.network.  300 IN  A   172.64.96.15
wallet.xinfin.network.  300 IN  A   172.64.97.15
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

I could not find any information as to why the testnet wallet appears to be offline. This article includes a screenshot of the testnet wallet, so I believe it used to exist.... What happened to it?

  • How does one reasonably obtain the 10 million XDC required to be a validator on testnet? The faucet has a captcha and only issues 1000 XDC, so it is far from reasonable to use the faucet for this purpose.

Regarding KYC:

  • Given the limited amount of info the KYC document requests, is one signed form for the organizational format of the document enough for running multiple validators?
  • Furthermore, what about reusing the same document for both testnet and mainnet?

Other questions:

  • Are RPC (both HTTP and Websocket) required to be open to the public Internet? Or just port 30303/30304?
  • What exactly are standby nodes? The official documentation hardly mentions them (only one passing mention on docs.xdc.org and zero on howto.xinfin.org). Am I right to infer that every master node deployment, once KYC procedures are complete, becomes a "standby node" by default and randomly gets assigned to become an active master node?
  • This document states a master node requires "100% network uptime by IDC network" and "Minimum tier 3+ IDC environment". What exactly does this entail/imply? These lines seem to promote deploying validators in Singapore, but that doesn't sound like the intention behind these lines.

Thanks in advance.

Discussion (16)

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s4njk4n profile image
s4njk4n • Edited on

Hi there. Good questions.

  • for information about standby nodes, you can find a summary here I made when investigating a little while back. The intro summary should still be accurate. The actual directory structures within the nodes have changed though so some of the command line parts are not accurate (the mainnet node directories moved downstream in the hierarchy so they are all in a subdirectory called “mainnet” now: medium.com/@s4njk4n/xinfin-xdc-net...

  • for the ports: 8888 and 8989 on mainnet nodes only need to be open if the http/websocket is being used (ie if the node is fielding queries or being used to broadcast transactions). 30303 is used for peer to peer connections so it is used for node discovery and connection to peers. When a node first launches it will use the nodes in “bootnodes.list” to initially connect to the network. If port 30303 is not open then you will not be able to find further peers and they will not be able to find you so your peers seem to remain capped probably around 8 (from personal experience).

These articles may also be useful for you:

(Note: The article about peer-count is also based on the old directory structure)

I’m sure some of the other members will have some further information.

Welcome along to the XDC community!

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43c70858928adaf99f447b89174903 profile image
Author

An additional follow-up question:

Can someone provide some performance statistics for a mainnet validator? We are mostly needing to know the current disk usage, and if available historical growth over the past month or so, of the chaindata folder (or overall disk usage). It would be helpful to know about averages/peaks in memory consumption and CPU utilization over the past few months as well.

I realise I can find this information myself by bringing up a mainnet node, but sync would take a week or two, I assume (judging from the 28 hours it took on testnet for ~120GB).

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s4njk4n profile image
s4njk4n • Edited on

You can find recommended minimal specs here: docs.xdc.community/run-a-node/mast...

The recommendation of 300GB hasn't changed in at least 2 years but chaindata folder is currently 251GB in size. Chain has grown by 74.32GB in last 1 year so I presume node operators will need to upgrade their storage size within the coming months.

Recommended RAM from the community docs link is 32GB. Some is actively used. Some is for cache. Actively used amount grows with time. At present I cannot provide you with average/peak memory consumption as the figures I have are not accurate sorry.

CPU utilization I guess will depend on number of CPUs you have. Recommendation is 2+ cores of 64bits. I don't have accurate figures here so someone may be able to check a node and get back to you.

When spinning up a node, you don't have to wait 2 weeks for it to sync. You can download the latest snapshot of the chain data with:
wget download.xinfin.network/xdcchain.tar

Once it has downloaded and you have installed it, then you can sync the remainder which should be relatively quick.

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43c70858928adaf99f447b89174903 profile image
Author

I see! Yeah, I had already looked up the minimum specs but with infrastructure planning I'm always interested in actual usage so I can allocate resources a bit more smartly.

The link to the snapshot is especially helpful, especially for bootstrapping nodes with Terraform. tysm!

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s4njk4n profile image
s4njk4n

You’re welcome. Good luck with your nodes!

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s4njk4n profile image
s4njk4n • Edited on

Re: nodes and data centres, the tiers refer to various qualities of the data centre. You can find a description of Tiers here:
phoenixnap.com/blog/data-center-ti...

When looking for data centres, many different individuals and groups have their nodes hosted in many different countries. You can see a map and list of countries of existing nodes here: stats.xdc.org

Most are hosting their nodes at VPS providers. You will find many VPS providers online and as an organisation you will need to figure out which one(s) fit your needs with regards to infrastructure, uptime/reliability, cost, and jurisdiction (majority are not in Singapore as you will see from the link above)

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s4njk4n profile image
s4njk4n • Edited on

You can get 10M XDC on apothem testnet from here:
faucet.blocksscan.io/

Also there are dev channels on Discord and Telegram that can help. They are at:

discord.gg/x7hAENRe

And

t.me/xinfintech

For both platforms, just remember no one who is genuine should be sending you a Private Message directly. Occasionally when you ask a question on Telegram etc you will suddenly receive a Private Message from a scammer who is using the same name/image as one of the devs or admins or someone pretending to be helpful. Never respond to people who PM you first. (This unfortunately just happens on most telegram channels in general due to the nature of the platform)

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s4njk4n profile image
s4njk4n

Re KYC: Requires the document to be Notarized by a Notary Public so you will need whatever documents they require for the process. From memory, I believe many have just uploaded the notarized document page. If I’m wrong here, someone will correct me I’m sure.

Re: using same document for testnet/mainnet, you would have to check with XinFin for specifics but, from memory, I believe entities that already hold multiple existing nodes used the same document as the purpose is to KYC the entity operating the node (and obtaining multiple documents wouldn’t add any value to that process for a given entity or for the network).

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mrblockchain22 profile image
Salomon Morales

That's correct. The same document can be used to KYC for multiple nodes if the same person/entity is running them. They can be used for either mainnet/testnet.

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s4njk4n profile image
s4njk4n

Re the wallet: I’ve not specifically used the apothem wallet but, from memory, I think if you go to the mainnet web wallet then apothem network is one of the network options you can select within the wallet once you have logged in. I’m just on my phone now so can’t check for you. Give that a go and I think it should be there.

There is also a beta version out for a new version of the webwallet at betawallet.xinfin.network/

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s4njk4n profile image
s4njk4n

この情報がお役に立てば幸いです。 XDC コミュニティへようこそ!

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43c70858928adaf99f447b89174903 profile image
Author

情報ありがとうございます!
Thanks a lot for the answers! It's been really informative.

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s4njk4n profile image
s4njk4n

You're welcome! :)

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s4njk4n profile image
s4njk4n • Edited on

You can also find a growing library of curated documentation at: docs.xdc.community

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mitali_blocksscan profile image
Mitali_BlocksScan

Thank you so much @s4njk4n for providing such helpful and well-articulated answers to the questions. Your contributions have been greatly appreciated by the users

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s4njk4n profile image
s4njk4n

Thanks Mitali. Happy to help