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Run a Node

Configure and run an Point Chain node

Pre-requisite Readings​

Automated deployment​

Run the local node by running the init.sh script in the base directory of the repository.

danger

The script below will remove any pre-existing binaries installed. Use the manual deploy if you want to keep your binaries and configuration files.

./init.sh

Manual deployment​

The instructions for setting up a brand new full node from scratch are the the same as running a single node local testnet.

Start node​

To start your node, just type:

pointd start --json-rpc.enable=true --json-rpc.api="eth,web3,net"

Key Management​

To run a node with the same key every time: replace pointd keys add $KEY in ./init.sh with:

echo "your mnemonic here" | pointd keys add $KEY --recover
tip

Point Chain currently only supports 24 word mnemonics.

You can generate a new key/mnemonic with:

pointd keys add $KEY

To export your point key as an Ethereum private key (for use with Metamask for example):

pointd keys unsafe-export-eth-key $KEY

For more about the available key commands, use the --help flag

pointd keys -h

Keyring backend options​

The instructions above include commands to use test as the keyring-backend. This is an unsecured keyring that doesn't require entering a password and should not be used in production. Otherwise, Point Chain supports using a file or OS keyring backend for key storage. To create and use a file stored key instead of defaulting to the OS keyring, add the flag --keyring-backend file to any relevant command and the password prompt will occur through the command line. This can also be saved as a CLI config option with:

pointd config keyring-backend file
tip

For more information about the Keyring and its backend options, click here.

Enable Tracing​

To enable tracing when running the node, modify the last line of the init.sh script to be the following command, where:

  • $TRACER is the EVM tracer type to collect execution traces from the EVM transaction execution (eg. json|struct|access_list|markdown)
  • $TRACESTORE is the output file which contains KVStore tracing (eg. store.txt)
pointd start --evm.tracer $TRACER --tracestore $TRACESTORE --pruning=nothing $TRACE --log_level $LOGLEVEL --minimum-gas-prices=0.0001apoint --json-rpc.api eth,txpool,personal,net,debug,web3

Clearing data from chain​

Reset Data​

Alternatively, you can reset the blockchain database, remove the node's address book files, and reset the priv_validator.json to the genesis state.

danger

If you are running a validator node, always be careful when doing pointd unsafe-reset-all. You should never use this command if you are not switching chain-id.

danger

IMPORTANT: Make sure that every node has a unique priv_validator.json. Do not copy the priv_validator.json from an old node to multiple new nodes. Running two nodes with the same priv_validator.json will cause you to double sign!

First, remove the outdated files and reset the data.

rm $HOME/.pointd/config/addrbook.json $HOME/.pointd/config/genesis.json
pointd tendermint unsafe-reset-all --home $HOME/.pointd

Your node is now in a pristine state while keeping the original priv_validator.json and config.toml. If you had any sentry nodes or full nodes setup before, your node will still try to connect to them, but may fail if they haven't also been upgraded.

Delete Data​

Data for the pointd binary should be stored at ~/.pointd, respectively by default. To delete the existing binaries and configuration, run:

rm -rf ~/.pointd

To clear all data except key storage (if keyring backend chosen) and then you can rerun the full node installation commands from above to start the node again.

Recording Transactions Per Second (TPS)​

In order to get a progressive value of the transactions per second, we use Prometheus to return the values.

The Prometheus exporter runs at address http://localhost:8877 so please add this section to your Prometheus installation config.yaml file like this

global:
  scrape_interval: 10s

  external_labels:
    monitor: 'point-chain'

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'point-chain'

    scrape_interval: 10s

    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:8877']

and then run Prometheus like this

prometheus --config.file=prom_config.yaml

and then visit the Prometheus dashboard at http://localhost:9090/ then navigate to the expression area and enter the following expression

rate(pointd_transactions_processed[1m])

which will show the rate of transactions processed.