Using binaries

This guide will walk you through running a Polygon validator node from packages.

For system requirements, follow the Validator Node System Requirements guide.

Tip

Steps in this guide involve waiting for the Heimdall and Bor services to fully sync. This process takes several days to complete. Alternatively, you can use a maintained snapshot, which will reduce the sync time to a few hours. For detailed instructions, see Snapshot Instructions for Heimdall and Bor.

For snapshot download links, see Polygon Chains Snapshots.

Port configuration details¶

Here are a few instructions on how to configure ports for sentry and validator nodes.

For sentry nodes¶

Port 22: Opening this to the public is not a good idea as the default SSH port 22 is prone to attacks. It is better to secure it by allowing it only in a closed network (VPN).
Port 30303: To be opened to the public for Bor p2p discovery.
Port 26656: To be opened to the public for Heimdall/Tendermint p2p discovery.
Port 26660: Prometheus port for Tendermint/Heimdall. Not required to be opened to the public. Only allow for the monitoring systems (Prometheus/Datadog).
Port 7071: Metric port for Bor. Only needs to be opened for the Monitoring system.
Ports 8545, 8546, 1317: Can be opened for Bor HTTP RPC, Bor WS RPC, and Heimdall API respectively; but only if really necessary.

For validator nodes¶

Port 22: Opening this to the public is not a good idea as the default SSH port 22 is prone to attacks. It is better to secure it by allowing it only in a closed network (VPN).
Port 30303: To be opened to only Sentry to which the validator is connected for Bor p2p discovery.
Port 26656: To be opened to only Sentry to which the validator is connected for Heimdall/Tendermint p2p discovery.
Port 26660: Prometheus port for Tendermint/Heimdall. Not required to be opened to the public. Only allow for the monitoring systems (Prometheus/Datadog).
Port 7071: Metric port for Bor. Only needs to be opened for the monitoring system.

This guide will walk you through running a Polygon validator node from binaries.

For system requirements, follow the Validator Node System Requirements guide.

Caution

There is limited space for accepting new validators. New validators can only join the active set when an already active validator unbonds.

Prerequisites¶

Two machines — one sentry and one validator.
build-essential installed on both the sentry and the validator machines.

To install:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

Go 1.19 installed on both the sentry and the validator machines.

To install:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/maticnetwork/node-ansible/master/go-install.sh
bash go-install.sh
sudo ln -nfs ~/.go/bin/go /usr/bin/go

RabbitMQ installed on both the sentry and the validator machines.

Here are the commands to install RabbitMQ:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install build-essential
sudo apt install erlang
wget https://github.com/rabbitmq/rabbitmq-server/releases/download/v3.10.8/rabbitmq-server_3.10.8-1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i rabbitmq-server_3.10.8-1_all.deb

Tip

Check more information about downloading and installing RabbitMQ here.

Overview¶

To get to a running validator node, conduct the following in this exact sequence of steps:

Caution

You will run into configuration issues if these steps are performed out of sequence. It is important to keep in mind that a sentry node must always be set up before the validator node.

Prepare two machines, one for the sentry node and one for the validator node.
Install the Heimdall and Bor binaries on the sentry and validator machines.
Set up the Heimdall and Bor service files on the sentry and validator machines.
Set up the Heimdall and Bor services on the sentry and validator machines.
Configure the sentry node.
Start the sentry node.
Configure the validator node.
Set the owner and signer keys.
Start the validator node.
Check node health with the community.

Installing the Binaries¶

Polygon node consists of 2 layers: Heimdall and Bor. Heimdall is a tendermint fork that monitors contracts in parallel with the Ethereum network. Bor is basically a Geth fork that generates blocks shuffled by Heimdall nodes.

Both binaries must be installed and run in the correct order to function properly.

Heimdall¶

Install the latest version of Heimdall and related services. Make sure you checkout to the correct release version. Note that the latest version, Heimdall v1.0.5, contains enhancements such as:

Restricting data size in state sync txs to:
- 30Kb when represented in bytes
- 60Kb when represented as string
Increasing the delay time between the contract events of different validators to ensure that the mempool doesn’t get filled very quickly in case of a burst of events which can hamper the progress of the chain.

The following example shows how the data size is restricted:

Data - "abcd1234"
Length in string format - 8
Hex Byte representation - [171 205 18 52]
Length in byte format - 4

To install Heimdall, run the below commands:

curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/maticnetwork/install/main/heimdall.sh | bash -s -- <heimdall_version> <network_type> <node_type>

You can run the above command with following options:

heimdall_version: valid v1.0+ release tag from https://github.com/maticnetwork/heimdall/releases
network_type: mainnet and amoy
node_type: sentry

That will install the heimdalld and heimdallcli binaries. Verify the installation by checking the Heimdall version on your machine:

heimdalld version --long

Note

Before proceeding, Heimdall should be installed on both the sentry and validator machines.

Installing Bor¶

Install the latest version of Bor, based on valid v1.0+ released version.

curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/maticnetwork/install/main/bor.sh | bash -s -- <bor_version> <network_type> <node_type>

You can run the above command with following options:

bor_version: valid v1.0+ release tag from https://github.com/maticnetwork/bor/releases
network_type: mainnet and amoy
node_type: sentry

That will install the bor binary. Verify the installation by checking the Bor version on your machine:

bor version

Note

Before proceeding, Bor should be installed on both the sentry and validator machines.

Configuring the Sentry Node¶

Start by logging in to the remote sentry machine.

Configuring the Heimdall services¶

Open the Heimdall configuration file for editing:

vi /var/lib/heimdall/config/config.toml

In config.toml, change the following parameters:

moniker — any name. Example: moniker = "my-sentry-node".
seeds — the seed node addresses consisting of a node ID, an IP address, and a port.

Use the following values:

seeds="1500161dd491b67fb1ac81868952be49e2509c9f@52.78.36.216:26656,dd4a3f1750af5765266231b9d8ac764599921736@3.36.224.80:26656,8ea4f592ad6cc38d7532aff418d1fb97052463af@34.240.245.39:26656,e772e1fb8c3492a9570a377a5eafdb1dc53cd778@54.194.245.5:26656,6726b826df45ac8e9afb4bdb2469c7771bd797f1@52.209.21.164:26656"

pex — set the value to true to enable the peer exchange. Example: pex = true.
private_peer_ids — the node ID of Heimdall set up on the validator machine.

To get the node ID of Heimdall on the validator machine:

Log in to the validator machine.
Run:
```
heimdalld tendermint show-node-id
```

Example: private_peer_ids = "0ee1de0515f577700a6a4b6ad882eff1eb15f066".

prometheus — set the value to true to enable the Prometheus metrics. Example: prometheus = true.
max_open_connections — set the value to 100. Example: max_open_connections = 100.

Save the changes in config.toml.

Configuring the Bor Service¶

Open the Bor configuration file for editing:

vi /var/lib/bor/config.toml

In config.toml, add the boot node addresses consisting of a node ID, an IP address, and a port by adding them under bootnodes in [p2p.discovery] section:

--bootnodes "enode://b8f1cc9c5d4403703fbf377116469667d2b1823c0daf16b7250aa576bacf399e42c3930ccfcb02c5df6879565a2b8931335565f0e8d3f8e72385ecf4a4bf160a@3.36.224.80:30303", "enode://8729e0c825f3d9cad382555f3e46dcff21af323e89025a0e6312df541f4a9e73abfa562d64906f5e59c51fe6f0501b3e61b07979606c56329c020ed739910759@54.194.245.5:30303"

Save the changes in start.sh.

Configuring a firewall¶

The sentry machine must have the following ports open to the world 0.0.0.0/0:

26656- Your Heimdall service will connect your node to other nodes Heimdall service.
30303- Your Bor service will connect your node to other nodes Bor service.

Starting the Sentry Node¶

You will first start the Heimdall service. Once the Heimdall service syncs, you will start the Bor service.

Note

As mentioned earlier, the Heimdall service takes several days to sync from scratch fully.

Alternatively, you can use a maintained snapshot, which will reduce the sync time to a few hours. For detailed instructions, see Snapshot Instructions for Heimdall and Bor.

For snapshot download links, see Polygon Chains Snapshots.

Starting the Heimdall service¶

Start the Heimdall service:

sudo service heimdalld start

Note

The heimdall-rest service starts along with heimdall.

Check the Heimdall service logs:

journalctl -u heimdalld.service -f

Note

In the logs, you may see the following errors:

Stopping peer for error
MConnection flush failed
use of closed network connection

These logs mean that one of the nodes on the network refused a connection to your node.

Wait for your node to crawl more nodes on the network; you do not need to do anything to address these errors.

Check the sync status of Heimdall:

curl localhost:26657/status

In the output, the catching_up value is:

true — the Heimdall service is syncing.
false — the Heimdall service is fully synced.

Wait for the Heimdall service to sync fully.

Starting the Bor service¶

Once the Heimdall service syncs, start the Bor service.

Start the Bor service:

sudo service bor start

Check the Bor service logs:

journalctl -u bor.service -f

Configuring the Validator Node¶

Note

To complete this section, you must have an RPC endpoint of your fully synced Ethereum mainnet node ready.

Configuring the Heimdall service¶

Log in to the remote validator machine.

Open for editing vi /var/lib/heimdall/config/config.toml.

In config.toml, change the following:

moniker — any name. Example: moniker = "my-validator-node".
pex — set the value to false to disable the peer exchange. Example: pex = false.
private_peer_ids — comment out the value to disable it. Example: # private_peer_ids = "".

To get the node ID of Heimdall on the sentry machine:

Log in to the sentry machine.
Run heimdalld tendermint show-node-id.

Example: persistent_peers = "sentry_machineNodeID@sentry_instance_ip:26656"

prometheus — set the value to true to enable the Prometheus metrics. Example: prometheus = true.

Save the changes in config.toml.

Open for editing vi /var/lib/heimdall/config/heimdall-config.toml.

In heimdall-config.toml, change the following:

eth_rpc_url — an RPC endpoint for a fully synced Ethereum mainnet node, i.e Infura. eth_rpc_url =<insert Infura or any full node RPC URL to Ethereum>

Example: eth_rpc_url = "https://nd-123-456-789.p2pify.com/60f2a23810ba11c827d3da642802412a"

Save the changes in heimdall-config.toml.

Configuring the Bor service¶

Open config file for editing using: vi /var/lib/bor/config.toml

Change the value of static-nodes parameter as follows:

static-nodes = ["<replace with enode://sentry_machine_enodeID@sentry_machine_ip:30303>"]
// the node ID and IP address of Bor set up on the sentry machine

To get the Node ID of Bor on the sentry machine:

Log in to the sentry machine
Run cat /var/lib/bor/data/bor/nodekey

Setting the Owner and Signer Key¶

On Polygon, it is recommended that you keep the owner and signer keys different.

Signer — the address that signs the checkpoint transactions. The recommendation is to keep at least 1 ETH on the signer address.
Owner — the address that does the staking transactions. The recommendation is to keep the MATIC tokens on the owner address.

Generating a Heimdall private key¶

You must generate a Heimdall private key only on the validator machine. Do not generate a Heimdall private key on the sentry machine.

To generate the private key, run:

heimdallcli generate-validatorkey ETHEREUM_PRIVATE_KEY

where

ETHEREUM_PRIVATE_KEY — your Ethereum wallet’s private key.

This will generate priv_validator_key.json. Move the generated JSON file to the Heimdall configuration directory:

mv ./priv_validator_key.json  /var/lib/heimdall/config

Generating a Bor keystore file¶

You must generate a Bor keystore file only on the validator machine. Do not generate a Bor keystore file on the sentry machine.

To generate the private key, run:

heimdallcli generate-keystore ETHEREUM_PRIVATE_KEY

where

ETHEREUM_PRIVATE_KEY — your Ethereum wallet’s private key.

When prompted, set up a password to the keystore file.

This will generate a UTC-<time>-<address> keystore file.

Move the generated keystore file to the Bor configuration directory:

mv ./UTC-<time>-<address> /var/lib/bor/data/keystore

Add password.txt¶

Make sure to create a password.txt file, then add the Bor keystore file password right in the /var/lib/bor/password.txt file.

Add your Ethereum address¶

Open config.toml for editing: vi /var/lib/bor/config.toml.

[miner]
  mine = true
  etherbase = "validator address"

[accounts]
  unlock = ["validator address"]
  password = "The path of the file you entered in password.txt"
  allow-insecure-unlock = true

Caution

Please ensure that priv_validator_key.json & UTC-<time>-<address> files have relevant permissions. To set relevant permissions for priv_validator_key.json, run sudo chown -R heimdall:nogroup /var/lib/heimdall/config/priv_validator_key.json and similarly sudo chown -R heimdall:nogroup /var/lib/bor/data/keystore/UTC-<time>-<address> for UTC-<time>-<address>.

Starting the Validator Node¶

At this point, you must have:

The Heimdall service on the sentry machine syncs and is running.
The Bor service on the sentry machine running.
The Heimdall service and the Bor service on the validator machine configured.
Your owner and signer keys configured.

Starting the Heimdall service¶

You will now start the Heimdall service on the validator machine. Once the Heimdall service syncs, you will start the Bor service on the validator machine.

Start the Heimdall service:

sudo service heimdalld start

Note

The heimdall-rest service and heimdall-bridge starts along with heimdall.

Check the Heimdall service logs:

journalctl -u heimdalld.service -f

Check the sync status of Heimdall:

curl localhost:26657/status

In the output, the catching_up value is:

true — the Heimdall service is syncing.
false — the Heimdall service is synced.

Wait for the Heimdall service to fully sync.

Starting the Bor service¶

Once the Heimdall service on the validator machine syncs, start the Bor service on the validator machine.

Start the Bor service:

sudo service bor start

Check the Bor service logs:

journalctl -u bor.service -f

Seed nodes and bootnodes¶

Amoy node seeds

The Heimdall and Bor seeds don’t need to be configured manually for Amoy testnet since they’ve already been included at genesis.

Heimdall seed nodes:

moniker=<enter unique identifier>

# Mainnet:
seeds="1500161dd491b67fb1ac81868952be49e2509c9f@52.78.36.216:26656,dd4a3f1750af5765266231b9d8ac764599921736@3.36.224.80:26656,8ea4f592ad6cc38d7532aff418d1fb97052463af@34.240.245.39:26656,e772e1fb8c3492a9570a377a5eafdb1dc53cd778@54.194.245.5:26656,6726b826df45ac8e9afb4bdb2469c7771bd797f1@52.209.21.164:26656"

Bootnodes:

# Mainnet:
bootnode ["enode://b8f1cc9c5d4403703fbf377116469667d2b1823c0daf16b7250aa576bacf399e42c3930ccfcb02c5df6879565a2b8931335565f0e8d3f8e72385ecf4a4bf160a@3.36.224.80:30303", "enode://8729e0c825f3d9cad382555f3e46dcff21af323e89025a0e6312df541f4a9e73abfa562d64906f5e59c51fe6f0501b3e61b07979606c56329c020ed739910759@54.194.245.5:30303"]

Health Checks with the Community¶

Now that your sentry and validator nodes are in sync and running, head over to Discord and ask the community to health-check your nodes.

Note

As validators, it’s mandatory to always have a check of the signer address. If the ETH balance reaches below 0.5 ETH then it should be refilled. Avoiding this will push out nodes from submitting checkpoint transactions.

Next Steps: Staking¶

Now that you have your sentry and validator nodes are health-checked, proceed to the Staking guide to start backing the network.

Using binaries

Port configuration details¶

For sentry nodes¶

For validator nodes¶

Prerequisites¶

Overview¶

Installing the Binaries¶

Heimdall¶

Installing Bor¶

Configuring the Sentry Node¶

Configuring the Heimdall services¶

Configuring the Bor Service¶

Configuring a firewall¶

Starting the Sentry Node¶

Starting the Heimdall service¶

Starting the Bor service¶

Configuring the Validator Node¶

Configuring the Heimdall service¶

Configuring the Bor service¶

Setting the Owner and Signer Key¶

Generating a Heimdall private key¶

Generating a Bor keystore file¶

Add password.txt¶

Add your Ethereum address¶

Starting the Validator Node¶

Starting the Heimdall service¶

Starting the Bor service¶

Seed nodes and bootnodes¶

Health Checks with the Community¶

Next Steps: Staking¶

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