Testnet Validator Setup

This is the one and only official guide for setting up your Chainflip Validator. This guide is officially maintained by the Chainflip team. For general information about the Chainflip protocol, we strongly recommend checking out the Concepts. We run both a Testnet and Mainnet, this guide helps you through setting up a validator on Testnet. For Mainnet please refer to this guide instead.

Before You Start

This guide assumes you can:

• rent or provision an Ubuntu 22.04 server
• connect to it over SSH
• run commands as a user with sudo
• edit configuration files in the terminal

Operating a validator assumes Linux administration skills. Do not run a validator on a laptop or home machine unless you already understand the operational risks.

1. Prerequisites

This section describes what you are going to need to successfully set up a Chainflip validator node.

Testnet Validator Flow

At a high level, the setup process is:

1. Install the Chainflip binaries and download chaindata.
2. Generate your validator keys.
3. Fund your Validator Account ID with tFLIP.
4. Register the Validator role and session keys on-chain.
5. Start bidding and wait for the next rotation.

Ethereum Accounts

We highly advise against using a digital wallet that has any real funds in this setup. For the purposes of joining Chainflip’s or any other testnet, it is a best-practice to create new wallets.

You’ll need two Ethereum Accounts:

1. The first one (we will refer to it as (your Wallet/Account) will be used for receiving tFLIP and interacting with the Auctions App to add and redeem funds. In practice, you fund the validator from your own wallet in the Auctions app. Those funds are used to bid for a place in the authority set and, if selected, become part of the validator bond, which can be slashed for validator faults and protocol offences.
2. The second one (we will refer to it as the (Validator Wallet/Account) will be used by the validator to send transactions to the Sepolia Ethereum blockchain (this will be automatically generated as part of Generating Keys). The Validator Wallet is the Ethereum wallet generated by chainflip-cli to pay gas fees.

sETH (Sepolia Ether)

Each Validator is also responsible for submitting transactions to the Ethereum blockchain. Since Ethereum is account-based, you are required to supply your own sETH in order to pay the up-front cost for the transactions.

Chainflip recommends that you have at least 0.1 sETH in your Validators’ account at all times. You must ensure that this sETH is loaded onto the Validators’ wallet before you try to add funds.
You’ll also need to have sETH in your wallet to cover the gas fees for Adding and Redeeming Funds operations.

You will need a way for your validator to monitor the Sepolia Ethereum Blockchain. The Chainflip Engine software allows you to use any endpoint you specify in its config file. You can either run a geth client  (make sure to set this up on the Sepolia testnet!), or you can rely on a third-party remote client provider such as Alchemy , Infura , or Rivet .

System Requirements

OS: Ubuntu 22.04 | Our binaries are not compiled on any other OS
CPU: 4GHz+ amd64/x86_64 CPU Architecture | We only support amd64/x86_64 CPU Architecture
RAM: 8GB+
SSD: 300GB+ NVMe (this may increase over time)
Bandwidth: Minimum 400MBps, Recommended 1GBps connection, 100 GB bandwidth combined up/down per month

This machine must be available 24/7 and thus it is recommended that you only try this on machines with a stable and reliable internet connection, such as a VPS or Dedicated Server. If you would like some help picking a server to rent, you can come to the Chainflip Community Discord and ask for help.

Networking

Firewall

You should ensure that all connections on ports 30333 (TCP) and 8078 (TCP) are not blocked! Moreover make sure your firewall allows NTP outbound traffic on port 123 (UDP)

Some VPS providers enable an all-port open firewall by default, but if this is not the case and you don’t open the required ports, your node will not be able to participate in Keygen / Signing ceremonies and as a result will never become active.

Static IP

To ensure uninterrupted operation of your node, you should setup your server to have a static public IP address. If your server gets a new IP address, you will need to update your node’s configuration and restart it. If you are using a VPS, you will have a static IP address assigned already.

NTP Daemon

In some cases, the system time will drift causing the authoring or importing of blocks to fail. To prevent this, you should install and enable an NTP daemon on your server. Current Ubuntu distributions come with chrony by default, but if this is not the case you can install it with the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y chrony
sudo systemctl enable --now chrony

Make sure your firewall allows NTP outbound traffic (Port 123 UDP).

2. Creating a new Linux User

Using the root user to run a Validator works. However, it is a good security practice to create a separate user with limited access to run the Chainflip binaries. Depending on your VPS provider, you may already have a sudo user created for you (like ubuntu). If this is the case, you can skip these steps.

You can call the new user whatever you like. In the following commands we will call it flip.

Create the user

sudo useradd -s /bin/bash -d /home/flip/ -m -G sudo flip

This command does the following:

• Creates a user called flip
• Creates a home directory for the new user under/home/flip
• Sets the default shell for the new user to /bin/bash
• Adds the flip user to the sudo group which gives the user the required access and permissions to install and configure the required software.

Add a Password

It is recommended to add a password to your newly created user. You can do that by running:

sudo passwd flip

You’ll then be prompted to enter a password then re-enter it for validation.

Congratulations, your new user is now protected with a password 🔐

Setup SSH Access

To be able to login over ssh using the new user we will need to set it up by running the following commands:

mkdir /home/flip/.ssh
sudo cp /root/.ssh/authorized_keys /home/flip/.ssh/authorized_keys
sudo chown -R flip:flip /home/flip/.ssh/
sudo chmod 0700 /home/flip/.ssh/

The commands above do the following:

• mkdir /home/flip/.ssh: creates a new directory called .ssh that holds the SSH config for flip user.
• sudo cp /root/.ssh/authorized_keys /home/flip/.ssh/authorized_keys: copies the public keys whose private keys are allowed to access the machine from the root to flip user.
• sudo chown -R flip:flip /home/flip/.ssh/: changes the ownership of the directory to flip user.
• sudo chmod 0700 /home/flip/.ssh/: changes the permissions of the .ssh directory.

Next time you want to SSH into your server using the user you created, you can run:

ssh flip@<YOUR_SERVER_PUBLIC_IP>

But for now you don’t need to logout in order to switch users, you can do that simply by running:

su - flip

3. Getting the Validator Software

This guide describes how to download and run Chainflip’s validator software.

Download Binaries via APT Repo

Use the following commands to add Chainflip’s APT Repo to your node then use apt install to get the binaries:

Adding Chainflip’s apt Repo

We distribute our binaries as debian packages through our apt repository. To install the packages, you need to add our repo to your apt sources list.

Use the following commands to add Chainflip’s Testnet apt repo to your node:

1. Download Chainflip Testnet GPG key from the Ubuntu Key Server:

gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys BDBC3CF58F623694CD9E3F5CFB3E88547C6B47C6

2. Verify the key’s authenticity:

gpg --export BDBC3CF58F623694CD9E3F5CFB3E88547C6B47C6 | gpg --show-keys

pub   rsa3072 2022-11-08 [SC]
      BDBC3CF58F623694CD9E3F5CFB3E88547C6B47C6
uid                      Chainflip Labs GmbH <dev@chainflip.io>
sub   rsa3072 2022-11-08 [E]

3. Add Chainflip’s Testnet Repo to apt sources list:

gpg --export BDBC3CF58F623694CD9E3F5CFB3E88547C6B47C6 | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/chainflip-perseverance.gpg 1>/dev/null
echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/chainflip-perseverance.gpg] https://repo.chainflip.io/perseverance/jammy jammy main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/chainflip.list

Installing The Packages

To install, run the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y chainflip-cli chainflip-node chainflip-engine

Disable Automatic Updates

Automatic updates are generally a good idea for keeping your system secure and up to date. However, for a Chainflip binaries, it is recommended to disable automatic updates to avoid interrupting operations when an update has breaking changes that need coordination with the rest of the network.

sudo apt-mark hold chainflip-cli chainflip-node chainflip-engine

Downloading Latest Chaindata Snapshot

First, download the latest chaindata snapshot and unpack it to the correct location.

 
sudo mkdir -p /etc/chainflip/chaindata/chains/Chainflip-Perseverance/
 
wget https://snapshots.chainflip.io/perseverance/cf_chaindata_pruned_paritydb.tar.{gz.sha512.asc,gz.sha512,gz}
 
# Verify the snapshot (Optional but recommended)
gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 52535A03E3E0D0F29920EF94927F07FF64652243
 
gpg --verify cf_chaindata_pruned_paritydb.tar.gz.sha512.asc cf_chaindata_pruned_paritydb.tar.gz.sha512
 
sha512sum -c cf_chaindata_pruned_paritydb.tar.gz.sha512
 
sudo tar -xzf ./cf_chaindata_pruned_paritydb.tar.gz -C /etc/chainflip/chaindata/chains/Chainflip-Perseverance/
 
rm -f ./cf_chaindata_pruned_paritydb.tar.{gz.sha512.asc,gz.sha512,gz}

Some of the steps can take a couple of minutes to run, so be patient.

After that, create a systemd override file for the chainflip-node service to use the correct parameters in order for the snapshot to be used.

sudo mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/chainflip-node.service.d && \
sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/chainflip-node.service.d/override.conf > /dev/null <<EOF
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/usr/bin/chainflip-node \\
  --chain /etc/chainflip/perseverance.chainspec.json \\
  --base-path /etc/chainflip/chaindata \\
  --node-key-file /etc/chainflip/keys/node_key_file \\
  --validator \\
  --database=paritydb \\
  --sync=full \\
  --blocks-pruning=300 \\
  --pruning=300
EOF
 
sudo systemctl daemon-reload

4. Generating Validator Keys

Validator nodes take actions on behalf of the Chainflip network, and all of these actions are authorised using cryptographic keys. Specifically, to run a validator node, you will need two private/public key pairs: an Ethereum key pair for interacting with Ethereum, and a Chainflip-native key pair for interacting with the State Chain.

Validator Keys

Generate and save the required keys using the following chainflip-cli command:

sudo chainflip-cli generate-keys --path /etc/chainflip/keys

This should give you an output similar to the following:

Generated fresh Validator keys for your Chainflip Node!
⁣
🔑 Node Public Key: 0x5fc8ea5dd16e0bbc273eedfe5406d548cdbcdaf66fe86a2643bace5045fe2edf
👤 Node Peer ID: 12D3KooWGGGbDdkegvsc1m5vkNppHtXZJqSMNQRH7AKE7cxRuuSe
🔑 Ethereum Public Key: 0x033b48e368ae9069413d443c7a52b1e340c6aa0a8a76aac507d62b5ede51dfa368
👤 Ethereum Address: 0x6b98c154357297d0459ede9e98e586a60bee55c3
🔑 Validator Public Key: 0x685b0a76f54c25e2bf03aa8f69450eb863f2ea23b16e93a2317282485e86a723
👤 Validator Account ID: cFLEJrTKtoHDWbRb1Yc8fqhNrEd2u1WPjUemVXjZQ1THxb5p6
⁣
🌱 Seed Phrase: slender pilot fiber auction junk sting ozone push shop reduce defense stamp
⁣
⁣
❗️❗️
❗️ THIS SEED PHRASE ALLOWS YOU TO RECOVER YOUR CHAINFLIP ACCOUNT KEYS AND ETHEREUM KEYS.
❗️ HOWEVER, THIS SEED PHRASE SHOULD ONLY BE USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THIS UTILITY. NOTABLY,
❗️ IT CANNOT BE USED TO IMPORT YOUR ETHEREUM ADDRESS INTO METAMASK OR ANY OTHER WALLET IMPLEMENTATION.
❗️ THIS IS BY DESIGN: THIS ETHEREUM KEY SHOULD BE USED EXCLUSIVELY BY YOUR CHAINFLIP NODE.
❗️❗️
⁣
⁣
💾 Saved all secret keys to '/etc/chainflip/keys'.

Make sure to back up your Seed Phrase and make a note of the public keys and account ID. You will need the Seed Phrase if you ever need to restore your node or recover your funds if you lose access to the node. DO NOT LOSE THIS.

The seed phrase is the only valid backup, since all other keys are derived from it. Simply backing up the generated key files is NOT a sufficient backup!

If the above command returned any errors, please ensure that the provided —path is accessible and that there are no keys already stored there! For security reasons, the files will not be overwritten automatically, so if you want to replace the stored keys, please make sure to move the old ones first, and back them up somewhere.

Take special note of the Validator Account ID beginning with cF. This is the ID that you will need to add funds and track your node.

Setting Up Your Validator’s Ethereum Account

You must ensure that the public Ethereum address generated above has at least 0.1 sETH. Make sure you send 0.1 sETH to this account’s address before trying to add funds to your validator node. This requirement is subject to change based on Sepolia Ethereum transaction fees but for now should be sufficient.

Update Secret File Permissions

The following commands will ensure that only the current user can read the files, and that the private keys are not available in your shell history:

sudo chmod 600 /etc/chainflip/keys/ethereum_key_file
sudo chmod 600 /etc/chainflip/keys/signing_key_file
sudo chmod 600 /etc/chainflip/keys/node_key_file
history -c

Final Checks

The private keys generated above should have been stored at the path provided to the generate-keys command. As a sanity check, make sure they are where you expect, and have the correct permissions.

Run the following command:

ls -la /etc/chainflip/keys

This should show that there are three freshly created files:

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 14 13:28 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Nov 14 13:38 ..
-rw------- 1 root root   64 Nov 14 13:28 ethereum_key_file
-rw------- 1 root root   64 Nov 14 13:28 node_key_file
-rw------- 1 root root   64 Nov 14 13:28 signing_key_file

Recovering Your Keys

In case you lose access to your keys, you can recover the private keys using the seed phrase. Using the example phrase generated above:

chainflip-cli generate-keys \
    --path /etc/chainflip/keys \
    --seed-phrase 'slender pilot fiber auction junk sting ozone push shop reduce defense stamp'

The output should be the same as above (except the Node Public Key and Node Peer ID), and the keys should be written to the provided path, as above.

5. Engine Settings

We need to create the engine config file.

sudo mkdir -p /etc/chainflip/config
sudo nano /etc/chainflip/config/Settings.toml

Editing the Config

Copy the following to your nano editor. You also need to replace IP_ADDRESS_OF_YOUR_NODE with the public IP Address of your server. To get the public IP of your node you can run this command: curl -w "\n" ifconfig.me.

Also you’ll need to provide the eth.rpc.ws_endpoint, eth.rpc.http_endpoint, arb.rpc.ws_endpoint, and arb.rpc.http_endpoint for whichever Ethereum client and Arbitrum client you’ve selected. It will look different depending on which client you select:

If you use a hosted RPC provider such as Alchemy, Infura, or Rivet, create a Sepolia app for Ethereum and an Arbitrum Sepolia app for Arbitrum in that provider’s dashboard, then copy the HTTPS and WebSocket URLs it gives you.

Ethereum

• Rivet - wss://SOME_LONG_SECRET_INFORMATION.sepolia.ws.rivet.cloud
• Infura - wss://sepolia.infura.io/ws/v3/SOME_LONG_SECRET_INFORMATION
• Alchemy - wss://eth-sepolia.g.alchemy.com/v2/SOME_LONG_SECRET_INFORMATION

Arbitrum

• Infura - wss://arbitrum-sepolia.infura.io/ws/v3/SOME_LONG_SECRET_INFORMATION
• Alchemy - wss://arb-mainnet.g.alchemy.com/v2/SOME_LONG_SECRET_INFORMATION

[node_p2p]
node_key_file = "/etc/chainflip/keys/node_key_file"
ip_address = "PUBLIC_IP_ADDRESS_OF_YOUR_NODE"
port = "8078"
 
[state_chain]
ws_endpoint = "ws://127.0.0.1:9944"
signing_key_file = "/etc/chainflip/keys/signing_key_file"
 
[eth]
# Ethereum private key file path. This file should contain a hex-encoded private key.
private_key_file = "/etc/chainflip/keys/ethereum_key_file"
 
[eth.rpc]
# Replace these example values with your own endpoints.
ws_endpoint = "wss://my_local_eth_node:8546"
http_endpoint = "https://my_local_eth_node:8545"
 
# Optional
# [eth.backup_rpc]
# ws_endpoint = "wss://some_public_rpc.com:443/<secret_access_key>"
# http_endpoint = "https://some_public_rpc.com:443/<secret_access_key>"
 
[dot.rpc]
ws_endpoint = "wss://rpc-pdot.chainflip.io:443"
http_endpoint = "https://rpc-pdot.chainflip.io:443"
 
[btc.rpc]
basic_auth_user = "flip"
basic_auth_password = "flip"
http_endpoint = "http://my_local_btc_node:8332"
 
# Optional (an RPC that doesn't require basic auth)
# [btc.backup_rpc]
# basic_auth_user = ""
# basic_auth_password = ""
# http_endpoint = "https://my_btc_rpc_backup.someotherprovider.xyz"
 
[arb]
# Arbitrum private key file path. This file should contain a hex-encoded private key.
# Note: Here we use the same private key file as Ethereum. You can use a different key if you want.
private_key_file = "/etc/chainflip/keys/ethereum_key_file"
 
[arb.rpc]
# Replace these example values with your own endpoints.
ws_endpoint = "ws://my_local_arbitrum_node:8548"
http_endpoint = "http://my_local_arbitrum_node:8547"
 
# optional
#[arb.backup_rpc]
#ws_endpoint = "ws://my_arbitrum_node_backup.someprovider/<secret_access_key>"
#http_endpoint = "http://my_arbitrum_node_backup.someprovider/<secret_access_key>"
 
[sol.rpc]
http_endpoint = "http://my_solana_rpc.someprovider:443"
 
#optional
#[sol.backup_rpc]
#http_endpoint = "http://my_solana_rpc_backup.someprovider:443"
 
# Chainflip runs its own testnet AssetHub network. So use these endpoints for AssetHub.
[hub.rpc]
ws_endpoint = "wss://assethub.perseverance.chainflip.io:443"
http_endpoint = "https://assethub.perseverance.chainflip.io:443"
 
# optional
#[logging]
# command_server_port = 36079 # default if these settings are not set
# span_lifecycle = false # default
 
# Optional
# [signing]
# db_file = "/etc/chainflip/data.db"

Pointing to the Ethereum Client

If you followed the instructions in Prerequisites, you will probably have an account with an Ethereum RPC provider (Alchemy, Infura, Rivet, etc.). You must change the eth.rpc.ws_endpoint and eth.rpc.http_endpoint in the above file to RPC URLs given to you by these services. You must have both a Websocket (wss) and HTTPS connection in order for the software to function.

You can try other node connections as well. Geth with an open websocket server enabled  will accept connections through port 8546 by default. If it’s running on the same machine as your validator, you can use [ws|http]://127.0.0.1:854[6|5]

Pointing to the Arbitrum Client

If you followed the instructions in Prerequisites, you will probably have an account with an Arbitrum RPC provider (Alchemy, Infura, Rivet, etc.). You must change the arb.rpc.ws_endpoint and arb.rpc.http_endpoint in the above file to RPC URLs given to you by these services. You must have both a Websocket (wss) and HTTPS connection in order for the software to function.

Saving the File

Once you’re happy with your configuration file and have inserted a valid endpoint address, exit and save the file by using CTRL(Control)+x and when prompted type Y then hit Enter.

6. Start the Validator

For a validator to be up you need to start both the node and the engine:

Starting the node

To start the chainflip-node, run the following command.

sudo systemctl start chainflip-node

To check on the service, we use status.

systemctl status chainflip-node

At this point, you will need to wait for your node to catch up with the latest block. You can find the latest block on our Block Explorer. 

With the snapshot, this usually takes minutes rather than hours. Your node is close to synced when the block number in your logs is close to the latest block on the explorer and the rapid catch-up messages slow down.

To view the live logs for the validator software, check on them via journalctl. You can quit at anytime using ctrl/control + c

Check the Node:

journalctl -f -u chainflip-node.service

At the start, you should see that your node is synchronising to the network, something like this:

2023-03-24 08:21:30 💻 Memory: 7957MB
2023-03-24 08:21:30 💻 Kernel: 5.4.0-122-generic
2023-03-24 08:21:30 💻 Linux distribution: Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS
2023-03-24 08:21:30 💻 Virtual machine: yes
2023-03-24 08:21:30 📦 Highest known block at #0
2023-03-24 08:21:30 〽️ Prometheus exporter started at 127.0.0.1:9615
2023-03-24 08:21:30 Running JSON-RPC HTTP server: addr=127.0.0.1:9933, allowed origins=Some(["http://localhost:*", "http://127.0.0.1:*", "https://localhost:*", "https://127.0.0.1:*", "https://polkadot.js.org"])
2023-03-24 08:21:30 Running JSON-RPC WS server: addr=127.0.0.1:9944, allowed origins=Some(["http://localhost:*", "http://127.0.0.1:*", "https://localhost:*", "https://127.0.0.1:*", "https://polkadot.js.org"])
2023-03-24 08:21:30 🔍 Discovered new external address for our node: /ip4/178.128.36.211/tcp/30333/p2p/12D3KooWMDs3oyT2YpQw88V7TdmN1dJa73D1jrfQorLaBovh7Kim
2023-03-24 08:21:35 ⏩ Warping, Downloading finality proofs, 7.99 Mib (10 peers), best: #0 (0x2d00…c9b3), finalized #0 (0x2d00…c9b3), ⬇ 1.6MiB/s ⬆ 27.8kiB/s
2023-03-24 08:21:40 ⏩ Warping, Downloading finality proofs, 15.97 Mib (14 peers), best: #0 (0x2d00…c9b3), finalized #0 (0x2d00…c9b3), ⬇ 1.7MiB/s ⬆ 25.8kiB/s
2023-03-24 08:21:45 ⏩ Warping, Downloading state, 40.83 Mib (15 peers), best: #0 (0x2d00…c9b3), finalized #0 (0x2d00…c9b3), ⬇ 3.5MiB/s ⬆ 14.0kiB/s
2023-03-24 08:21:50 ⏩ Warping, Importing state, 58.00 Mib (15 peers), best: #0 (0x2d00…c9b3), finalized #0 (0x2d00…c9b3), ⬇ 2.0MiB/s ⬆ 3.1kiB/s
2023-03-24 08:21:54 Unable to author block in slot. No best block header: Chain lookup failed: Failed to get header for hash 0x0cdb…b083
2023-03-24 08:21:55 ⏩ Warping, Importing state, 58.00 Mib (15 peers), best: #1913239 (0x5b6b…c1b3), finalized #1913239 (0x5b6b…c1b3), ⬇ 9.3kiB/s ⬆ 1.3kiB/s
2023-03-24 08:21:56 Warp sync is complete (57 MiB), restarting block sync.
2023-03-24 08:21:57 ✨ Imported #1913240 (0xa922…5e2e)
2023-03-24 08:21:57 ✨ Imported #1913241 (0x3a15…012e)
2023-03-24 08:21:57 ✨ Imported #1913242 (0x0ceb…c1f8)
2023-03-24 08:21:57 ✨ Imported #1913243 (0xec83…ca57)
2023-03-24 08:21:57 ✨ Imported #1913244 (0x52c0…6594)
2023-03-24 08:22:00 ⏩ Block history, #4480 (11 peers), best: #1913244 (0x52c0…6594), finalized #1913242 (0x0ceb…c1f8), ⬇ 1.6MiB/s ⬆ 110.4kiB/s
2023-03-24 08:22:00 ✨ Imported #1913245 (0xd0b4…45a0)
2023-03-24 08:22:05 ⏩ Block history, #9152 (11 peers), best: #1913245 (0xd0b4…45a0), finalized #1913243 (0xec83…ca57), ⬇ 859.4kiB/s ⬆ 111.2kiB/s
2023-03-24 08:22:06 ✨ Imported #1913246 (0x93ad…15cd)
2023-03-24 08:22:10 ⏩ Block history, #11840 (11 peers), best: #1913246 (0x93ad…15cd), finalized #1913244 (0x52c0…6594), ⬇ 1.1MiB/s ⬆ 146.3kiB/s
2023-03-24 08:22:12 ✨ Imported #1913247 (0x1e1c…70df)
2023-03-24 08:22:15 ⏩ Block history, #19392 (11 peers), best: #1913247 (0x1e1c…70df), finalized #1913245 (0xd0b4…45a0), ⬇ 2.1MiB/s ⬆ 150.5kiB/s
2023-03-24 08:22:18 ✨ Imported #1913248 (0xbb74…9178)
2023-03-24 08:22:20 ⏩ Block history, #28800 (11 peers), best: #1913248 (0xbb74…9178), finalized #1913246 (0x93ad…15cd), ⬇ 2.9MiB/s ⬆ 169.1kiB/s
2023-03-24 08:22:24 ✨ Imported #1913249 (0xb062…b457)
2023-03-24 08:22:25 ⏩ Block history, #36288 (11 peers), best: #1913249 (0xb062…b457), finalized #1913246 (0x93ad…15cd), ⬇ 2.4MiB/s ⬆ 226.4kiB/s
2023-03-24 08:22:30 ⏩ Block history, #41088 (11 peers), best: #1913249 (0xb062…b457), finalized #1913247 (0x1e1c…70df), ⬇ 1.6MiB/s ⬆ 100.5kiB/s
2023-03-24 08:22:30 ✨ Imported #1913250 (0x4bc1…8362)
2023-03-24 08:22:35 ⏩ Block history, #43200 (11 peers), best: #1913250 (0x4bc1…8362), finalized #1913248 (0xbb74…9178), ⬇ 330.6kiB/s ⬆ 145.2kiB/s

Starting the Engine

To start the chainflip-engine, we issue another command.

sudo systemctl start chainflip-engine

To check on the service, we use status.

systemctl status chainflip-engine

Check the engine logs:

journalctl -f -u chainflip-engine.service

You should see some output that looks like this:

 
                         ██████╗██╗  ██╗ █████╗ ██╗███╗   ██╗███████╗██╗     ██╗██████╗
                        ██╔════╝██║  ██║██╔══██╗██║████╗  ██║██╔════╝██║     ██║██╔══██╗
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Your Chainflip account  is not funded. Note, it may take some time for your funds to be detected. WAITING for your account to be funded at block: 1

In the next section, you’ll learn how to fund your node. After you do so the warnings should stop and the output will look something like this:

{"tag":"","msg":"Processing SC block 3591 with block hash: 0xe3ba3f20dc6d6d5956a88e5fcae06cdbb5c9cbf486a8db50cc5a1403bb4f0446","level":"debug","ts":"2022-11-08T15:56:13.652392888+00:00","component":"SCObserver"} {"tag":"","msg":"Processing SC block 3592 with block hash: 0x34155ced75831f45b17af9a792e057eabe148428b450ece4408f546342343669","level":"debug","ts":"2022-11-08T15:56:19.052722257+00:00","component":"SCObserver"} {"tag":"","msg":"Processing SC block 3593 with block hash: 0x50fdbb6ad0657f0d818e783330d697186d649e793046c7f67f8120559243b5d6","level":"debug","ts":"2022-11-08T15:56:25.782233200+00:00","component":"SCObserver"} {"tag":"","msg":"Processing SC block 3594 with block hash: 0xb878309015b27f7b8bc19c67ff5774841d44d9ed4ce189ebd5df32d0a90e5ae5","level":"debug","ts":"2022-11-08T15:56:31.181866542+00:00","component":"SCObserver"} {"tag":"","msg":"Processing SC block 3595 with block hash: 0xa047c1f10f595cd73148aa4866a40edb3da87ddd13ae03351c19a8d677cb99ec","level":"debug","ts":"2022-11-08T15:56:37.890330488+00:00","component":"SCObserver"} {"tag":"","msg":"Processing SC block 3596 with block hash: 0xaecccf0842c7253bbbc736baa86cebc07d5e6dc6b5b95e73d1ace73e5552fcfd","level":"debug","ts":"2022-11-08T15:56:43.274036666+00:00","component":"SCObserver"} {"tag":"","msg":"Processing SC block 3597 with block hash: 0xc4218c16ed3f6745433ec4b50dde94cb3b1a917ee8ddc35f17dc4e956380a787","level":"debug","ts":"2022-11-08T15:56:50.015185019+00:00","component":"SCObserver"} {"tag":"","msg":"Processing SC block 3598 with block hash: 0x3a79dc208b48276e7b734da0c8702f817d1a435476d09cbd972f09d3e5786851","level":"debug","ts":"2022-11-08T15:56:55.406457068+00:00","component":"SCObserver"} {"tag":"","msg":"Processing SC block 3599 with block hash: 0x49a53aa5f42190e5dc38d2e44d96235c656eec4101edd7fb26869466635216c3","level":"debug","ts":"2022-11-08T15:57:00.797006133+00:00","component":"SCObserver"}

Enable systemd Services

Tell both the services to start again after a reboot:

sudo systemctl enable chainflip-node

sudo systemctl enable chainflip-engine

Next Step

At this point you should have:

• a synced or syncing node
• a generated Validator Account ID
• a validator Ethereum wallet with enough sETH to pay gas fees
• both chainflip-node and chainflip-engine running

Next, continue to Funding and Activation on Testnet to fund the validator, register its role, generate session keys, and start bidding.