Setting up a Celestia validator node ​

This tutorial will guide you through setting up a validator node on Celestia. Validator nodes allow you to participate in consensus in the Celestia network.

Hardware requirements ​

The following hardware minimum requirements are recommended for running a validator node:

• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• CPU: 6 cores
• Disk: 500 GB SSD Storage
• Bandwidth: 1 Gbps for Download/1 Gbps for Upload

Setting up a validator node ​

The following tutorial is done on an Ubuntu Linux 20.04 (LTS) x64 instance machine.

First, follow the instructions on setting up a full consensus node.

Wallet ​

Follow the tutorial on creating a wallet.

Delegate stake to a validator ​

Create an environment variable for the address:

VALIDATOR_WALLET=<validator-wallet-name>

VALIDATOR_WALLET=<validator-wallet-name>

If you want to delegate more stake to any validator, including your own you will need the celesvaloper address of the validator in question. You can run the command below to get the celesvaloper of your local validator wallet in case you want to delegate more to it:

celestia-appd keys show $VALIDATOR_WALLET --bech val -a

celestia-appd keys show $VALIDATOR_WALLET --bech val -a

After entering the wallet passphrase you should see a similar output:

Enter keyring passphrase:
celesvaloper1q3v5cugc8cdpud87u4zwy0a74uxkk6u43cv6hd

Enter keyring passphrase:
celesvaloper1q3v5cugc8cdpud87u4zwy0a74uxkk6u43cv6hd

To delegate tokens to the celestiavaloper validator, as an example you can run:

celestia-appd tx staking delegate \
celestiavaloper1q3v5cugc8cdpud87u4zwy0a74uxkk6u4q4gx4p 1000000utia \
--from=$VALIDATOR_WALLET --chain-id=mocha-4 \
--fees=21000utia

celestia-appd tx staking delegate \
celestiavaloper1q3v5cugc8cdpud87u4zwy0a74uxkk6u4q4gx4p 1000000utia \
--from=$VALIDATOR_WALLET --chain-id=mocha-4 \
--fees=21000utia

If successful, you should see a similar output as:

code: 0
codespace: ""
data: ""
gas_used: "0"
gas_wanted: "0"
height: "0"
info: ""
logs: []
raw_log: '[]'
timestamp: ""
tx: null
txhash: <tx-hash>

code: 0
codespace: ""
data: ""
gas_used: "0"
gas_wanted: "0"
height: "0"
info: ""
logs: []
raw_log: '[]'
timestamp: ""
tx: null
txhash: <tx-hash>

You can check if the TX hash went through using the block explorer by inputting the txhash ID that was returned.

Optional: Deploy the celestia-node ​

Running a bridge node is critical to the Celestia network as it enables the data availability and consensus nodes to communicate with one another. It is recommended to support the data availability network, but is not required for celestia-app.

If you are not running a bridge node, you can skip to run a validator node.

This section describes part 2 of Celestia validator node setup: running a Celestia bridge node daemon.

Install celestia-node ​

You can follow the tutorial for installing celestia-node

Initialize the bridge node ​

Run the following:

celestia bridge init --core.ip <URI>

celestia bridge init --core.ip <URI>

If you need a list of RPC endpoints to connect to, you can find the list on the Mocha testnet page or list on the Arabica devnet page.

Run the bridge node ​

Run the following:

celestia bridge start

celestia bridge start

Optional: start the bridge node with SystemD ​

Follow the tutorial on setting up the bridge node as a background process with SystemD.

You have successfully set up a bridge node that is syncing with the network.

Run the validator node ​

In order to start your validator node, run the following:

celestia-appd start

celestia-appd start

After completing all the necessary steps, you are now ready to run a validator! In order to create your validator onchain, follow the instructions below. Keep in mind that these steps are necessary ONLY if you want to participate in the consensus.

Pick a moniker name of your choice! This is the validator name that will show up on public dashboards and explorers. VALIDATOR_WALLET must be the same you defined previously. Parameter --min-self-delegation=1000000 defines the amount of tokens that are self delegated from your validator wallet.

Now, connect to the network of your choice.

You have the following option of connecting to list of networks shown below:

Continuing the validator tutorial, here are the steps to connect your validator to Mocha:

MONIKER="your_moniker"
VALIDATOR_WALLET="validator"

celestia-appd tx staking create-validator \
    --amount=1000000utia \
    --pubkey=$(celestia-appd tendermint show-validator) \
    --moniker=$MONIKER \
    --chain-id=mocha-4 \
    --commission-rate=0.1 \
    --commission-max-rate=0.2 \
    --commission-max-change-rate=0.01 \
    --min-self-delegation=1000000 \
    --from=$VALIDATOR_WALLET \
    --keyring-backend=test \
    --fees=21000utia \
    --gas=220000

MONIKER="your_moniker"
VALIDATOR_WALLET="validator"

celestia-appd tx staking create-validator \
    --amount=1000000utia \
    --pubkey=$(celestia-appd tendermint show-validator) \
    --moniker=$MONIKER \
    --chain-id=mocha-4 \
    --commission-rate=0.1 \
    --commission-max-rate=0.2 \
    --commission-max-change-rate=0.01 \
    --min-self-delegation=1000000 \
    --from=$VALIDATOR_WALLET \
    --keyring-backend=test \
    --fees=21000utia \
    --gas=220000

You will be prompted to confirm the transaction:

confirm transaction before signing and broadcasting [y/N]: y

confirm transaction before signing and broadcasting [y/N]: y

Inputting y should provide an output similar to:

code: 0
codespace: ""
data: ""
gas_used: "0"
gas_wanted: "0"
height: "0"
info: ""
logs: []
raw_log: '[]'
timestamp: ""
tx: null
txhash: <tx-hash>

code: 0
codespace: ""
data: ""
gas_used: "0"
gas_wanted: "0"
height: "0"
info: ""
logs: []
raw_log: '[]'
timestamp: ""
tx: null
txhash: <tx-hash>

You should now be able to see your validator from a block explorer

Submit your validator information ​

After starting your node, please submit your node as a seed and peer to the networks repository.

Optional: Transaction indexer configuration options ​

Follow the instructions under transaction indexer configuration options to configure your config.toml file to select which transactions to index.

Additional resources ​

For additional resources, refer to the extra resources for consensus nodessection of the full consensus node page .