Validator

Become a Setheum validator and help secure the future of the Setheum network
Who is this for?
Becoming a Validator is a serious responsibility that requires strong technical skills and quick problem solving ability as the baseline. Validators are elected by Nominators, so strong communication skills and ecosystem contributions are a good traits as well.
Validators’s core responsibility is reliable block production. However in practice becoming a validator is a highly competitive game, and as a result Validators may also provide additional services to the community, such as:
host Setheum blockchain bootnodes
host fast sync block import/export infrastructure
develop and maintain DevOps tooling
develop and maintain security tooling
develop and maintain block explorers, RPC nodes, SQL indexers and other public good infrastructure
Become a validator
This guide only covers setting up the validator node, however there is a lot more to being a validator than running a node.
Start a Validator Node
Here is the sample command for spinning up a --validator node on the Setheum Mainnet.
./target/release/setheum-node \
  --validator \
  --chain mainnet \
  --base-path ./setheum/validator \
  --execution=wasm \
  --port 30333 \
  --ws-port 9944 \
  --rpc-port 9933 \
  --rpc-methods Unsafe \
  --no-mdns \
  --no-private-ipv4 \
  --no-prometheus \
  --no-telemetry \
  --name MyValidatorNode
Note the --rpc-methods Unsafe flag. This flag is necessary to enable key management endpoints for validator setup, however it should be omitted once the validator is configured (see systemd snippet below). Do not expose wallet rpc endpoints to the public internet. You are solely responsible for adequate operational security.
Setup the session keys
🔥 Make sure to only execute the author_* commands against a secure RPC node that you own. Failure to do so may result in loss of funds.
There are 2 options for setting the session keys:
1.) Let the node generate the keys via author_rotateKeys (recommended)
2.) Generate them offline and submit via author_setKeys
Option 1: Generating the keys within node
Generating the session keys (or rotating the keys) can be done by calling the author_rotateKeys RPC method.
curl http://localhost:9933 -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d \
  '{"id":1, "jsonrpc":"2.0", "method": "author_rotateKeys", "params":[]}'
The result will be hex encoded:
{'jsonrpc': '2.0',
 'result': '0x4e0f43d7196b342b86c634ce6b1797e49e4ba5f01763324f2c9960ea33899561de3a616370becc71cb01775dc938f69d17b1ee0a4fd1689ede79c107f24b224c',
 'id': 7}
The result needs to be submitted as session.setKeys(keys, proof) extrinsic call from the controller account. See bonding section below.
example
⚠️The validator node will need to be restarted after setting or changing GRANDPA keys.
Option 2: Inserting existing authoring keys
This is useful if our authoring keys have been generated via keypair tool. Note that the GRANDPA keys are ED25519, while the rest are SR25519.
We can then submit the seed+key derivation paths (suri) and the corresponding AccountId’s for all session keys via RPC:
curl http://localhost:9933 -H "Content-Type:application/json;charset=utf-8" -d \
  '{ "jsonrpc":"2.0", "id":1, "method":"author_insertKey", "params": [ "babe", "seed//babe", "0x..." ] }'
​
curl http://localhost:9933 -H "Content-Type:application/json;charset=utf-8" -d \
  '{ "jsonrpc":"2.0", "id":1, "method":"author_insertKey", "params": [ "babe", "seed//grandpa", "0x..." ] }'
​
curl http://localhost:9933 -H "Content-Type:application/json;charset=utf-8" -d \
  '{ "jsonrpc":"2.0", "id":1, "method":"author_insertKey", "params": [ "imon", "seed//im-online", "0x..." ] }'
​
curl http://localhost:9933 -H "Content-Type:application/json;charset=utf-8" -d \
  '{ "jsonrpc":"2.0", "id":1, "method":"author_insertKey", "params": [ "audi", "seed//authority-discovery", "0x..." ] }'
⚠️The validator node will need to be restarted after setting or changing GRANDPA keys.
Optional: Systemd service
To automatically start the Setheum Validator node on boot, you can create a systemd service from the following template:
[Unit]
Description=Setheum Validator
​
[Service]
ExecStart=/bin/setheum-node --base-path /setheum/validator --validator --chain mainnet --execution=wasm --port 30333 --no-private-ipv4 --no-mdns --no-prometheus --no-telemetry --name MyValidatorNode
Restart=always
RestartSec=120
​
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Make sure to configure the --base-path and the sentry nodes if you have them (recommended).
Bonding
This step is the same as when bonding as Nominators.
Note: The controller account set via staking.bond should be used to make the session.setKeys and session.validate calls as well.
Validating
The last step is to signal that we want to become a validator. This is done by calling session.validate(ValidatorPreferences).
validating
💡To withdraw your validator commitment simply call session.chill(). It will take effect in the next era.
Congratulations, you are now a candidate validator. To become elected as a Validator you will need to get Nominator’s support and win the elections. Good luck!
Identity
To make yourself identifiable to the Setheum community you can set on-chain identity for your address. The identity consists of display name, as well as socials (website, twitter, etc).
The easiest way to set the idenitity is via the console.
After you’ve set the on-chain idenity, call identity.requestJudgement(). The identities are currently verified by the Sudo registrar. To complete the “KYC” and get your identitiy approved by the registrar, please write an email to [email protected] and/or [email protected].
Note: “Sudo”  registrar is only available for current and prospecting validators, as well as projects deploying on Setheum chain. The registrar is not available for verifying regular accounts for “KYC” purposes but for important community participants.
Last modified 1yr ago