Over the past weeks we have seen some nodes that do not receive records. On further inspection, it seemed like peers of such nodes didn’t add them to their routing table. In essence this means those nodes aren’t seen as part of the network, but function like clients.
When a new node connects to its peers, those peers have to make sure that the new node is actually reachable. A connection from A to B differs from a connection from B to A, which is because of the wonderful world of firewalls, routers and TCP ports. So, with an incoming connection we need to try and establish an outgoing connection. And that’s what we do in this testnet.
Objective
Ascertain if we still see nodes idling with zero records.
Network Details
Node version: 0.88.52
Client version: 0.80.63
Faucet url: 178.128.45.252:8000
SAFE_PEERS: /ip4/178.128.45.252/tcp/32923/p2p/12D3KooWRokYkFYg698Wk1fm7RcDGj4tJ9dsdgDx6FgSypuhm8Pm
Alternatives:
"/ip4/165.232.188.170/tcp/41281/p2p/12D3KooWLaZxUymK1NHYcRs8J8sXkeH5LP13mbKHB2zJVdcv3mMz"
"/ip4/139.59.254.28/tcp/39857/p2p/12D3KooWHd2ijijZi53Si2n8eetZH9uXauqC13oha5wYPSttaHx2"
"/ip4/143.244.180.50/tcp/36087/p2p/12D3KooWLt3JqunUVN7SVYhg8q1L4yfExzc13wguKTUnQCcmek5i"
"/ip4/167.99.113.190/tcp/44125/p2p/12D3KooWN6QXZsS9QDsozHNnZMcta4FTiQg14ESbN5V3X17xZ3so"
"/ip4/146.190.148.23/tcp/43777/p2p/12D3KooWGpNDhDNyDyzMppTZP7b4JxQMya315vVrLLZaCnsytXpb"
"/ip4/68.183.145.79/tcp/43367/p2p/12D3KooWAXG7k3D1cxy8eZXdh2HgwkpUoQ7816RKK68YXVK2z72Y"
"/ip4/159.65.192.121/tcp/36285/p2p/12D3KooWH8t3GfKY3LZhg5wzb5x5vXyQepX1DG5UFPMdJfGk7QUh"
"/ip4/167.99.68.228/tcp/45415/p2p/12D3KooWNzKi3djwB9tXLjMm9EdskadS1P6j1E6RtQPtXYvxn7nc"
"/ip4/165.227.105.154/tcp/36355/p2p/12D3KooWAshU9LVKcgKiu1TSh2ehDz1q8d1FAJ7n5pvtbBPNZL7w"
We have 100 droplets running a total of 2001 nodes. One droplet has 2vcpu and 4GB of memory.
If you are a regular user, see the ‘quickstart’ section for getting up and running.
If you are a first-time user, or would like more information, see the ‘further information’ section.
Quickstart
If you already have safeup, you can obtain the client and node binaries:
safeup client --version 0.80.63
safeup node --version 0.88.52
Run a Node
Linux/macOS:
export SAFE_PEERS="/ip4/178.128.45.252/tcp/32923/p2p/12D3KooWRokYkFYg698Wk1fm7RcDGj4tJ9dsdgDx6FgSypuhm8Pm"
SN_LOG=all safenode
Windows:
$env:SAFE_PEERS = "/ip4/178.128.45.252/tcp/32923/p2p/12D3KooWRokYkFYg698Wk1fm7RcDGj4tJ9dsdgDx6FgSypuhm8Pm"
$env:SN_LOG = "all"; safenode
Connect to the Network
Linux/macOS:
export SAFE_PEERS="/ip4/178.128.45.252/tcp/32923/p2p/12D3KooWRokYkFYg698Wk1fm7RcDGj4tJ9dsdgDx6FgSypuhm8Pm"
safe wallet get-faucet 178.128.45.252:8000
safe files upload <directory-path>
Windows:
$env:SAFE_PEERS = "/ip4/178.128.45.252/tcp/32923/p2p/12D3KooWRokYkFYg698Wk1fm7RcDGj4tJ9dsdgDx6FgSypuhm8Pm"
safe wallet get-faucet 178.128.45.252:8000
safe files upload <directory-path>
Further Information
You can participate in the testnet either by connecting as a client or running your own node.
Connecting as a client requires the safe client binary; running a node requires the safenode binary.
Obtaining Binaries
We have a tool named safeup which is intended to make it easy to obtain the client, node, and other utility binaries.
Installing Safeup
On Linux/macOS, run the following command in your terminal:
curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/maidsafe/safeup/main/install.sh | bash
On Windows, run the following command in a Powershell session (be careful to use Powershell, not cmd.exe):
iex (Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/maidsafe/safeup/main/install.ps1")
On either platform, you may need to restart your shell session for safeup to become available.
Installing Binaries
After obtaining safeup, you can install binaries like so:
safeup client --version 0.80.63 # get a specific version
safeup node --version 0.88.52 # get a specific version
When participating in our testnets, it is recommended to use a specific version. In our project we release a new version of the binaries every time we merge new code. This happens frequently, so over the lifetime of a testnet, many new releases will probably occur. So for participating in this particular testnet, you may not want the latest version.
The binaries are installed to ~/.local/bin on Linux and macOS, and on Windows they go to C:\Users\<username>\safe. Windows doesn’t really have a standard location for binaries that doesn’t require elevated privileges.
The safeup tool will modify the PATH variable on Linux/macOS, or the user Path variable on Windows. The effect of this is that the installed binaries will then become available in your shell without having to refer to them with their full paths. However, if you’re installing for the first time, you may need to start a new shell session for this change to be picked up.
Running a Node
You can participate in the testnet by running your own node. At the moment, you may not be successful if you’re running the node from your home machine. This is a situation we are working on. If you run from a cloud provider like Digital Ocean or AWS, you should be able to participate.
You can run the node process like so:
# Linux/macOS
SN_LOG=all safenode
# Windows
$env:SN_LOG = "all"; safenode
This will output all the logs in the terminal.
Sometimes it will be preferable to output the logs to file. You can do this by running the node like so:
# Linux/macOS
SN_LOG=all safenode --log-output-dest data-dir
# Windows
$env:SN_LOG = "all"; safenode --log-output-dest data-dir
The location of data-dir is platform specific:
# Linux
~/.local/share/safe/node/<peer id>/logs
# macOS
/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/safe/node/<peer id>/logs
# Windows
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\safe\node\<peer-id>\logs
If you wish, you can also provide your own path:
# Linux/macOS
SN_LOG=all safenode --log-output-dest <path>
# Windows
$env:SN_LOG = "all"; safenode --log-output-dest <path>
The advantage of using the predefined data-dir location is you can run multiple nodes on one machine without having to specify your own unique path for each node and manage that overhead yourself.
Connecting as a Client
You can use the safe client binary to connect as a client and upload or download files to/from the network.
To connect, you must provide another peer, in the form of a multi address. You can find one in the ‘Network Details’ section at the top.
It is recommended to set the peer using the environment variable SAFE_PEERS. You can set this variable once and it will apply for the duration of your shell session:
# Linux/macOS
export SAFE_PEERS="/ip4/178.128.45.252/tcp/32923/p2p/12D3KooWRokYkFYg698Wk1fm7RcDGj4tJ9dsdgDx6FgSypuhm8Pm"
# Windows
$env:SAFE_PEERS = "/ip4/178.128.45.252/tcp/32923/p2p/12D3KooWRokYkFYg698Wk1fm7RcDGj4tJ9dsdgDx6FgSypuhm8Pm"
NOTE: If you close and/or start a new shell session, you will be required to redefine this environment variable in the new session.
As an alternative to the environment variable, it’s also possible to use the --peer argument:
safe --peer="/ip4/178.128.45.252/tcp/32923/p2p/12D3KooWRokYkFYg698Wk1fm7RcDGj4tJ9dsdgDx6FgSypuhm8Pm" ...
However, this requires specifying the peer with each command.
Using the Client
You’ll first need to get some Safe Network Tokens:
safe wallet get-faucet 178.128.45.252:8000
You can now proceed to use the client, by, e.g., uploading files:
safe files upload <directory-path>
To download that same content:
safe files download
This will download the files to the default location, which is platform specific:
# Linux
~/.local/share/safe/client/downloaded_files
# macOS
/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/safe/client/downloaded_files
# Windows
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\safe\client\downloaded_files
To download to a particular file or directory:
safe file download [directory/filename] [XORURL]
Troubleshooting
Cleanup
If you’ve used previous versions of the network before and you find problems when running commands, you may want to consider clearing out previous data (worthless DBCs from previous runs, old logs, old keys, etc.).
# Linux
rm -rf ~/.local/share/safe
# macOS
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/safe
# Windows
rmdir /s C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\safe
If you encounter a problem running any of our binaries on Windows, it’s possible you need the Visual C++ Redistributable installed.
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