This article will provide a step-by-step tutorial for setting up a server and getting started as a validator on the BitSong Network testnet. You can view the code and see the latest release at our GitHub.

Getting Started

First off, you’ll need to setup a server. Having a dedicated server helps ensure that your validator is highly available and doesn’t go offline. BitSong Network uses Tendermint consensus, which selects a leader for each block. If your validator is offline when it gets chosen as a leader, consensus will take longer, and you could even get slashed!

For this guide, we’ll be using a server with the following specifications:

Ubuntu 18.04 OS

2 CPUs

4GB RAM

24GB SSD

Allow incoming connections on ports 26656

Static IP address (Elastic IP for AWS, floating IP for DigitalOcean, etc)

You can get a server with these specifications on most cloud service providers (AWS, DigitalOcean, Google Cloud Platform, Linode, etc).

After logging into your server, we’ll install security updates and the required packages to run BitSong:

# Update Ubuntu

sudo apt update # Installs packages necessary to run go

sudo apt upgrade -y

sudo apt install build-essential libleveldb1v5 git unzip -y

wget

sudo tar -xvf go1.12.5.linux-amd64.tar.gz

sudo mv go /usr/local # Installs gosudo apt install build-essential libleveldb1v5 git unzip -ywget https://dl.google.com/go/go1.12.5.linux-amd64.tar.gz sudo tar -xvf go1.12.5.linux-amd64.tar.gzsudo mv go /usr/local # Updates environmental variables to include go

cat <<EOF >> ~/.profile

export GOPATH=$HOME/go

export GO111MODULE=on

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin:$HOME/go/bin

EOF source ~/.profile

To verify that go is installed:

# Should return go version go1.12.5 linux/amd64

go version

Install the Go-BitSong daemon

Next, we’ll install the software needed to run the BitSong blockchain.

First, create your own fork so that you can submit a genesis transaction pull request if necessary. Head over to GitHub and click “Fork.”

# Clone your repository

git clone https://github.com/<YOUR-USERNAME>/go-bitsong.git # install binaries

cd go-bitsong

make install

Now, we’ll setup the bitsongd software to run the current BitSong testnet:

# Replace <your-moniker> with the publicly viewable name for your validator.

# bitsong-testnet-1 is the name of the current testnet bitsongd init --chain-id bitsong-testnet-1 <your-moniker>

Note: bitsongd init sets the node-id of your validator. You can see this value by doing bitsongd tendermint show-node-id . The node-id value will become part of your genesis transaction, so if you are planning on submitting a genesis transaction, don’t reset your node-id by doing bitsongd unsafe-reset-all or changing your public IP address.

# Create a wallet for your node. <your-wallet-name> is just a human readable name you can use to remember your wallet. It can be the same or different than your moniker. bitsongcli keys add <your_wallet_name>

This will spit out your recovery mnemonic. Be sure to back up your mnemonic before proceeding to the next step!

Submit a genesis transaction

If you are planning on participating in the genesis of the BitSong testnet, you can follow along here and create a genesis transaction that you can submit as a pull request before launch. Otherwise, skip to the section about obtaining some coins from the faucet. If you are participating in genesis, it is expected that your validator will be up and available at all times during the testnet. If you can’t commit to this, we recommend joining via the faucet after the testnet is live.

# Create an account in genesis with 1000000000 ubtsg (100 btsg) tokens. Don't change the amount of ubtsg tokens so that we can have equal distribution among genesis participants.

# 1 btsg = 10000000ubtsg bitsongd add-genesis-account $(bitsongcli keys show <your_wallet_name> -a) 1000000000ubtsg # Sign a gentx that creates a validator in the genesis file for your account. Note to pass your public ip to the --ip flag. bitsongd gentx --name <your_wallet_name> --amount 1000000000ubtsg --ip <your-public-ip>

This will write your genesis transaction to $HOME/.bitsongd/config/gentx/gentx-<gen-tx-hash>.json . This should be the only file in your gentx directory. If you have more than one, delete them and repeat the gentx command above.

Now we will submit the transaction as a PR to be included in the genesis block:

# create a branch for your pr submission

cd $HOME/go-bitsong

git checkout -b genesis-<your-moniker> # check that there's only one gentx

ls $HOME/.bitsongd/config/gentx # copy your gentx

cp $HOME/.bitsongd/config/gentx/* $HOME/go-bitsong/testnet-1/gentx/ # Add and commit your changes

git add testnet-1/gentx/*

git commit -m "feat: gentx for <your-moniker>" # Push your branch to the remote repositor

git push -u origin genesis-<your-moniker>

Now go to BitSong’s GitHub repo and select New Pull Request

Create a pull request for <github-username>/go-bitsong:genesis-<your-moniker> against the develop branch of the BitSong repo.

New Pull Request Click on “compare across forks”

base repository: bitsongofficial/go-bitsong

base: develop head repository: <YOUR-USERNAME>/go-bitsong

compare: genesis-<your-moniker>

We’ll make sure to promptly review your PR, let you know if there are any issues, and merge it in!

Launching the testnet

On July 10, 2019 at 15:00 UTC, BitSong will release the proposed genesis block. All validators are invited to review the included transactions, agree on the final genesis block, and start validating on July 11, 2019 at 15:00 UTC.

To start validating the testnet after the genesis has been released, run the following commands:

# Delete the old genesis

rm -f ~/.bitsongd/config/genesis.json

wget # Copy the genesis file to the bitsongd directorywget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitsongofficial/go-bitsong/develop/testnet-1/genesis.json -P ~/.bitsongd/config # Create log files for bitsongd

sudo mkdir -p /var/log/bitsongd && sudo touch /var/log/bitsongd/bitsongd.log && sudo touch /var/log/bitsongd/bitsongd_error.log # create a systemd file to run the bitsongd daemon

# replace <your_user> where necessary

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/bitsongd.service > /dev/null <<EOF

[Unit]

Description=BitSong Network Daemon

After=network-online.target [Service]

User=<your_user>

ExecStart=/home/<your_user>/go/bin/bitsongd start

StandardOutput=file:/var/log/bitsongd/bitsongd.log

StandardError=file:/var/log/bitsongd/bitsongd_error.log

Restart=always

RestartSec=3

LimitNOFILE=4096 [Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target

EOF # Start the node

sudo systemctl enable bitsongd

sudo systemctl start bitsongd

To check on the status of the node

bitsongcli status

sudo journalctl -u bitsongd -f

To view the logs

# Standard output of bitsongd

tail -f /var/log/bitsongd/bitsongd.log # Standard error of bitsongd

tail -f /var/log/bitsongd/bitsongd_error.log

After the BitSong Network blockchain reaches a quorum, the testnet will be officially launched!

If a quorum is not reached by 15:00 UTC on July 11, we will coordinate further communication through the BitSong validator Discord Validator Chat.