How to configure Full Validator node?

Question

The docs state to set the validator env var, which I did, but how do I specify that I want to run a full validator and not just a basic one?

NODE_IS_VALIDATOR=true

What other settings are required? I'm pretty sure that I need to generate a NODE_SEED to be able to get my public address whitelisted by others.

Answer 1

• Yes, you should create a stellar keypair and define it in your stellar-core.cfg

NODE_SEED="S..."
NODE_IS_VALIDATOR=true

• You have to provide a history archive, here is a snippet from the example stellar-core.cfg:

# Note: any archive you *put* to you must run `$ stellar-core --newhist <historyarchive>`
#       once before you start.
#       for example this config you would run: $ stellar-core --newhist local
[HISTORY.local]
get="cp /tmp/stellar-core/history/vs/{0} {1}"
put="cp {0} /tmp/stellar-core/history/vs/{1}"
mkdir="mkdir -p /tmp/stellar-core/history/vs/{0}"

# other examples:
# [HISTORY.stellar]
# get="curl http://history.stellar.org/{0} -o {1}"
# put="aws s3 cp {0} s3://history.stellar.org/{1}"

If you serve your local history with a local webserver, be aware of file permission issues. Files are created owner-readable only and thus the put command should be more like cp (...) && chmod 644 {1} to be also readable by the webserver.

• It's a pretty new best practice to verify and announce your nodes public key and archive location. tl;dr: Create a stellar account for your keypair and set its home_domain, then create a file located at https://[your-home_domain]/.well-known/stellar.toml with these contents:

NODE_NAMES = [
    "GBHMXTHDK7R2IJFUIDIUWMR7VAKKDSIPC6PT5TDKLACEAU3FBAR2XSUI stellar.sui.li"
]

OUR_VALIDATORS=[
    "GBHMXTHDK7R2IJFUIDIUWMR7VAKKDSIPC6PT5TDKLACEAU3FBAR2XSUI"
]

HISTORY=[
    "https://stellar.sui.li/history/"
]

• You might join the keybase #validators channel to get in touch with other operators.