How to setup a Q Fullnode

Setup your Server

You must prepare your server / machine to begin. One possibility is to use a local machine, alternatively you can use a cloud instance on AWS for example. There is a good external tutorial on how to get started with Ethereum on AWS. You can use this tutorial as a basic reference.

Get basic Configuration

Clone the repository and go to the /fullnode directory

Linux

If you use Graphical User Interface(GUI), open terminal

  1. Press CTRL + ALT + T to open the terminal
  2. Or open Show Application in the Dash Bar & find out Terminal Application.
  3. Go to the directory where you want to push the repository:
cd "YOUR_DIRECTORY"

You can print your current working directory with:

pwd
  1. Clone the repository
git clone https://gitlab.com/q-dev/mainnet-public-tools
  1. Go to the /fullnode directory
cd  "mainnet-public-tools/fullnode"
Windows (if you don't have git installed)

Open PowerShell

  1. Press Windows+R to open the "Run" tool
  2. Type "powershell" and press Enter to open terminal
  3. Go to the directory where you want to push the repository:
cd "YOUR_DISK:\YOUR_DIRECTORY"

If you work with cmd instead of PowerShell, use command:

cd /d "YOUR_DISK:\YOUR_DIRECTORY"

Replace YOUR_DISK and YOUR_DIRECTORY with real names.
You can print the current working directory and its contents using the command:

dir
  1. Clone the repository:
# Download the contents of the Git repository
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://gitlab.com/q-dev/mainnet-public-tools/-/archive/master/mainnet-public-tools-master.zip -OutFile mainnet-public-tools-master.zip

# Extract the contents of the ZIP file
Expand-Archive -Path mainnet-public-tools-master.zip -DestinationPath .

# Remove the ZIP file
Remove-Item -Path mainnet-public-tools-master.zip
  1. Go to the /fullnode directory
cd "mainnet-public-tools\fullnode"
MacOS

Open Terminal on Mac

  1. Click the Launchpad icon in the Dock, type Terminal in the search field, then click Terminal.
  2. In the Finder, open the /Applications/Utilities folder, then double-click Terminal.
  3. Go to the directory where you want to push the repository:
cd "YOUR_DIRECTORY"

You can print your current working directory with:

pwd
  1. Clone the repository
git clone https://gitlab.com/q-dev/mainnet-public-tools
  1. Go to the /fullnode directory
cd  "mainnet-public-tools/fullnode"


This directory contains the docker-compose.yaml file for quick launching of the full node with preconfigurations on rpc, blockchain explorer using .env file (which can be created from .env.example file).

Configure Ports

Choose ports (or leave default values) for node rpc api and blockchain explorer by copying .env.example to .env and editing the file.

Linux, macOS, other Unix-like systems 
cp .env.example .env
nano .env

After editing the ports, save the changes in nano:

  1. Press Ctrl+O to save changes
  2. Press Ctrl+X to exit
Windows 
# This will copy the .env.example file to a new file named .env.
copy ".\env.example"  ".\env"

#This will open the .env file in Notepad for editing. If you prefer to use a different text editor, replace notepad.exe with the appropriate command for your editor.
notepad.exe .\env

Save changes with Ctrl+S and close notepad.


Replace existing ports.

# the port you want to use for p2p communication (default is 30314)
EXT_PORT=30314

# the port you want to use for explorer (default is 8081)
EXPLORER_PORT=8081

Launch Node

Launch the node by executing the following command from /fullnode directory:

docker-compose up -d

Verify your Installation

After node is launched, it starts syncing with network.

The setup includes a local blockchain explorer. You can browse blocks, transactions and accounts via your browser by opening the url http://localhost:PORT where PORT is the number you chose above for EXPLORER_PORT, e.g. http://localhost:8080

You can check your nodes real-time logs with the following command:

docker-compose logs -f --tail "100"

Find additional peers

In case your client can't connect with the default configuration, we recommend that you add an additional flag referring to one of our additional peers ($BOOTNODE1_ADDR, $BOOTNODE2_ADDRor $BOOTNODE3_ADDR) within docker-compose.yaml file:

fullnode:
  image: $QCLIENT_IMAGE
  entrypoint: ["geth", "--bootnodes=$BOOTNODE1_ADDR,$BOOTNODE2_ADDR,$BOOTNODE3_ADDR", "--datadir=/data", ...]

Make your enode permanent (for faster peers finding)

Copy your current nodekey form your fullnode

docker-compose cp testnet-fullnode:/data/geth/nodekey ./nodekey

Then update your docker-compose.yaml by adding this line to volumes part

      - ./nodekey:/data/geth/nodekey

So your node volumes will look like this:

    volumes:
      - testnet-fullnode-data:/data
      - ./nodekey:/data/geth/nodekey

And restart your container via

docker-compose up -d

Updating Q-Client & Docker Images

To upgrade the node follow the instructions Upgrade Node