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Full Nodes on Core

A Core Full Node stores the entire history of the Core blockchain, enabling anyone to verify the state of any account. A Core Full Node can take many forms:

  • Normal full node: for private use.
  • Validator full node: acts as a validator on Core, validating blocks and transactions.
  • RPC full node: provides RPC services and responds to HTTP requests.

Following are the detailed steps to on running Normal Full Nodes on the Core network.

System Requirements​

There are several system requirements for setting up a Full Node on Core.

Software​

  • Operating System: Currently, a Core Validator Node is compatible only with macOS or Linux operating systems (Ubuntu 20.04 or later).
  • Network Connectivity: Stable internet connection with low latency and high availability
  • Firewall Configuration: Open necessary ports to allow communication with the network and other nodes

Hardware​

A Full Node on Core perform several resource-intensive tasks, which can include storing blockchain data, verifying blocks or transactions, communicating with peer nodes, and answering network requests, depending on their configuration. Unlike validators, full nodes do not produce blocks but help propagate transactions and blocks across the network. They play a crucial role in maintaining data integrity and supporting a trustless environment. For running Full Nodes on Core, following are the recommended minimum hardware specifications:

For Full Nodes on Core Blockchain Testnet2, following minimum hardware specifications are recommended:

RequirementsDetails
Storage1 TB of free disk space, solid-state drive (SSD), gp3, 8k IOPS, 250MB/S throughput, read latency <1ms.
CPUMinimum 4 CPU cores are recommended.
RAM8 Gigabytes
Internet SpeedA broadband Internet connection with upload/download speeds of 10 megabytes per second.

Build and Run Full Node on Core​

  1. We recommend using the core-chain GitHub repository to directly build and run your full node, running your full node directly from our blockchain codebase. Instructions for building the source code can be found in the repository's README.

  2. Download the latest node binary for Core Testnet from Core's GitHub releases repo. The node binary includes the relevant testnet configuration files. Download the latest snapshot for testnet from here. Note that the recommended method for syncing testnet node is to sync from genesis block.

  3. Write the genesis state locally by executing the following command from your project directory:

    geth --datadir node init genesis.json

    You should see the following output:

    INFO [07-18|14:57:20.715] Maximum peer count                       ETH=25 LES=0 total=25
    INFO [07-18|14:57:20.721] Allocated cache and file handles         database=/Users/jackcrypto/go/core-chain/node/geth/chaindata cache=16 handles=16
    INFO [07-18|14:57:20.724] Writing custom genesis block 
    INFO [07-18|14:57:20.725] Persisted trie from memory database      nodes=25 size=87.18kB time=226.129µs gcnodes=0 gcsize=0.00B gctime=0s livenodes=1 livesize=0.00B
    INFO [07-18|14:57:20.725] Successfully wrote genesis state         database=chaindata                             hash=d90508…5c034a
    INFO [07-18|14:57:20.725] Allocated cache and file handles         database=/Users/jackcrypto/go/core-chain/node/geth/lightchaindata cache=16 handles=16
    INFO [07-18|14:57:20.729] Writing custom genesis block 
    INFO [07-18|14:57:20.729] Persisted trie from memory database      nodes=25 size=87.18kB time=178.332µs gcnodes=0 gcsize=0.00B gctime=0s livenodes=1 livesize=0.00B
    INFO [07-18|14:57:20.730] Successfully wrote genesis state         database=lightchaindata                             hash=d90508…5c034a

  4. Our full node is ready, let's start running it! Run the following command to start the Full Node directly:

    ## start a full node
    geth --config ./config.toml --datadir ./node  --cache 8000

    5. As our full node runs, we can monitor its logs to make sure that everything is operating correctly. The log file is located at /node/logs/core.log by default, but can be changed to another location if desired.