Relay Node

How to Deploy a Mochimo VPS Relay Node

Summary

The below steps will allow you to set up a VPS node that self-reboots weekly, installs the Mochimo server in a ramdisk (for high performance) creates a local mochimo service, and automatically restarts the Mochimo server as a non solving node upon reboot.

Audience

People who want to support the network by operating a node to relay transactions / blocks.

Minimum System Requirements

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 1 vCPU 2 GB RAM 10 GB Hard Disk

Create a new user for Mochimo

1 Log into root user on your VPS.

2. Create a new user specific for this Mochimo relay node.

adduser mochimorelay

3. Enter a strong password. (you can return through the prompts asking for user details, they can all be blank)

4. Give your new user Sudo permissions.

usermod -aG sudo mochimorelay

5. Switch to your new user.

su - mochimorelay

If you've sucessfully created a new user with Sudo permissions your terminal should say something like:

To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

You are now ready to start your node deployment.

Deployment Steps

1. Create ramdisk directory.

sudo mkdir /mnt/ramdisk

2. Setup crontab to reboot daily. Below script selects nano with "1" and sets the system to reboot weekly at 6 am.
(you may be prompted to press Y when using apt-get)

sudo apt-get install nano

cd /etc
sudo crontab -e

File Contents:

0 6 * * 1 /sbin/shutdown -r

3. Install build tools, and build Mochimo
(you may be prompted to press Y when using apt-get)

cd 
sudo apt-get install git
sudo apt-get install build-essential
git clone https://github.com/mochimodev/mochimo
cd mochimo/src
./makeunx bin -DCPU
./makeunx install

4. Tar the binary directory, and copy to /mochimorelay

cd ..
tar -czvf bin.tgz bin
cp bin.tgz /home/mochimorelay/bin.tgz
cd ..
rm -rf mochimo

5. Set the fstab to load the ramdisk on reboot

sudo nano /etc/fstab

File Contents (append to bottom of file):

tmpfs       /mnt/ramdisk tmpfs   nodev,nosuid,nodiratime,size=1024M

6. Create the systemd system service to start Mochimo on boot.

cd /etc/systemd/system
sudo nano mochimo.service

File Contents:

[Unit]
Description=Mochimo Server

[Service]
ExecStart=/bin/bash /home/mochimorelay/start-mochimo.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

7. Make the service privs 644:

sudo chmod 644 mochimo.service

8. Create the startup script off of /mochimorelay

sudo nano /home/mochimorelay/start-mochimo.sh

#! /bin/bash
sudo cp /home/mochimorelay/bin.tgz /mnt/ramdisk
cd /mnt/ramdisk
sudo tar -xzvf bin.tgz
cd bin
cp maddr.mat maddr.dat
./gomochi d -n -D

9. Make the startup script executable:

sudo chmod +x /home/mochimorelay/start-mochimo.sh

10. Return to root user, start the service, and reboot to confirm:

su -
systemctl enable mochimo.service
systemctl start mochimo.service
sudo reboot

11. (Optional) Log back into your VPS to validate the mochimo.service is running:

journalctl -u mochimo.service -f

Verifying Deployment

1. Verify the Service is running:

 ps -aux | grep /mochimo 

The output will list the mochimo service followed by a status.

../mochimo %STATUS% 

Status will start as 'quorum', then transition to 'tfval', and finally to 'Listen'.

In 'listen' mode (may take 10-15 minutes) the node is running and accessible for sending, receiving and relaying transactions.

2. Verify your IP address on the Mochimap:

Find your node on MochiMap.net, this is a good sign that it's operating correctly.
If you click your node on MochiMap, it will give you the apparent health status of your node.