💻Baremetal

Authors: [man4ela | catapulta.eth]

System Requirements

CPU	OS	RAM	DISK
8 Cores (Fastest per core speed)	Debian 12/Ubuntu 22.04	16 GB	1TB+ (SSD)

The Moonbeam tracing node has a size of 1.5TB on May 2, 2024

Run a tracing node

Geth's debug and txpool APIs and OpenEthereum's trace module provide non-standard RPC methods for getting a deeper insight into transaction processing. Supporting these RPC methods is important because many protocols, such as The Graph, rely on them to index blockchain data.

To use the supported RPC methods, you need to run a tracing node. This guide covers the steps of how to set up and sync a tracing node on Moonbeam.

Pre-Requisites

sudo apt update -y && sudo apt upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y

sudo apt install -y git make wget gcc pkg-config libusb-1.0-0-dev libudev-dev jq gcc g++ curl libssl-dev screen apache2-utils build-essential pkg-config

Setting up Firewall

Set explicit default UFW rules

sudo ufw default deny incoming
sudo ufw default allow outgoing

Allow SSH

sudo ufw allow 22/tcp

Allow remote RPC connections with Moonbeam node (The default port for parachains is 9944 and 9945 for the embedded relay chain)

sudo ufw allow from ${REMOTE.HOST.IP} to any port 9944 9945

Not advised to allow all or unknown IP address to RPC port

Enable Firewall

sudo ufw enable

Building a Node on Moonbeam

Download the Latest Release Binary

Check release binary page and take the following steps to download the latest version:

Create a directory to store the binary and chain data (you might need sudo)

mkdir /var/lib/moonbeam-data

Use wget to grab the latest release binary and output it to the directory created in the previous step:

wget https://github.com/moonbeam-foundation/moonbeam/releases/download/v0.37.2/moonbeam \
-O /var/lib/moonbeam-data/moonbeam

To verify that you have downloaded the correct version, you can run the following command in your terminal

sha256sum /var/lib/moonbeam-data/moonbeam

You should receive the following output:

71242b8cdf2b97fba4aadb7d6050e0b46eaacafae6bcde9b5f5534aff620d144

Setup the Wasm Overrides (required for a tracing node)

You'll need to create a directory for the Wasm runtime overrides and obtain them from the Moonbeam Runtime Overrides repository on GitHub

git clone https://github.com/moonbeam-foundation/moonbeam-runtime-overrides.git

Move the Wasm overrides into your on-chain data directory:

mv moonbeam-runtime-overrides/wasm /var/lib/moonbeam-data

Delete the override files for the networks that you aren't running

rm /var/lib/moonbeam-data/wasm/moonriver-runtime-* &&  rm /var/lib/moonbeam-data/wasm/moonbase-runtime-*

Set permissions for the overrides

chmod +x /var/lib/moonbeam-data/wasm/*

Create the Configuration File

The next step is to create the systemd configuration file, you'll need to:

• ReplaceINSERT_YOUR_NODE_NAME in two different places with the preffered name (it specifies a human-readable name for the node, which can be seen on telemetry, if enabled)
• --db-cache specifies the memory the database cache is limited to use. It is recommended to set it to 50% of the actual RAM your server has. For example, for 128 GB RAM, the value must be set to 64000. The minimum value is 2000, but it is below the recommended specs

• Double-check that the binary is in the proper path as described below (ExecStart)

• Double-check the base path if you've used a different directory

• Name the file /etc/systemd/system/moonbeam.service

Ensure that you grant execute permission to the binary file

sudo chmod +x /var/lib/moonbeam-data/moonbeam

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/moonbeam.service

Copy/Paste and edit INSERT_YOUR_NODE_NAME and --db-cache according to your parameters:

[Unit]
Description="Moonbeam service"
After=network.target
StartLimitIntervalSec=0

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10
User=root
SyslogIdentifier=moonbeam
SyslogFacility=local7
KillSignal=SIGHUP
ExecStart=/var/lib/moonbeam-data/moonbeam \
--rpc-port 9944 \
--execution wasm \
--wasm-execution compiled \
--state-pruning archive \
--trie-cache-size 1073741824 \
--runtime-cache-size 64 \
--ethapi debug,trace,txpool \
--wasm-runtime-overrides /var/lib/moonbeam-data/wasm \
--unsafe-rpc-external \
--rpc-cors all \
--db-cache 64000 \
--base-path /var/lib/moonbeam-data \
--chain moonbeam \
--name "INSERT_YOUR_NODE_NAME" \
-- \
--name "INSERT_YOUR_NODE_NAME (Embedded Relay)"

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Ctrl+X and Y to save changes

--rpc-port sets the unified port for both HTTP and WS connections. The default port for parachains is 9944 and 9945 for the embedded relay chain

We run an RPC endpoint so we must use the --unsafe-rpc-external flag to run the Moonbeam node with external access to the RPC ports

systemctl enable moonbeam.service #enable moonbeam service at system startup

sudo systemctl daemon-reload #refresh systemd configuration when changes made

sudo systemctl start moonbeam.service #start moonbeam

sudo systemctl stop moonbeam.service #stop moonbeam

To check or modify moonbeam.service parameters simply run

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/moonbeam.service

Ctrl+X and Y to save changes

journalctl -f -u moonbeam.service  #follow logs of moonbeam service

The logs should look like the below example and indicate that your node syncs and is expected to reach chainhead in 3-4 days

Syncing 27.0 bps, target=#6051603 (30 peers), best: #3053702 (0xe669…1876), finalized #918931 (0x6587…f763), ⬇ 484.9kiB/s ⬆ 0.5kiB/s

Maintain Your Node

As Moonbeam development continues, it will sometimes be necessary to upgrade your node software.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure you update your tracing runtime overrides each time there is a new runtime upgrade, otherwise you won't be able to support the trace/debug/txpool API properly

For trace/debug/txpool API support

cd /root/moonbeam-runtime-overrides
git fetch && git pull

sudo systemctl stop moonbeam.service

rm -rf /var/lib/moonbeam-data/wasm

mv moonbeam-runtime-overrides/wasm /var/lib/moonbeam-data

rm /var/lib/moonbeam-data/wasm/moonbase-runtime-* &&  rm /var/lib/moonbeam-data/wasm/moonriver-runtime-*

sudo chmod ugo+x /var/lib/moonbeam-data/wasm/*

sudo systemctl restart moonbeam.service

To update moonbeam client, you can keep your existing chain data in tact, and only update the binary by following these steps:

1. Stop the systemd service

sudo systemctl stop moonbeam.service

1. Remove the old binary file

rm /var/lib/moonbeam-data/moonbeam

1. Get the latest version of the Moonbeam release binary on GitHub and run the following command to update to that version (ensure to replace INSERT_NEW_VERSION_TAGwith actual version)

wget https://github.com/moonbeam-foundation/moonbeam/releases/download/INSERT_NEW_VERSION_TAG/moonbeam \
-O /var/lib/moonbeam-data/moonbeam

1. Update permissions

chmod +x /var/lib/moonbeam-data/moonbeam

1. Start moonbeam service

systemctl start moonbeam.service

References

Run a Node on Moonbeam Using Systemd | Moonbeam Docs

Run a Tracing Node | Moonbeam Docs