How To: Deploy a Node

Difficulty Level: Intermediate

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In this tutorial we will be deploying a Full Mainnet node using the R5 Relayer.

Before You Start

Before you deploy your node, you will need to check if your hardware complies with the minimum hardware requirements.

1. Download the Latest Stable Release

Download the latest stable release of the R5 Core Client via the canonical GitHub repository. If you are on a desktop environment (such as Windows, macOS, or Ubuntu Desktop), you can navigate to the repository using your browser and download the file according to your OS.

• Canonical Releases URL: https://github.com/r5-labs/r5-core/releases

If you are using a CLI-bases OS, such as Ubuntu Server for example, you can download the latest file using wget:

wget https://github.com/r5-labs/r5-core/releases/<path_to_release_file>

2. Extract Files

Once you have downloaded the latest release file, you will need to extract them into a folder where you want to store the node and blockchain files. All canonical releases are compressed in the .zip format to promote compatibility and ease-of-use, and you can extract the files using most compression software (such as 7zip, WinRAR, etc).

Your node folder structure should look something like like:

/bin/*           # Core binary files.
/genesis/*       # Genesis files for R5 networks.
/config/*        # Configuration files for R5 networks.
/r5              # R5 Relayer. Main entry-point binary.

3. Create an Initialisation File (Optional)

If you want to personalise your node configurations, you may create an initialisation file. To proceed, you can open your preferred text editor (Notepad, Nano, VIN, etc) and copy-paste the code below into your new file:

[R5 Node Relayer]
network = mainnet
rpc = default
mode = default
miner = default
miner_coinbase = default
miner_threads = default
genesis = default
config = default

You can then personalise the file to your desired configuration. For more information about the available parameters, you can check our specific guide for the Relayer configuration file.

After modifying the parameters as desired, you can save the file inside your node directory with the name node.ini.

4. Start The Node

You can now start the node by double-clicking the r5.exe executable if you are on Windows, or start it via terminal using:

./r5

Your node console will initialise, connect to the respective bootnodes, and sync with the rest of the blockchain network.

Note that synchronisation may take a long time depending on the current size of the blockchain.