Validator Setup

This guide walks through setting up a Helix validator node from scratch.

Hardware Spec

Recommended specifications:

• CPU: 4+ cores (modern processor)
• RAM: 8GB+
• Storage: 500GB+ SSD (NVMe preferred)
• Network: 100Mbps+ reliable connection

VM Prerequisites

• Linux OS (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS recommended)
• Go 1.22.7+
• systemd for service management
• Git

Installation

1. Install Dependencies

# Update the system
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

# Install dep
sudo apt install -y build-essential git curl wget jq

2. Set Up the Dir Structure

# Create app dir 
sudo mkdir -p /app/nuklaivm/{bin,lib,config,scripts}

3. Setup the Nuklai Binary

We have two options:

Option A: Get the Pre-built Binary

NOTE the Nuklai repository might be temporarily unavailable while we are restructuring the project on GitHub.

# Download the binary from Nuklai Github (replace 0.0.0 with version you need)
wget https://github.com/Nuklai/nuklai/releases/download/v0.0.0/nuklaid -O /app/nuklaivm/bin/nuklaid
chmod +x /app/nuklaivm/bin/nuklaid

Option B: Build from Source

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/Nuklai/nuklai.git
cd nuklai

# Build the binary
make install

# Copy the binary to app dir
cp $(which nuklaid) /app/nuklaivm/bin/

4. Install WASMVM

export WASMVM_VERSION="v2.1.2"
wget -O /app/nuklaivm/lib/libwasmvm.x86_64.so \
  https://github.com/CosmWasm/wasmvm/releases/download/${WASMVM_VERSION}/libwasmvm.x86_64.so

5. Scripts

Create /app/nuklaivm/start-nuklaivm-chain.sh:

#!/bin/bash
APP_DIR=/app/nuklaivm
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$APP_DIR/lib:/lib:/lib64
export PATH=$PATH:$APP_DIR/bin
exec $APP_DIR/bin/nuklaid "$@"

Create /app/nuklaivm/nuklai-chain.service:

[Unit]
Description=Nuklai Validator Node
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=root
WorkingDirectory=/app/nuklaivm
ExecStart=/app/nuklaivm/scripts/start-nuklaivm-chain.sh start
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
LimitNOFILE=65535

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

6. Initialize Validator Node

Create a validator-config.sh and past the below in:

APP_DIR=/app/nuklaivm
GENESIS_NODE_IP="52.208.110.202"
GENESIS_NODE_ID="09ff5ce747caf117897a7b09251d4b08fdd31d2d" # From Genesis get from tendermint
CHAIN_ID="nuklai"
NODE_MONIKER="secondary-node"

echo -e "Step 1: Initial setup"
# Get the lib path for the WASM lib
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$APP_DIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

# This must return the version of the binary
$APP_DIR/bin/nuklaid version

echo -e "Step 2: Initialize the validator node"

# Initialize node with a chain ID and custom moniker
$APP_DIR/bin/nuklaid init $NODE_MONIKER --chain-id $CHAIN_ID

# Always make sure the config files exists, can be funny sometimes
ls -la ~/.nuklai/config/

echo -e "Step 3: Validator keys setup"

# Creating the validator key
echo "y" | $APP_DIR/bin/nuklaid keys add validator --keyring-backend test

# Store the address in a variable, will be used subsequently
VALIDATOR=$($APP_DIR/bin/nuklaid keys show validator -a --keyring-backend test)
echo "Validator Node Address: $VALIDATOR"

echo -e "Step 4: Set up genesis file"

cp $APP_DIR/config/genesis.json ~/.nuklai/config/

echo -e "Step 5: Configure peers and network settings"

# Set persistent peers
sed -i 's/^persistent_peers = ".*"/persistent_peers = "'"$GENESIS_NODE_ID"'@'"$GENESIS_NODE_IP"':26656"/' ~/.nuklai/config/config.toml

# Make RPC,gRPC & P2P Available 
sed -i 's/localhost:1317/0.0.0.0:1317/' ~/.nuklai/config/app.toml
sed -i 's/localhost:9090/0.0.0.0:9090/' ~/.nuklai/config/app.toml
sed -i 's/127.0.0.1:26657/0.0.0.0:26657/' ~/.nuklai/config/config.toml

# Peer-to-peer for this node for discovery
PUBLIC_IP=$(curl -s http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/public-ipv4)
sed -i "s|external_address = \":26656\"|external_address = \"$PUBLIC_IP:26656\"|g" ~/.nuklai/config/config.toml

# cors
sed -i 's/enabled-unsafe-cors = false/enabled-unsafe-cors = true/g' ~/.nuklai/config/app.toml

echo -e "Step 6: Minimum gas config"
# Always set minimum gas to avoid previous issues
sed -i 's/minimum-gas-prices = ""/minimum-gas-prices = "0.025nai"/g' ~/.nuklai/config/app.toml

echo -e "Step 7: Startup scripts config"

# Copy startup script
sed -i "s|\[APP_DIR\]|$APP_DIR|g" $APP_DIR/scripts/nuklai-chain.service
sed -i "s|\[APP_DIR\]|$APP_DIR|g" $APP_DIR/scripts/start-nuklaivm-chain.sh
chmod +x $APP_DIR/scripts/start-nuklaivm-chain.sh
cp $APP_DIR/scripts/nuklai-chain.service /etc/systemd/system/

# Enable API server
sed -i 's/enable = false/enable = true/' ~/.nuklai/config/app.toml

# Enable & start the service
chmod +x /app/nuklaivm/start-nuklaivm-chain.sh

# Copy service file
cp /app/nuklaivm/nuklai-chain.service /etc/systemd/system/

# Enable the service
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable nuklai-chain

# Start the service
systemctl start nuklai-chain

# Check status
systemctl status nuklai-chain

echo -e "Validator config done!\n"
echo -e "Commands:\n"
echo -e "Start the node: systemctl start nuklai-chain\n"
echo -e "Verify the node is running: systemctl status nuklai-chain\n"
echo -e "Watch logs: journalctl -u nuklai-chain -f\n"
echo -e "After node is fully synced, create validator with:\n"

9. Sync your Node

Monitor sync progress:

# Check your node sync status
nuklaid status | jq '.SyncInfo'

Wait until catching_up is false before proceeding to next steps.

10. Request Testnet Tokens:

Firstly, get your validator address:

VALIDATOR_ADDRESS=$(/app/nuklaivm/bin/nuklaid keys show validator -a --keyring-backend test)
echo "Validator address: $VALIDATOR_ADDRESS"

Next, Run the curl request below to request test NAI to your address:

You can request a max of 5 times then wait for 2 minutes to request more.

curl -X POST https://faucet.nuklaivm-dev.net/request \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"address":"YOUR_VALIDATOR_ADDRESS"}'

11. Create Your Validator

# Get your validator public key
PUB_KEY=$(nuklaid tendermint show-validator)

# Create validator.json config
cat > validator.json << EOF
{
  "pubkey": $PUB_KEY,
  "amount": "1000000nai",
  "moniker": "$NODE_MONIKER",
  "identity": "",
  "website": "",
  "security": "",
  "details": "",
  "commission-rate": "0.1",
  "commission-max-rate": "0.2",
  "commission-max-change-rate": "0.01",
  "min-self-delegation": "1"
}
EOF

# Create validator transaction
/app/nuklaivm/bin/nuklaid tx staking create-validator validator.json \
  --from=validator \
  --keyring-backend=test \
  --chain-id=nuklai \
  --gas=auto \
  --gas-adjustment=1.5 \
  --gas-prices=0.025nai \
  --yes

11. Verify Validator Status

/app/nuklaivm/bin/nuklaid query staking validator $(nuklaid keys show validator --bech val -a --keyring-backend test)

# List all the validators
nuklaid query staking validators