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Run Validator - Manual setup

1. Run a Lava Node​

Running as a validator requires a Lava Node running. Refer to guides for joining Testnet and Mainnet for details.

2. Prepare an account & Fund it​

To run a validator process you will need a CLI wallet set up and funded. If you don't have an account (wallet) on Lava yet, refer to creating new accounts to create one.

3. Stake & start validating​

Once your account is funded, run this to stake and start validating.

1. Verify that your node has finished synching and it is caught up with the network

lavad status | jq .SyncInfo.catching_up
# Wait until you see the output: "false"

2. Verify that your account has funds in it in order to perform staking:

# Make sure you can see your account name in the keys list
lavad keys list

# Confirm that your account has Lava tokens in it (replace $ACCOUNT_NAME with your account name)

YOUR_ADDRESS=$(lavad keys show -a $ACCOUNT_NAME)

lavad query bank balances $YOUR_ADDRESS --denom ulava

3. Back up your validator's consensus key

A validator participates in the consensus by sending a message signed by a consensus key which is automatically generated when you first run a node. You must create a backup of this consensus key in case that you migrate your validator to another server or accidentally lose access to your validator.

A consensus key is stored as a json file in $HOME/.lava/config/priv_validator_key.json by default, or a custom path specified in the parameter priv_validator_key_file of config.toml.

  1. Stake your validator

Here's an example with values which starts with a stake of 50000000ulava. Replace <<moniker_node>> with a human readable name you choose for your validator. The amount you will have to stake to become an active provider has to be more than the last bonded validator.

caution

Please ensure that you replace {CHAIN_ID} with the appropriate value depending on your target network:

  • For Lava Testnet: lava-testnet-2
  • For Lava Mainnet: lava-mainnet-1
lavad tx staking create-validator \
    --amount="50000000ulava" \
    --pubkey=$(lavad tendermint show-validator --home "$HOME/.lava/") \
    --moniker="<<moniker_node>>" \
    --chain-id={CHAIN_ID} \
    --commission-rate="0.10" \
    --commission-max-rate="0.20" \
    --commission-max-change-rate="0.01" \
    --min-self-delegation="10000" \
    --gas="auto" \
    --gas-adjustment "1.5" \
    --gas-prices="0.05ulava" \
    --home="$HOME/.lava/" \
    --from=$ACCOUNT_NAME

Once you have finished running the command above, if you see code: 0 in the output, the command was successful.

5. Verify validator setup

Check that the validator node is registered and staked

block_time=60

validator_pubkey=$(lavad tendermint show-validator | jq .key | tr -d '"')

lavad q staking validators | grep $validator_pubkey

Check the voting power of your validator node - please allow 30-60 seconds for the output to be updated:

sleep $block_time

lavad status | jq .ValidatorInfo.VotingPower | tr -d '"'

The output of the command aboce should be > 0. If you see that, your validator is running correctly and has the specific voting power.