Server Setup Guide
Generally speaking, running a delegate node requires knowledge and experience in information and network technologies. However, we believe that it should be accessible to everyone who is willing to learn. This guide will help you get introduced to servers and Linux systems and getting started securely to start your own delegate node. If you find yourself in a bind, our helpful community will be happy to help you 🙂
We recommend using public-key authentication to access your server. Using a strong password to connect remotely in SSH is already secured, but using your own key pair for SSH connexion is always recommended.
The SSH key you will be generating will be used later on when using accessing your server.
One easy way to generate an SSH key on Windows is by using PuttyGen. You can download Putty at this link and follow this complete tutorial to create your SSH key pair.
Open a terminal window on Linux or OSx and type the following command.
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048
It will generate an SSH key pair in the form of a public key id_rsa.pub and the corresponding private key id_rsa created in the ~/.ssh directory
In the first beta version, X-Cash's DPoPS will only run on a Linux/Unix OS. We recommend installing it on a Ubuntu VPS/dedicated server (18.04) for the best compatibility.
Before looking into a server hosting service, it is recommended that you acknowledge the system requirements for running a delegate node.
The delegate node will need to transit a lot of information, notably messages to the other delegates to verify the block information, As time goes by, the features and information that the delegates handle will increase (notably when we will develop token creation, NFT, sidechains, smart contracts, and other exciting features).
The recommended system requirement is designed to be "future-development proof", meaning that a hardware update should never be needed and still comfortably handle the xcash-dpops program.
| Minimum | Recommended |
OS | Ubuntu 18.04 | Ubuntu 18.04 |
CPU | 4 threads, 2.0 GHz or more per thread | 4 threads, 2.0 GHz or more per thread |
RAM | 6GB | 32GB |
Hard Drive | 50GB | 2TB |
Bandwidth Transfer | 100GB per month | 500GB per month |
Bandwidth Speed | 100 Mbps | 500 Mbps |
It is estimated that the blockchain size will increase by 9GB per year.
There are a lot of server and VPS providers out there, notably AWS, Google Cloud, Hetzner, Alibaba, DigitalOcean, OVH, etc... to only name a few. If you don't have your own server infrastructure (which is most likely 🙂), you will need to rent your server with a provider.
We are agnostic as to which server provider you should choose to run the xcash-dpops program. Our recommendation is to find a dedicated server or VPS that matches system requirements and to follow the service you are most comfortable with.
Make sure to read your server provider documentation. Each initial server setup can be different.
We will give a short tutorial here for preparing a server. Those steps should be easy to replicate with any server hosting providers.
Your server provider should propose you different Linux distributions to install directly from their dashboard. The xcash-dpops program was intensively tested on Ubuntu-18.04 and should be the preferred distribution.
While Ubuntu-20.04 has been released recently (April 2020), it hasn't been tested as much as 18.04. It shouldn't be an issue to install the newest version, but we still recommend installing 18.04.
Choose the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS version and follow the installation process.
On Windows
Log into your server using your already existing credentials (given by your server provider).
With Putty, indicate the hostname (which should be the server IP-Address) and the port (the default port is most of the time port 22) open the connection and connect to a user session with your credentials user/password (the default user should be root, and the password is most of the time sent to you by email by your server provider).
Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.15.0-88-generic x86_64)* Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com* Management: https://landscape.canonical.com* Support: https://ubuntu.com/advantageSystem information as of Mon Jun 1 11:51:35 CEST 2020System load: 0.02 Processes: 143Usage of /home: 0.0% of 4.41TB Users logged in: 0Memory usage: 0% IP address for enp4s0: 10x.x.x.101Swap usage: 0%68 packages can be updated.31 updates are security updates.Last login: Mon Jun 1 11:43:47 2020 from {IP_address}
On Linux/Osx
In a terminal, use the command ssh log in to your server using your already existing credentials (given by your server provider). The hostname should be the server IP-Address, and the default user should be root.
When first connecting to your new server, you will be prompted to recognize the servers host key and validate the RSA fingerprint.
The authenticity of host '{SERVER_IP}' can't be established.ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:sjdflkjslfksjlfksjfqmklqjsf+hrQ.Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?
Type yes and continue the log in process. You will be prompted to provide your password (which most of the time is sent to you by email by your server provider).
Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.15.0-88-generic x86_64)* Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com* Management: https://landscape.canonical.com* Support: https://ubuntu.com/advantageSystem information as of Mon Jun 1 11:51:35 CEST 2020System load: 0.02 Processes: 143Usage of /home: 0.0% of 4.41TB Users logged in: 0Memory usage: 0% IP address for enp4s0: 10x.x.x.101Swap usage: 0%68 packages can be updated.31 updates are security updates.Last login: Mon Jun 1 11:43:47 2020 from {IP_address}
Use your SSH RSA key pair that you have previously generated to access your newly rented server. Most of the server hosting service lets you provide your SSH key on their dashboard and automatically authorize it.
On Windows
In Putty, go to the SSH > Auth tab and browse to your private key file rsa-key.ppk generated earlier to use as authentication to log into your server.
Now, when you open the connection, you will be prompted to enter your key passphrase (if you have given one) to log in.
On Linux/OSx
Open a terminal window and use the command ssh -i, adding the path to your private key and your servers [email protected]
ssh -i ~/.ssh/mykey [email protected]
You will be prompted to give your key passphrase if you have provided one at the key generation.
In most hosting services, you can register your public SSH key in your server dashboard, which will automatically authorize your SSH key to connect to your server. If you want to add it manually, you can follow the tutorial below. Otherwise, just move on to the next step.
With the key pair you have generated earlier, you will have to register the public key on your server so it can recognize you. To do so, you need to add your public SSH key into the file ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on your server.
To copy the content of the public SSH key into the server, you need to create the authorized_keys file on your Linux machine.
Once logged in, use your preferred text editor to create and/or open the authorized_keys file:
nano ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
On your Windows machine, open the public key file.
The public key was created after generating your SSH key pair with PuttyGen. You have created two files: the public key rsa-key and the private key rsa-key.ppk
rsa-key---- BEGIN SSH2 PUBLIC KEY ----Comment: "rsa-key-example" ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAQEAl/TYTvi1u/s4JFq0T2A4+jIUKs0jkrqCGfqqFaSClnv4fmexJsmHDW/X84vSYn4tp86NO7h+mxRyEIiI6jilcABOeDOlUtKJuUxg8RJYGL6zbF545IT1jGWg0nR2ZrdRvyFozJgGLJbDd3RzVLnsS3QQvFTRG/mYQu30AIro7jN+KlQX6xVtJBKNuzDelEz5TYuDTkOP9NGcIW78d96L2NPGNM4Qdu3KpjoYecbCUH3D8QjQlvnwEtt/URrHS7nhu2BMRbxN5zP0uT0L1/3NqWnBv367P10kmQFTiBGQo+/nwgxrg6pKUd8AOBkImhpyNR/MJda1UKfZegnxYXb3WQ==---- END SSH2 PUBLIC KEY ----
Copy the public key content (starting from ssh-rsa and the long string after) and paste it into the authorized_keys on your Linux machine.
authorized_keysssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAQEAl/TYTvi1u/s4JFq0T2A4+jIUKs0jkrqCGfqqFaSClnv4fmexJsmHDW/X84vSYn4tp86NO7h+mxRyEIiI6jilcABOeDOlUtKJuUxg8RJYGL6zbF545IT1jGWg0nR2ZrdRvyFozJgGLJbDd3RzVLnsS3QQvFTRG/mYQu30AIro7jN+KlQX6xVtJBKNuzDelEz5TYuDTkOP9NGcIW78d96L2NPGNM4Qdu3KpjoYecbCUH3D8QjQlvnwEtt/URrHS7nhu2BMRbxN5zP0uT0L1/3NqWnBv367P10kmQFTiBGQo+/nwgxrg6pKUd8AOBkImhpyNR/MJda1UKfZegnxYXb3WQ==
Save and close the text editor. Now, adjust the permissions of the authorized_keys file so that the file does not allow group writable permissions.
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
Once done, restart your server's ssh.service before logging out to take your changes into effect:
sudo systemctl restart ssh.service
You should now be able to log in into your server using your SSH key. In Putty, browse and choose your private key file rsa-key.ppk to use as an authentication for the next time you log into your server.
Now, when you open the connection, you will be prompted to enter your key passphrase (if you have given one), and you will be logged in.
You can use the ssh-copy-id command to copy the public key directly in the authorized_keys on your server.
ssh-copy-id is not natively installed on OSx systems. You need to install it by running brew install ssh-copy-id
Just use the following command by replacing mykey with your private key file and [email protected] with your server login information.
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/mykey [email protected]
If you don't want to use the ssh_copy_id command, you can manually append the authorized_keys file by using the following command:
cat ~/.ssh/mykey.pub | ssh [email protected] "mkdir -p ~/.ssh && cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"
This will take the content of mykey.pub and append it to the authorized_keys file directly on the server. Once done, restart your server's ssh.service before logging out to take your changes into effect:
sudo systemctl restart ssh.service
You can now test the connection to your server by trying to log in with your SSH key:
ssh -i ~/.ssh/mykey [email protected]
You will be prompted to give your key passphrase if you have provided one at the key generation.
The xcash-dpops auto-installer script has been designed for root users. It should work for other users as well.
Log in your server with your already existing credentials (given by your server provider) as a root user.
Create a new user session named xcash where you will only store files and programs related to the delegate function.
sudo adduser xcash
Set and confirm the new user’s password at the prompt. It is highly recommended to use a password here:
Set password prompts:Enter new UNIX password:Retype new UNIX password:passwd: password updated successfully
Follow the prompts to set the new user’s information. You can leave it empty.
User information prompts:Changing the user information for xcashEnter the new value, or press ENTER for the defaultFull Name []:Room Number []:Work Phone []:Home Phone []:Other []:Is the information correct? [Y/n]
Now that the xcash user is created, you need to give it sudo rights:
usermod -aG sudo xcash
You can now switch user session from root by using the command su:
su - xcash
Your delegate name is your brand! ⭐
When you register as a delegate, your server will be recognized and listed on the delegates' website through its domain name. If you haven't registered a domain name for your server, the default domain will be the server IP address.
While in itself it is completely possible to use it as is, it is recommended to brand yourself by buying a domain name of your choice. We believe that it will help you greatly if you are planning to run a shared delegate and are looking for votes.
There are a lot of services out there to buy a domain name: NameCheap, Google Domains, OVH, GoDaddy, etc... to only name a few. You will need to create an account over there and reserve the domain name of your choice.
Once you have reserved your domain name, you need to change the DNS record to point your newly bought domain name to your IP address. This can be done by changing the A (Address) Record in your domain name provider dashboard.
NameCheap has an easy tutorial for setting up the DNS record, but any other domain name provider should have a similar service.
Assuming that the domain you bought is domain-name.com, the A Record above will permit people to identify your server with domain-name.com and the subdomain delegate.domain-name.com
Once you have done every step above, and are familiarized with your server, you can go through the next step and install the delegate program, xcash-dpops. Follow the delegate node installation for a complete tutorial.
