Sync from snapshot

A snapshot is a compressed archive of the state of a blockchain node at a specific block height. Syncing a node with a snapshot speeds up the process of catching up with the network, as the node starts from the snapshot's block height instead of from the genesis block.

In order to sync your node through a snapshot, you will need to:

Download the pre-built binary
Download the snapshot (from a trusted source).
Download the genesis file
Configure your node
Start archwayd

Download the pre-built binary

Make sure to follow the instructions to download the pre-built archwayd binary.

Once downloaded, grant the permissions to the binary, for example with:

chmod +x archwayd_linux_amd64

You can also create a symbolic link named archwayd that points to archwayd_linux_amd64 using the ln command:

ln -s ./archwayd_linux_amd64 archwayd

Download the snapshot

You can download the latest snapshot from:

snapshots.archway.io.

Also, you can use the snapshot maintained by the community. Please make sure to be aware of the possible risks of using unofficial snapshots solutions.

Once you downloaded the snapshot, you need to decompress it. You can use tools such as lz4. To install lz4, launch:

sudo apt-get install snapd lz4 -y

If the snapshot you downloaded is called mainnet-archive-20230918.tar.lz4, you can decompress it with lz4 and move it in the ./archway/data folder.

For example, if you have the snapshot in the downloads folder, you can use the following command:

lz4 -d ~/downloads/mainnet-archive-20230918.tar.lz4 -o ~/.archway/data/mainnet-archive-20230918.tar

The above command decompress the snapshot in the data folder.

Download the genesis file

You can download the genesis file from Github Github, for example by launching:

wget https://github.com/archway-network/networks/blob/main/archway-1/genesis/genesis.json.gz

You can now decompress the genesis file with gzip Move the genesis file to the ./archway/config folder, for example with:

gzip -dk genesis.json.gz

And then move the genesis.json file into the ./archway/config folder, with:

mv genesis.json.gz /home/user/.archway/config/genesis.json

Configure the node

In the ~/.archway/config folder there you can find both the app.toml and config.toml.

In the app.toml, make sure to set the minimum-gas-prices, for example:

minimum-gas-prices = "0.1arch"

This is the minimum gas prices that the validator is willing to accept for processing a transaction.

Also, make sure to check the p2p section in the config.toml.

You can find information about the p2p seeds in the chain.json file in Github.

Start archwayd

You can now initialize the node and choose a name for it (moniker) with:

archwayd init <node_name> --chain-id archway-1

Info

Before going any further, it is recommended to set up Cosmovisor and run archwayd as a cosmovisor service.

You can start the node with:

Binary

Docker

archwayd start \  --p2p.seeds [email protected]:26656

but it is highly recommended to start archwayd as a service and use cosmovisor.

Start archwayd as a service

You can start the node as a service by creating a service file:

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

[Unit]Description=Archway NodeAfter=network.target[Service]User=$USERType=simpleExecStart=$(which archwayd) startRestart=on-failureLimitNOFILE=65535[Install]WantedBy=multi-user.target

Start the service by: Reloading the daemon:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Enable archwayd:

sudo systemctl enable archwayd

Start archwayd as a service:

sudo systemctl restart archwayd

Keep track of the logs:

sudo journalctl -u archwayd -f -o cat

Start archwayd docker as a service

A service file can be used to allow the automatic restart of the service, and it helps to enhance the reliability of your node.

You can create a service file with:

nano /etc/systemd/system/archwayd.service

And add the following content to the file:

[Unit]Description=Archway NodeAfter=network-online.target[Service]User=$USERExecStart=/usr/bin/docker run --rm -it -v ~/.archway:/root/.archwayghcr.io/archway-network/archwayd:v4.0.3Restart=alwaysRestartSec=3LimitNOFILE=4096[Install]WantedBy=multi-user.target

You can then reload the systemctl daemon:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Enable the service:

sudo -S systemctl enable archwayd

And then start archwayd as a service:

sudo systemctl start archwayd

You can then check that the service is properly running with:

sudo systemctl status archwayd