Run a node

For a server's operator: install, configure, watch, update, back up.

• Requirements

  What a server needs to run a Dassie node: Linux with systemd, a domain name, and four ports.

• Dassie on NixOS

  Run a Dassie node on NixOS, from the flake each release publishes: install, check the signature, set up, update and go back.

• Headless setup

  Set a node up from its recovery phrase on the server itself, without a browser, and join settlement hubs, from a script or a unit that runs at every start.

• Configure your node

  Change your node's environment with a systemd drop-in: how much it logs, its relay, its uplinks, and extra certificate authorities.

• Check on your node

  Read dassie status: your node's address, certificate, peers, ledgers and hubs, its counters, and what each hint in it asks you to do.

• Troubleshooting

  Fixes for what goes wrong most often: a node that won't start, blocked UDP, certificates, not being listed, no peers, an unreachable relay.

• Updates and rollback

  How your node updates itself every night, how to update now or to one version, how to go back, and why a node that falls behind loses its peers.

• Uninstall

  Remove Dassie from a server, and keep or delete the node's data.

• Certificates

  How the node gets its TLS certificate from Let's Encrypt, renews it, and works with a staging or private ACME server.

• Back up and move a node

  What the node keeps on disk, how to back it up, and how to move a node to another server with its data or with your recovery phrase.

• Security for operators

  Who may talk to your node, how systemd fences it in, what it shows the internet, and what a peer can cost you.

• A server without a public IP

  Run a node on a server without a public IP address or domain name, as a periphery node: with uplinks it finds or you pin, and a relay that brings payments in.