How to Run A Fullnode on Binance Smart Chain

Fullnodes Functions

  • Stores the full blockchain history on disk and can answer the data request from the network.
  • Receives and validates the new blocks and transactions.
  • Verifies the states of every accounts.

Supported Platforms

We support running a full node on Mac OS Xand Linux.

Minimum Requirements

The hardware must meet certain requirements to run a node.

Fullnode

  • VPS running recent versions of Mac OS X or Linux.
  • 1T GB of free disk space, solid-state drive(SSD).
  • 8 cores of CPU and 16 gigabytes of memory (RAM).
  • A broadband Internet connection with upload/download speeds of at least 1 megabyte per second

Validator

  • VPS running recent versions of Mac OS X or Linux.
  • 1T GB of free disk space, solid-state drive(SSD).
  • 8 cores of CPU and 16 gigabytes of memory (RAM).
  • A broadband Internet connection with upload/download speeds of at least 1 megabyte per second

Suggested Requirements

Fullnode

  • VPS running recent versions of Mac OS X or Linux.
  • 1T GB of free disk space, solid-state drive(SSD).
  • 8 cores of CPU and 32 gigabytes of memory (RAM).
  • A broadband Internet connection with upload/download speeds of 5 megabyte per second

Validator

  • VPS running recent versions of Mac OS X or Linux.
  • 2T GB of free disk space, solid-state drive(SSD).
  • 8 cores of CPU and 32 gigabytes of memory (RAM)
  • Suggest m5zn.2xlarge instance type on AWS, or c2-standard-8 on Google cloud.
  • A broadband Internet connection with upload/download speeds of 10 megabyte per second

Settings

Common Problems With Connectivity

Sometimes you just can’t get synced. The most common reasons are as follows:

  • You have started geth without the discovery protocol, you can set the --nodiscover parameter to False. You only want this if you are running full node with fixed nodes.

  • Update BootstrapNodes

BootstrapNodes = ["enode://1cc4534b14cfe351ab740a1418ab944a234ca2f702915eadb7e558a02010cb7c5a8c295a3b56bcefa7701c07752acd5539cb13df2aab8ae2d98934d712611443@52.71.43.172:30311","enode://28b1d16562dac280dacaaf45d54516b85bc6c994252a9825c5cc4e080d3e53446d05f63ba495ea7d44d6c316b54cd92b245c5c328c37da24605c4a93a0d099c4@34.246.65.14:30311","enode://5a7b996048d1b0a07683a949662c87c09b55247ce774aeee10bb886892e586e3c604564393292e38ef43c023ee9981e1f8b335766ec4f0f256e57f8640b079d5@35.73.137.11:30311"]
  • Add Static nodes

Geth also supports a feature called static nodes if you have certain peers you always want to connect to. Static nodes are re-connected on disconnects. You can configure permanent static nodes by putting something like the following into <datadir>/geth/static-nodes.json:

[
  "enode://pubkey@ip:port",
  "enode://cfc556867894dc84707c2ce6290740d6ba112b279217e6db420f215397492a91ef76bbfe18ebd349a09b37fc8bfef5740d2d2335838e063094d5b63c3fd20d8f@34.197.85.99:30311",
  "enode://7cf68af17a83f925f34eeced2a139b1d11bac03fd2635707e459a821965b5e6016021a43379f24dc428ebcb84b8fb377517dee6ae484cd276a2f9360dac9c183@52.86.7.102:30311",
  "enode://b2ed83944f4c0e18d6b2f5f6c2e86b0320c10b8a96f897a535b43f25dc625ae739f449765ad86f38a393472638fcef69f30d7af53b02c3545722b1dd6f18f606@34.194.252.9:30311",
  "enode://42deadff5ff5d97ea4245128952335969fafea6c4ddd05146b3cac125099e1b2d1ea42c8d02c11ee8b5272a75d4f4b9f51a99244fd6daf1c6a1d5017242a3d43@101.36.120.67:30311",
  "enode://905f585c09b8eed66afdf8a99acdab7487185357f33d5c9fe40332e4aa4a661382b159ffb300b20fbc12e81505505944ac3bfc7e6673b352d01e09f2df8af5bc@152.32.131.34:30311",
  "enode://e585bafb7ab5a187534d69e84531165e5d4b0ee4f76b21641fe778c53770cd72e1850d44b48ad00c08ca4dc860cd5c5afa04b23a5061303f61d2658b1c48b9b2@152.32.132.171:30311"
  "enode://8fb5dd1259e0672efb8c141434bf0c24c73b338f7c2da15efc2def7403b952d453814230eeb97f555aaed46ee0b0b6e2a8568b518f88bd328729031746114dd2@3.0.236.154:30311",
  "enode://8fb5dd1259e0672efb8c141434bf0c24c73b338f7c2da15efc2def7403b952d453814230eeb97f555aaed46ee0b0b6e2a8568b518f88bd328729031746114dd2@3.0.236.154:30311"
]

You can also add static nodes at runtime via the js console using admin.addPeer(): 

admin.addPeer( "enode://8fb5dd1259e0672efb8c141434bf0c24c73b338f7c2da15efc2def7403b952d453814230eeb97f555aaed46ee0b0b6e2a8568b518f88bd328729031746114dd2@3.0.236.154:30311"
)

  • Add Trusted nodes

Geth supports trusted nodes that are always allowed to reconnect, even if the peer limit is reached. They can be added permanently via a config file /geth/trusted-nodes.json or temporary via RPC call.

Sync Mode

  • Fast Sync

The default sync mode. Synchronizes a full node doing a fast synchronization by downloading the entire state database, requesting the headers first, and filling in block bodies and receipts afterward. Once the fast sync reaches the best block of the Binance Smart Chain network, it switches to full sync mode.

  • Full Sync

Synchronizes a full node starting at genesis, verifying all blocks and executing all transactions. This mode is a bit slower than the fast sync mode but comes with increased security.

Steps to Run a Fullnode

1.Build from source code

Make sure that you have installed Go 1.13+ and have added GOPATH to PATH environment variable

git clone https://github.com/binance-chain/bsc
# Enter the folder bsc was cloned into
cd bsc
# Compile and install bsc
make geth

or you can download the pre-build binaries from release page or follow the instructions below:

# Linux
wget  https://github.com/binance-chain/bsc/releases/download/v1.0.7/geth_linux
# MacOS
wget  https://github.com/binance-chain/bsc/releases/download/v1.0.7/geth_mac

2.Download the config files

Download genesis.json and config.toml by:

## mainet
wget   $(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/binance-chain/bsc/releases/latest |grep browser_ |grep mainnet |cut -d\" -f4)
unzip mainnet.zip

## testnet
wget   $(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/binance-chain/bsc/releases/latest |grep browser_ |grep testnet |cut -d\" -f4)
unzip testnet.zip

3.Write genesis state locally

geth --datadir node init genesis.json

You could see the following output:

INFO [05-19|14:53:17.468] Allocated cache and file handles         database=/Users/huangsuyu/Downloads/bsc/node/geth/chaindata cache=16.00MiB handles=16
INFO [05-19|14:53:17.498] Writing custom genesis block
INFO [05-19|14:53:17.501] Persisted trie from memory database      nodes=21 size=56.84KiB time=357.915µs gcnodes=0 gcsize=0.00B gctime=0s livenodes=1 livesize=-574.00B
INFO [05-19|14:53:17.502] Successfully wrote genesis state         database=chaindata hash=7d79cc…fb0d1e
INFO [05-19|14:53:17.503] Allocated cache and file handles         database=/Users/huangsuyu/Downloads/bsc/node/geth/lightchaindata cache=16.00MiB handles=16
INFO [05-19|14:53:17.524] Writing custom genesis block
INFO [05-19|14:53:17.525] Persisted trie from memory database      nodes=21 size=56.84KiB time=638.396µs gcnodes=0 gcsize=0.00B gctime=0s livenodes=1 livesize=-574.00B
INFO [05-19|14:53:17.528] Successfully wrote genesis state         database=lightchaindata hash=7d79cc…fb0d1e

4.Start your fullnode

## start a full node
geth --config ./config.toml --datadir ./node --pprofaddr 0.0.0.0 --metrics --pprof

Start a validator node

## generate the consensus key and input the password
geth account new --datadir ./node
echo {your-password} > password.txt
geth --config ./config.toml --datadir ./node -unlock {your-validator-address} --password password.txt  --mine --gcmode archive --allow-insecure-unlock  --pprofaddr 0.0.0.0 --metrics --pprof

Note

Because the default value of TrieTimeout in config.toml is large, it means geth will not persist state into database until reach this time threshold, if the node has been force shutdown, it will start syncing from last state which may take long time. The recommended setting for valiidators is TrieTimeout = 100000000000

5.Monitor node status

you can monitor the log from /node/bsc.log by default.

Upgrade Geth

Please read this guide