chia-blockchain

Please check out the wiki and FAQ for information on this project.

Python 3.7 is required. Make sure your default python version is >=3.7 by typing python3.

You will need to enable UPnP on your router or add a NAT (for IPv4 but not IPv6) and firewall rules to allow TCP port 8444 access to your peer. These methods tend to be router make/model specific.

For alpha testnet most should only install harvesters, farmers, plotter and full nodes. Building timelords and VDFs is for sophisticated users in most environments. Chia Network and additional volunteers are running sufficient time lords for testnet consensus.

Step 1: Install the code

To install the chia-blockchain node, follow these instructions according to your operating system.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential git cmake libgmp3-dev --no-install-recommends
sudo apt-get install python3-dev python3-venv --no-install-recommends

git clone https://github.com/Chia-Network/chia-blockchain.git
cd chia-blockchain

sh install.sh

. .venv/bin/activate

Amazon Linux 2

sudo yum update
sudo yum install gcc-c++ cmake3 wget git openssl openssl-devel
sudo yum install python3 python3-devel libffi-devel gmp-devel

# CMake - add a symlink for cmake3 - required by blspy
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/cmake3 /usr/local/bin/cmake

git clone https://github.com/Chia-Network/chia-blockchain.git
cd chia-blockchain

sh install.sh

. .venv/bin/activate

CentOS 7.7

sudo yum update
sudo yum install centos-release-scl-rh epel-release
sudo yum install devtoolset-8-toolchain cmake3 libffi-devel
sudo yum install gmp-devel libsqlite3x-devel
sudo yum install wget git openssl openssl-devel

# CMake - add a symlink for cmake3 - required by blspy
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/cmake3 /usr/local/bin/cmake

scl enable devtoolset-8 bash

# Install Python 3.7.5 (current rpm's are 3.6.x)
wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.7.5/Python-3.7.5.tgz
tar -zxvf Python-3.7.5.tgz; cd Python-3.7.5
./configure --enable-optimizations; sudo make install; cd ..

git clone https://github.com/Chia-Network/chia-blockchain.git
cd chia-blockchain

sh install.sh

. .venv/bin/activate

RHEL 8.1

sudo yum update
sudo yum install gcc-c++ cmake3 git openssl openssl-devel
sudo yum install wget make libffi-devel gmp-devel sqlite-devel

# Install Python 3.7.5 (current rpm's are 3.6.x)
wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.7.5/Python-3.7.5.tgz
tar -zxvf Python-3.7.5.tgz; cd Python-3.7.5
./configure --enable-optimizations; sudo make install; cd ..

git clone https://github.com/Chia-Network/chia-blockchain.git
cd chia-blockchain

sh install.sh

. .venv/bin/activate

Windows (WSL + Ubuntu)

Install WSL + Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, upgrade to Ubuntu 19.x

This will require multiple reboots. From an Administrator PowerShell Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux and then Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName VirtualMachinePlatform. Once that is complete, install Ubuntu 18.04 LTS from the Windows Store.

# Upgrade to 19.x
sudo nano /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades
# Change "Prompt=lts" to "Prompt=normal" save and exit

sudo apt-get -y update
sudo apt-get -y upgrade
sudo do-release-upgrade

sudo apt-get install -y build-essential cmake python3-dev python3-venv software-properties-common libgmp3-dev --no-install-recommends

git clone https://github.com/Chia-Network/chia-blockchain.git
cd chia-blockchain

sudo sh install.sh

. .venv/bin/activate

Alternate method for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

In ./install.sh: Change python3 to python3.7 Each line that starts with pip ... becomes python3.7 -m pip ...

sudo apt-get -y update
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential cmake python3-dev python3-venv software-properties-common libgmp3-dev --no-install-recommends

# Install python3.7 with ppa
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
sudo apt-get -y update
sudo apt-get install -y python3.7 python3.7-venv python3.7-dev

git clone https://github.com/Chia-Network/chia-blockchain.git
cd chia-blockchain

sudo sh install.sh
. .venv/bin/activate

MacOS

Make sure brew is available before starting the setup.

brew upgrade python
brew install cmake gmp

git clone https://github.com/Chia-Network/chia-blockchain.git
cd chia-blockchain

sh install.sh
. .venv/bin/activate

Step 2: Install timelord (optional)

Note: this step is needed only if you intend to run a timelord or a local simulation. These assume you've already successfully installed harvester, farmer, plotting, and full node above. boost 1.66 or newer is required on all platforms.

Ubuntu/Debian

cd chia-blockchain

sh install_timelord.sh

Amazon Linux 2 and CentOS 7.7

#Only for Amazon Linux 2
sudo amazon-linux-extras install epel

sudo yum install mpfr-devel

# Install Boost 1.72.0
wget https://dl.bintray.com/boostorg/release/1.72.0/source/boost_1_72_0.tar.gz
tar -zxvf boost_1_72_0.tar.gz
cd boost_1_72_0
./bootstrap.sh --prefix=/usr/local
sudo ./b2 install --prefix=/usr/local --with=all; cd ..
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/lib

cd chia-blockchain

sh install_timelord.sh

RHEL 8.1

sudo yum install mpfr-devel boost boost-devel

cd chia-blockchain

sh install_timelord.sh

Windows (WSL + Ubuntu)

Install WSL + Ubuntu upgraded to 19.x

cd chia-blockchain

sh install_timelord.sh

Alternate method for Ubuntu 18.04

# Install boost 1.70 with ppa
sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:mhier/libboost-latest
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libboost1.70 libboost1.70-dev

MacOS

brew install boost

cd chia-blockchain

sh install_timelord.sh

Step 3: Generate keys

First, create some keys by running the following script:

python -m scripts.regenerate_keys

Step 3a: Run a full node

To run a full node on port 8444, and connect to the testnet, run the following command. This will also start an ssh server in port 8222 for the UI, which you can connect to to see the state of the node. If you want to see std::out log output, modify the logging.std_out variable in ./config/config.yaml.

./scripts/run_full_node.sh
ssh -p 8222 localhost

Step 3b: Run a farmer + full node

Instead of running only a full node (as in 4a), you can also run a farmer. Farmers are entities in the network who use their hard drive space to try to create blocks (like Bitcoin's miners), and earn block rewards. First, you must generate some hard drive plots, which can take a long time depending on the size of the plots (the k variable). Then, run the farmer + full node with the following script. A full node is also started, which you can ssh into to view the node UI (previous ssh command). You can also change the working directory and final directory for plotting, with the "-t" and "-d" arguments to the create_plots script.

python -m scripts.create_plots -k 20 -n 10
sh ./scripts/run_farming.sh

Step 3c: Run a timelord + full node

Timelords execute sequential verifiable delay functions (proofs of time), that get added to blocks to make them valid. This requires fast CPUs and a lot of memory as well as completing both install steps above.

sh ./scripts/run_timelord.sh

Tips

When running the servers on Mac OS, allow the application to accept incoming connections.

Ubuntu 19.xx, Amazon Linux 2, and CentOS 7.7 or newer are the easiest linux install environments currently.

UPnP is enabled by default, to open port 8444 for incoming connections. If this causes issues, you can disable it in the configuration. Some routers may require port forwarding, or enabling UPnP in the router configuration.

Due to the nature of proof of space lookups by the harvester in the current alpha you should limit the number of plots on a physical drive to 50 or less. This limit should significantly increase before beta.

You can also run the simulation, which runs all servers and multiple full nodes, locally, at once.

Note the the simulation is local only and requires installation of timelords and VDFs.

The introducer will only know the local ips of the full nodes, so it cannot broadcast the correct ips to external peers.

sh ./scripts/run_all_simulation.sh

For increased networking performance, install uvloop:

pip install -e ".[uvloop]"

You can also use the HTTP RPC api to access information and control the full node:

curl -X POST  http://localhost:8555/get_blockchain_state