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Horizen Node

Horizen Node Image​

Contabo's Horizen Node image is based on the Zen (https://github.com/HorizenOfficial/zen)

The image contain every required dependency to setup your Horizen Node for staking.

Switch to Horizen user​

Switch to horizen user, this user was created for security reasons.

su horizen

Zen-CLI commands:​

P2P Network info: zen-cli getnetworkinfo

Request sync status: zen-cli getblockchaininfo

Setting up your node for staking:​

  • Following commands should be executed as root user (or user with sudo privileges)

Disable Apache to avoid port conflicts​

sudo systemctl disable apache2
sudo systemctl stop apache2

Install Certbot for SSL​

sudo certbot certonly --preferred-chain "ISRG Root X1" --key-type rsa -n --agree-tos --register-unsafely-without-email --standalone -d $FQDN

Setup Certificates for Horizen Node​

sudo chown -R horizen:horizen /etc/letsencrypt/

sudo chmod -R 750 /etc/letsencrypt/

sudo csplit -s -z -f /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/intermediate-cert- /etc/letsencrypt/live/$FQDN/chain.pem '/-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----/' '{*}' --suffix-format='%02d.crt'


sudo update-ca-certificates --fresh\

Write out the Certificates to the config file​

echo "tlscertpath=/etc/letsencrypt/live/$FQDN/cert.pem" >> /home/horizen/.zen/zen.conf
echo "tlskeypath=/etc/letsencrypt/live/$FQDN/privkey.pem" >> /home/horizen/.zen/zen.conf

export IPV4=$(ip -4 addr show eth0 | grep -oP '(?<=inet\s)\d+(\.\d+){3}')

echo "externalip=$IPV4" >> /home/horizen/.zen/zen.conf

echo "port=9033" >> /home/horizen/.zen/zen.conf

Restart Zen node​

  • This step should be executed by horizen user then switch back to root user to finish the setup
zen-cli stop && sleep 60 && zend && sleep 30

Install Node Tracker​

  • Nodetracker is an application which managing your staking
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg
sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/gpgkey/nodesource-repo.gpg.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/nodesource.gpg


NODE_MAJOR=18
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/nodesource.gpg] https://deb.nodesource.com/node_$NODE_MAJOR.x nodistro main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nodesource.list

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nodejs -y

cd ~/ && git clone https://github.com/HorizenOfficial/nodetracker.git

cd nodetracker

Setup the Nodetracker​

ZENCONF=/home/horizen/.zen/zen.conf ZEN_HOME=/home/horizen/.zen/zen.conf node setup.js

Start the Nodetracker (for testing)​

ZENCONF=/home/horizen/.zen/zen.conf ZEN_HOME=/home/horizen/.zen/zen.conf node app.js

Start Nodetracker with PM2 for auto-restart​

npm install pm2@latest -g

ZENCONF=/home/horizen/.zen/zen.conf ZEN_HOME=/home/horizen/.zen/zen.conf pm2 start app.js --name nodetracker

2.4 Read logs of Nodetracker​

pm2 logs nodetracker

Official Horizen documentation:​