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    • EWC Validator Documentation Overview
  • EWC Governance
    • Governance process
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    • Set-up your Validator node in minutes with EW Launchpad
    • Installing a Validator Node
      • Host Machine Requirements
      • Recommended Security Settings
      • Operating System Requirements
      • Validator Node Installation Instructions
    • Maintaining a Validator Node
      • Validator Node Architecture
      • Validator Node Service Commands
      • Updating the Client
      • Changing the Validator Config File
      • Checking node status & logs
      • Migrating a validator node to a new environment
      • How To Transfer EWT from a Validator Node
      • Problems connecting to peers
  • Secure Your Validator Node
    • Changing validator payout address and setting up multi-signature
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  1. Guides
  2. Installing a Validator Node

Host Machine Requirements

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Last updated 6 months ago

You can choose to run your validator node either On-Premise on your own hardware or on a virtual machine / cloud computing instance of your choosing. If you have any questions please contact the EWF NetOps team:

The following specifications are strongly recommended, but validators are free to configure their host machine at their discretion in accordance with relevant internal policies or requirements. Please note that hosting a node on a machine with insufficient CPU, storage, RAM, and/or networking capacity may result in node failure (e.g. unable to connect to peers, unable to synchronize, unable to seal blocks) and require extra labor to reconfigure the host machine.

On-Premise Hardware

A on-premise node should have these specs or higher. For security reasons these resources must be reserved for the validator node and not shared with other workloads.

  1. Modern Multi-core x64 CPU (at least 4 threads, preferably Xeon-class)

  2. 8GB RAM (preferably ECC)

  3. Local SSD storage, 300 GB free capacity for blockchain, redundant in RAID-1

  4. 1 GBit NIC

Cloud Environments

The following specifications are strongly recommended based on the most common cloud environments used by existing EW Chain validators. You may select any cloud provider of your choosing

Amazon AWS

The following EC2 instance sizes are appropriate to run validators. These resources should be reserved for the validator node and not shared with other workloads.

  • m5.xlarge

  • m5.2xlarge

  • m5a.xlarge

  • m5a.2xlarge

  • c5.xlarge

  • c5.2xlarge

The default EBS storage assigned (normally 8GB) is not large enough to run the node. Make sure to run the node with following EBS storage settings:

  • General Purpose SSD (gp2)

  • at least 300GB size

Microsoft Azure

The following Azure Virtual Machine sizes are suitable to run a validator. These resources should be reserved for the validator node and not shared with other workloads.

  • D4s_v3

  • DS3_v2

  • B4ms

Use Premium SSD as attached storage with a size of at least 300GB.

Google Cloud

The following Google Cloud Virtual Machine sizes are suitable to run a validator node. These resources should be reserved for the validator node and not shared with other workloads.

  • n2-standard-4 and above: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/general-purpose-machines#n2_machines

Digital Ocean

The following Digital Ocean Virtual Machine sizes are suitable to run a validator. These resources should be reserved for the validator node and not shared with other workloads.

  • General Purpose Droplet: 16 GB memory, 4vCPU

  • CPU-Optimized Droplet: 8 GB memory, 4vCPU

Use Block Storage as attached SSD storage with a size of at least 300 GB.

Connectivity Requirements

The following requirements should be met to ensure proper operation:

  • Wired connection with 100 MBit/s symmetric link to the internet

  • Low latency connection to next internet hop (<5ms)

  • No data volume limitations

Even though we recommend a 100MBit/s connection, that connection will likely not be saturated by the node. You can expect 10-30MBit/s when the chain is under load. Traffic will mainly flow on port 30303 (udp/tcp).

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