Setting up a Shardnet Node for NEAR STAKEWARS!

Firstly you will need a server! You can use 8 cpu 16 RAM on Hetzner.

Registration form here!

Update Ubuntu and download all the needed packages, install python

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y git binutils-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev zlib1g-dev libdw-dev libiberty-dev cmake gcc g++ python docker protobuf-compiler libssl-dev pkg-config clang llvm cargo clang build-essential make
sudo apt install python3-pip 
USER_BASE_BIN=$(python3 -m site --user-base)/bin export PATH="$USER_BASE_BIN:$PATH"

Install Node JS and NPM

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_18.x | sudo -E bash - 
sudo apt install build-essential nodejs 
PATH="$PATH"

Install NEAR CLI

sudo npm install -g near-cli

Set up the environment. Be aware that you should input these commands anytime you open a new session! Otherwise testnet environment will be used!

export NEAR_ENV=shardnet 
echo ‘export NEAR_ENV=shardnet’ >> ~/.bashrc 
source ~/.bashrc

Install cargo and rust

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
source $HOME/.cargo/env

Now download and build binary. Please check the commit to be exactly this since it is the only one that should be used right now!

git clone https://github.com/near/nearcore 
cd nearcore 
git fetch 
git checkout 0f81dca95a55f975b6e54fe6f311a71792e21698
cargo build -p neard --release --features shardnet
#check the version
~/nearcore/target/release/neard --version

Initialize the working directory, delete old files and download new config file and new genesis.json. Since the network was hard forked recently, there is no need to download the snapshot.

~/nearcore/target/release/neard --home ~/.near init --chain-id shardnet --download-genesis 
rm ~/.near/config.json ~/.near/genesis.json 
wget -O ~/.near/config.json https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/build.nearprotocol.com/nearcore-deploy/shardnet/config.json 
wget -O ~/.near/genesis.json https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/build.nearprotocol.com/nearcore-deploy/shardnet/genesis.json

Now you will need to create a wallet https://wallet.shardnet.near.org/
WARNING! If you had a wallet previously to the hard fork, you may need to recreate it! Forget the old mnemonic and do everything from scratch.

After that, write in the CLI

near login

See the authorisation link and copy it into the browser window where you wallet is opened. After connecting a wallet, right the wallet name (<accountId>.shardnet.near) in the CLI and confirm.

Copy your wallet json and make some changes

cd ~/.near-credentials/shardnet/
cp wallet.json ~/.near/validator_key.json
nano validator_key.json

Change the account ID and Private Key parameter accordingly, then exit nano editor.

{ 
"account_id": "xx.factory.shardnet.near", 
"public_key":"ed25519:HeaBJ3xLgvZacQWmEctTeUqyfSU4SDEnEwckWxd92W2G", "secret_key": "ed25519:****" 
}

Create a service file (one command)

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/neard.service > /dev/null <<EOF 
[Unit] 
Description=NEARd Daemon Service 
[Service] 
Type=simple 
User=$USER #Group=near 
WorkingDirectory=$HOME/.near ExecStart=$HOME/nearcore/target/release/neard run 
Restart=on-failure 
RestartSec=30 
KillSignal=SIGINT 
TimeoutStopSec=45 
KillMode=mixed 
[Install] 
WantedBy=multi-user.target 
EOF

Now start the service and see logs, that everything works fine. You should see it downloading headers firstly and the blocks. Waiting for full sync.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload 
sudo systemctl enable neard 
sudo systemctl start neard
journalctl -f -u neard

Now let’s deploy a contract of our staking pool with 30 NEAR staked!

near call factory.shardnet.near create_staking_pool '{"staking_pool_id": "<pool id>", "owner_id": "<accountId>", "stake_public_key": "<public key>", "reward_fee_fraction": {"numerator": 5, "denominator": 100}, "code_hash":"DD428g9eqLL8fWUxv8QSpVFzyHi1Qd16P8ephYCTmMSZ"}' --accountId="<accountId>" --amount=30 --gas=300000000000000 

Change <pool id>, <accountId>, <public key>, <accountId> parameters here!

My example for this

near call factory.shardnet.near create_staking_pool '{"staking_pool_id": "777stakes", "owner_id": "777stakes.shardnet.near", "stake_public_key": "ed25519:FS6KjVhKNaZHnwrSerQBPLJLJGYZkH66j9FNbALHWYz5", "reward_fee_fraction": {"numerator": 5, "denominator": 100}, "code_hash":"DD428g9eqLL8fWUxv8QSpVFzyHi1Qd16P8ephYCTmMSZ"}' --accountId="777stakes.shardnet.near" --amount=30 --gas=300000000000000

If everything is fine, you should see yourself in near proposals command. Let’s look at the seat price in the bottom of near proposals command. And then we will need to stake. Remember to set environmentals for shardnet!

near proposals

Change parametres for staking accordingly!

near call stakes.factory.shardnet.near  deposit_and_stake --amount 1200 --accountId 777stakes.shardnet.near --gas=300000000000000

In the few epochs, you will be able to see yourself in the explorer and by typing

near validators current 
near validators next

Finally, we can set the ping (every 5 minutes)

nano ping.sh
export NEAR_ENV=shardnet
near call 777stakes.factory.shardnet.near ping '{}' --accountId 777stakes.shardnet.near --gas=300000000000000
exit nano
chmod +x ping.sh

Set up cron job for every 5 minutes! You can make sure script is working in the explorer!

crontab -e 
*/5 * * * *  $HOME/ping.sh >> $HOME/ping.log

Now all set! Good luck!