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Node FAQ

The following pages contains common questions regarding running nodes.

⚙ Node Configuration

Does my blockchain node need to be synced before I start my Pocket node?

Yes. Every node on the Pocket Network needs to have the most up to date information of the blockchain they are supporting. If you start joining sessions before your node has caught up to the current block height, you will be returning incorrect data, and if incorrect data is being returned, your node will be slashed.

How many blockchains can one node support?

Your node can support up to the number of chains defined by the MaximumChains parameter. This limit is not definitive and can be changed by the DAO.

Can I add a load balancer address in my chains.json if I have multiple blockchains under one domain?

Yes you can! Just make sure you have the necessary ports open to be able to successfully send relays to the proper network.

How can I add more blockchains to my node?

Unstake your node, add the new RelayChainIDs to your chains.json file, then restake your node.

Find the RelayChainIDs here

Can I continue earning POKT while I'm unstaking?

No, for the duration of the unstaking process as determined by the UnstakingTime parameter, your node will not be eligible for sessions.

Do each of my nodes need a unique IP address?

You need a dedicated domain for each node, but the nodes can be on the same machine, behind the same IP address. It would take properly configuring your Reverse Proxy and Firewall/Router, but it can be done.

How do I set my ulimit?

Where to set the ulimit

As a best practice, do not use root to run the pocket process. When you set the ulimit for your instance, it's important to set it in the user profile that is running the pocket-core instance.

Make sure that you're setting the ulimit for the specific account that's running the pocket process.

Configuring the ulimit system-wide might vary depending on your OS. Here's a basic tutorial on setting them for linux: https://rtcamp.com/tutorials/linux/increase-open-files-limit/

How to calculate the ulimit

To calculate the ulimit, you will have to define a few parameters as shown below:

({ulimit -Sn} >= {MaxNumInboundPeers} + {MaxNumOutboundPeers} + {GRPCMaxOpenConnections} + {MaxOpenConnections} + {Desired Concurrent Pocket RPC connections} + {100 (Constant number of wal, db and other open files)}

Breakdown:

  • ulimit -Sn: = is a soft number of open files that need to be open

  • GRPCMaxOpenConnections = is the number of RPC connections connections your node can relay

  • MaxOpenConnections = max number of connections you want your node to service

You will need to increase your ulimit to the calculated number. To do so, go into your .bashrc in your $HOME dir and enter:

ulimit -Sn 16384

Once you save your file, enter:

source ~/.bashrc

What do I do if my node needs to go down for an extended period, such as during a machine migration?

To opt out of being selected for work, you should deliberately jail your node, which lets the network know you are not ready to receive any relays. Once the machine is back up and running, you can unjail your node again.

❌ Node Troubleshooting

Why is my node not earning POKT?

See the section below on Maximizing your POKT earnings.

How do I check my Pocket node status?

Make sure your node is connected to the network by executing:

curl http://<your node ip>:26657/status

Lookout for latest_block_height and latest_block_time to make sure it's updated to the current time in UTC.

Example Output:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": "",
  "result": {
    "node_info": {
      "protocol_version": {
        "p2p": "7",
        "block": "10",
        "app": "0"
      },
      "id": "4930289621aefbf9252c91c4c729b7f685e44c4b",
      "listen_addr": "tcp://0.0.0.0:26656",
      "network": "pocket-testet-playground",
      "version": "0.32.7",
      "channels": "4020212223303800",
      "moniker": "pocket-core-testnet-55f59f6c8-5njbx",
      "other": {
        "tx_index": "on",
        "rpc_address": "tcp://0.0.0.0:26657"
      }
    },
    "sync_info": {
      "latest_block_hash": "090C3B9C3B9F1BB10C6825D5230A45759E19A9BCC1503B80314F93B69162C712",
      "latest_app_hash": "AB5838AA434FD36B48B759E62C596F4145F4C086B07FB45D2CCFCFFF21F5F937",
      "latest_block_height": "49",
      "latest_block_time": "2020-02-10T23:17:59.161691821Z",
      "catching_up": false
    },
    "validator_info": {
      "address": "4930289621AEFBF9252C91C4C729B7F685E44C4B",
      "pub_key": {
        "type": "tendermint/PubKeyEd25519",
        "value": "9i9322nUSMG1bzVAxjPylNI8za8AK/azdtBYoAtRz6o="
      },
      "voting_power": "1000"
    }
  }
}

I keep getting "too many open files" when my node is syncing? What does this mean?

This means that your ulimit is set too low on your node. Find instructions on how to set your ulimit above.

Why does my node keep crashing?

Your node can crash due to the following reasons:

  1. Having too many open files

  2. Resource limitations

Too Many Open Files

Make sure your ulimit is set correctly on your user profile. Find instructions on how to set your ulimit above.

Resource Limitations

Make sure your node meets the minimum hardware requirements for both a Pocket node and the blockchain nodes you're servicing. Details are above on this page.

Will my node be slashed for downtime?

There are negligible burns at this stage of the network, determined by the SlashFractionDowntime parameter. As the network matures, the rate will probably be increased to push for better service.

🤑 Maximizing your Pocket earnings

So you've spun up your Pocket node but you're not earning as much as you thought you would. On this page, we debunk some common misconceptions and explain how to maximize your earnings.

My node is functional but doesn't seem to be earning POKT - is it configured incorrectly?

There are a couple of reasons why your node may not be rewarding you with POKT. There are many great community members and Pocket teammates that are eager to help you triage this, but first, ask yourself, “is your node configured correctly?”. Don't assume it is. Use the troubleshooting steps listed above.

The next thing to check is if your node is offline or jailed...or both. Reasons include:

  • Returning incorrect data

  • Missing blocks

  • Being offline

  • serviceURI is not publicly reachable

If you suspect that this may be happening to your node, you can do a historical search on your nodes. We have a great community member who created this script to help you determine how long you were jailed for a specific period of time.

Checking your node status is one of the first steps towards maximizing your POKT earnings.

Conversely, how will I know if my node is working correctly?

Checking the block height is the easiest way to know if you're synced up to the network. You can simply query your node to get this height and compare it to the latest block displayed on the Explorer.

pocket query height

The above command tells you if your Pocket node is synced up, but you're probably running at least one other node for the external blockchains (referred to on this page as blockchain data nodes) that you're serving to apps. You should make sure these are also synced up to their respective networks.

For example, you can check the block height of your Geth Ethereum node by submitting this query to your node, which returns the latest height of geth-mainnet known by the node.

curl --request POST --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --data-raw '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_blockNumber","params":[],"id":83}' --user [authentication] [GETH NODE URL]

When will I find out if I have made POKT rewards?

To check if you're earning rewards, you can simply monitor the balance of your node.

pocket query balance <address>

This way is very manual and you would need to track your balance over time to understand the change in the amounts.

The good news is there are several options for tracking your node rewards such as POKT ROKT, which tracks the last 24 hours of earnings in its CLI dashboard, or Sandwalker which tracks historical rewards by day and month.

Why don't I just connect my Pocket node to [insert third-party provider here]?

On the surface, this seems like a great idea. Use a free tier of another service (e.g. Infura) and you don't have to pay for any blockchain data node costs.

First off, free tiers by third-party providers are capped, which limits your upside. To make matters worse, if you use a third-party provider instead of running your own blockchain data node, you won't make enough POKT to cover the server costs of your Pocket node.

Plus, that doesn't jive with our ethos now, does it?

Why wouldn't I make enough POKT with a third-party?

Using third-party providers slows you down. Slower nodes make less revenue.

Why does the third-party slow you down? Increasing the distance between your Pocket node and the third-party blockchain data node increases the number and length of hops that an end-user's request has to make.

Here is an illustration:

In this example, the Pocket nodes (pink) are on the other side of the US from the Blockchain data nodes (orange). The end-user is using the Portal to communicate with the network. The path the end-user's request must take is: End-user → Portal → Pocket Node → Blockchain Data Node → Pocket Node → Portal → End-user

The end-user's request must hop back and forth across the US 4 times and that's not including the hops between the user and the Portal. As a result, it may take up to 1 second for a user to receive something as simple as a balance query. That's not very good service.

Aren't there data centers around the world for this exact reason?

Correct. However, this works against you in this scenario.

Most third-party providers will have their servers in standard cloud regions situated around the world labeled such as East, West, EU, and Singapore. Load balancers are standard. For example, if a user is in Australia, they will be redirected to the nearest server in Singapore.

The challenge with using a third-party provider for your blockchain data node is that, by default, your Pocket Node will not always be in the same data center or machine as the third-party blockchain data node. If your Pocket Node is in US West, while you may have lesser latency from users who are hitting those servers, your node will *never* be as fast as it could be.

Your node will likely be in a different datacenter, where even a couple of hops will add somewhere between 30ms - 50ms. This becomes exacerbated when a user is coming from US East or the EU. With a full node on US West, you're adding up to 200ms per request for these users.

Why does the latency matter?

While Pocket Network doesn't discriminate (yet) between the speed of requests, the Portal does. The Portal filters out slow nodes to ensure the protocol is providing the best service possible to apps.

The vast majority of the requests on the network today come through the Portal. This means that faster nodes = more POKT.

In the long run, your setup matters not only for your earnings but also for ensuring a quality service for end-users (which will ultimately be crucial for the growth of the network).

Then how can I maximize my node revenue?

The following are some best practices that will give you an edge over the majority of node runners.

  • Know where the users are located… and locate your nodes accordingly. The Pocket Portal is currently in US-West-2, US-East-2, EU-West-1, AP-SE-1. The most underserved geographic area on Pocket is currently the Asia Pacific region.

  • Minimize the distance between your Pocket Nodes and your blockchain data nodes. Having your blockchain data nodes next to your Pocket nodes in the same rack is ideal.

  • Load-balance your blockchain data nodes.

  • Use a Peering Tower to reduce P2P gossip on the network. Visit the 🤖node-runner channel on Discord for more information.

  • Use physical hardware at home or data centers; you will have faster nodes and lower costs over time by owning your hardware and co-locating it.

  • Monitor your nodes for both health and sync -- being online is only the first step, you must keep your blockchain data nodes in sync or they will not service relays.

  • Use services like the Performance Explorer to monitor your node's performance in comparison to other nodes.

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