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Run a Validator

Study operating a validator node.

Prerequisite Readings​

tip

You should follow these procedures first if you intend to use a Key Management System (KMS), check out this guide on using a KMS.

danger

⚠️WARNING Ensure that UTC is set as the server timezone. A LastResultsHash mismatch problem could be brought on by a different timezone configuration. Your node will go offline because of this!

Create Your Validator​

You can activate a new validator by staking HEART tokens using your node consensus public key (humanvalconspub...). To find out your validator pubkey, write the following command:

humansd tendermint show-validator
danger

🚨 DANGER: Never use a test keying backend to generate your mainnet validator keys. By making your funds remotely accessible via the eth_sendTransaction JSON-RPC interface, this can lead to a loss of funds.

Reference: Security Advisory: Insecurely configured geth can make funds remotely accessible

Use this command to build your validator on the testnet:

humansd tx staking create-validator \
  --amount=1000000000000000000aheart \
  --pubkey=$(humansd tendermint show-validator) \
  --moniker="choose a moniker" \
  --chain-id=<chain_id> \
  --commission-rate="0.05" \
  --commission-max-rate="0.10" \
  --commission-max-change-rate="0.01" \
  --min-self-delegation="1000000" \
  --gas="auto" \
  --gas-prices="1800000000aheart" \
  --from=<key_name>
note

The min_commission_rate global parameter is set to 0.05 (5%), meaning that the minimum comission any validator on the Humans.ai network can have is 5%.

Validators need to set --commission-rate≥0.05, otherwise they will not be able to create their validator.

tip

The commission-max-change-rate, which measures % point change over the commission-rate, is utilized when setting commission parameters. For instance, a 100% rate rise from 1% to 2% is only 1 percentage point.

tip

Min-self-delegation is a strictly positive integer that represents the minimum amount of self-delegated voting power your validator must always have. A min-self-delegation of 1000000000000000000 means your validator will never have a self-delegation lower than 1 heart

Using a third-party explorer, you can verify that you are in the validator set.

Edit Validator Description​

The public description of your validator is editable. Your validator will be identified by this information, and delegators will use it to determine which validators to stake to. Make careful to include information for each flag listed below. If a flag is not specified in the command, the field defaults to being empty (the default value for --moniker is the machine name) if it has never been set, or it stays the same if it has.

The validator you are updating is indicated by the <key_name>. Remember that the --from flag is required to specify the validator to update if you decide to omit some flags.

With systems like Keybase or UPort, the --identity option can be used to validate identity. When using Keybase, the 16-digit string generated with a keybase.io account should be entered into the --identity field. It is a means of authenticating your identity across many web networks that is cryptographically secure. We can get your Keybase avatar via the Keybase API.

humansd tx staking edit-validator
  --moniker="Choose a moniker" \
  --website="https://humans.ai" \
  --identity=7B1E65E19B5DCD9F \
  --details="Bringing AI to the Interchain!" \
  --chain-id=<chain_id> \
  --gas="auto" \
  --gas-prices="1800000000aheart" \
  --from=<key_name> \
  --commission-rate="0.05"
note

The commission-rate value must abide by the following rules:

  • Must be between 0.05 and the validator's commission-max-rate
  • Must not exceed the validator's commission-max-change-rate which is maximum % point change rate per day. In other words, a validator is only permitted to modify its commission once per day and only to the extent permitted by the commission-max-change-rate limits.

View Validator Description​

Use this command to view the validator's information:

humansd query staking validator <account_cosmos>

Track Validator Signing Information​

The signing-info command allows you to keep track of a validator's previous signatures:

humansd query slashing signing-info <validator-pubkey>\
  --chain-id=<chain_id>

Unjail Validator​

In order to get block proposer rewards once more once a validator has been jailed for downtime, you must submit a Unjail transaction from the operator account (depending on the zone fee distribution).

humansd tx slashing unjail \
  --from=<key_name> \
  --chain-id=<chain_id>

Confirm Your Validator is Running​

If the command below returns something, your validator is in use:

humansd query tendermint-validator-set | grep "$(humansd tendermint show-address)"

Your validator should now appear in one of Humans.ai's explorers. You need to find the address in the /.humansd/config/priv_validator.json file that has been bech32 encoded.

note

To be in the active validator set, you need to have more total voting power than the 50th validator.

Halting Your Validator​

It can be helpful to have your validator systematically and gracefully stop when attempting to perform basic maintenance or while making plans for a forthcoming coordinated upgrade. You may accomplish this by either supplying the --halt-height flag to humansd or specifying the halt-height variable to the height at which you want your node to stop down. After committing the block, the node will shut down with a zero exit code at that specified height.

Common Problems​

Problem #1: My validator has voting_power: 0​

Your validator was recently jailed. If validators do not vote on '4750' of the most recent '5000' blocks, or if they double sign, they are jailed, or removed from the active validator list.

You can restore your voting rights to your validator if you were imprisoned for inactivity. First, restart humansd if it is not already running:

humansd start

Wait until your full node catches up to the most recent block. You can then unjail your validator.

Finally, double-check your validator to verify whether your voting capability has returned.

humansd status
danger

You might have noticed that your voting influence has decreased. You received a budget cut for downtime, that's why! Currently, there is no penalty for downtime on mainnet, but in the futures it will be enabled by a governance proposal.

Problem #2: My node crashes because of too many open files​

Linux may open up to 1024 files at once (per process). It is known that humansd can open more than 1024 files. The result is a process crash. Run ulimit -n 4096 to raise the number of open files permitted as a temporary workaround, and then resume the process with humansd start. It could be necessary to configure something at that level if you launch humansd using systemd or another process manager. Below is a sample systemd file to address this problem:

# /etc/systemd/system/humansd.service
[Unit]
Description=Humans Node
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=ubuntu
WorkingDirectory=/home/ubuntu
ExecStart=/home/ubuntu/go/bin/humansd start
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=3
LimitNOFILE=4096

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target