Chain ID Latest Version Tag Custom Port
bbn-test-3 v0.8.3 164

Setup validator name

Replace YOUR_MONIKER_GOES_HERE with your validator name

MONIKER="YOUR_MONIKER_GOES_HERE"

Install dependencies

Update system and install build tools 

sudo apt -q update
sudo apt -qy install curl git jq lz4 build-essential
sudo apt -qy upgrade

Install Go 

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/go
curl -Ls https://go.dev/dl/go1.20.14.linux-amd64.tar.gz | sudo tar -xzf - -C /usr/local
eval $(echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin' | sudo tee /etc/profile.d/golang.sh)
eval $(echo 'export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/go/bin' | tee -a $HOME/.profile)

Download and build binaries 

# Clone project repository
cd $HOME
rm -rf babylon
git clone https://github.com/babylonchain/babylon.git
cd babylon
git checkout v0.8.3

# Build binaries
make build

# Prepare binaries for Cosmovisor
mkdir -p $HOME/.babylond/cosmovisor/genesis/bin
mv build/babylond $HOME/.babylond/cosmovisor/genesis/bin/
rm -rf build

# Create application symlinks
sudo ln -s $HOME/.babylond/cosmovisor/genesis $HOME/.babylond/cosmovisor/current -f
sudo ln -s $HOME/.babylond/cosmovisor/current/bin/babylond /usr/local/bin/babylond -f

Install Cosmovisor and create a service 

# Download and install Cosmovisor
go install cosmossdk.io/tools/cosmovisor/cmd/cosmovisor@v1.5.0

# Create service
sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/babylon.service > /dev/null << EOF
[Unit]
Description=babylon node service
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=$USER
ExecStart=$(which cosmovisor) run start
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10
LimitNOFILE=65535
Environment="DAEMON_HOME=$HOME/.babylond"
Environment="DAEMON_NAME=babylond"
Environment="UNSAFE_SKIP_BACKUP=true"
Environment="PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin:$HOME/.babylond/cosmovisor/current/bin"

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable babylon.service

Initialize the node 

# Set node configuration
babylond config chain-id bbn-test-3
babylond config keyring-backend test
babylond config node tcp://localhost:16457

# Initialize the node
babylond init $MONIKER --chain-id bbn-test-3

# Download genesis and addrbook
curl -Ls https://snapshots.kjnodes.com/babylon-testnet/genesis.json > $HOME/.babylond/config/genesis.json
curl -Ls https://snapshots.kjnodes.com/babylon-testnet/addrbook.json > $HOME/.babylond/config/addrbook.json

# Add seeds
sed -i -e "s|^seeds *=.*|seeds = \"3f472746f46493309650e5a033076689996c8881@babylon-testnet.rpc.kjnodes.com:16459\"|" $HOME/.babylond/config/config.toml

# Set minimum gas price
sed -i -e "s|^minimum-gas-prices *=.*|minimum-gas-prices = \"0.00001ubbn\"|" $HOME/.babylond/config/app.toml

# Set pruning
sed -i \
  -e 's|^pruning *=.*|pruning = "custom"|' \
  -e 's|^pruning-keep-recent *=.*|pruning-keep-recent = "100"|' \
  -e 's|^pruning-keep-every *=.*|pruning-keep-every = "0"|' \
  -e 's|^pruning-interval *=.*|pruning-interval = "19"|' \
  $HOME/.babylond/config/app.toml

# Set custom ports
sed -i -e "s%^proxy_app = \"tcp://127.0.0.1:26658\"%proxy_app = \"tcp://127.0.0.1:16458\"%; s%^laddr = \"tcp://127.0.0.1:26657\"%laddr = \"tcp://127.0.0.1:16457\"%; s%^pprof_laddr = \"localhost:6060\"%pprof_laddr = \"localhost:16460\"%; s%^laddr = \"tcp://0.0.0.0:26656\"%laddr = \"tcp://0.0.0.0:16456\"%; s%^prometheus_listen_addr = \":26660\"%prometheus_listen_addr = \":16466\"%" $HOME/.babylond/config/config.toml
sed -i -e "s%^address = \"tcp://localhost:1317\"%address = \"tcp://0.0.0.0:16417\"%; s%^address = \":8080\"%address = \":16480\"%; s%^address = \"localhost:9090\"%address = \"0.0.0.0:16490\"%; s%^address = \"localhost:9091\"%address = \"0.0.0.0:16491\"%; s%:8545%:16445%; s%:8546%:16446%; s%:6065%:16465%" $HOME/.babylond/config/app.toml

# Change network to signet
sed -i -e "s|^\(network = \).*|\1\"signet\"|" $HOME/.babylond/config/app.toml

Download latest chain snapshot 

curl -L https://snapshots.kjnodes.com/babylon-testnet/snapshot_latest.tar.lz4 | tar -Ilz4 -xf - -C $HOME/.babylond
[[ -f $HOME/.babylond/data/upgrade-info.json ]] && cp $HOME/.babylond/data/upgrade-info.json $HOME/.babylond/cosmovisor/genesis/upgrade-info.json

Start service and check the logs 

sudo systemctl start babylon.service && sudo journalctl -u babylon.service -f --no-hostname -o cat

Becoming a Validator

1. Create a Keyring and Get Funds

Validators are required to have funds for two reasons:

  • They need to provide a self delegation
  • They need to pay for transaction fees for submitting BLS signature transactions

Currently, validators can only use the test keyring backend. In the future, Babylon will support other types of encrypted backends provided by the Cosmos SDK for validators.

Add new key 

babylond keys add wallet

(Optional) Recover existing key 

babylond keys add wallet --recover

Request Funds from the Babylon Testnet Faucet

This can be accomplished by going to the #faucet channel of official Discord server to request funds by providing the address you created before. After joining the channel, users send a request starting with !faucet followed by the request address. For example, !faucet bbn1sajf5fd7tyjt0jjy6lqzahy09jl2nkcnx5qm06

2. Create a BLS key

Validators are expected to submit a BLS signature at the end of each epoch. To do that, a validator needs to have a BLS key pair to sign information with.

Using the address that you created on the previous step.

babylond create-bls-key $(babylond keys show wallet -a)

This command will create a BLS key and add it to the $HOME/.babylond/config/priv_validator_key.json. This is the same file that stores the private key that the validator uses to sign blocks. Please ensure that this file is secured properly.

After creating a BLS key, you need to restart your node to load this key into memory.

sudo systemctl restart babylon.service

3. Modify the Configuration

Furthermore, you need to specify the name of the key that the validator will be using to submit BLS signature transactions under the $HOME/.babylond/config/app.toml file. Edit this file and set the key name to the one that holds funds on your keyring:

sed -i -e "s|^key-name *=.*|key-name = \"wallet\"|" $HOME/.babylond/config/app.toml

Finally, it is strongly recommended to modify the timeout_commit value under $HOME/.babylond/config/config.toml. This value specifies how long a validator will wait before commiting a block before starting on a new height. Given that Babylon aims to have a 10 second time between blocks, set this value to:

sed -i -e "s|^timeout_commit *=.*|timeout_commit = \"10s\"|" $HOME/.babylond/config/config.toml

4. Create the Validator

Contrary to a vanilla Cosmos SDK chain, a validator for Babylon is created through the babylond tx checkpointing create-validator command. This command expects that a BLS validator key exists under the $HOME/.babylond/config/priv_validator_key.json.

Babylon validators are required to submit a BLS signature transaction every epoch (with current parameters every ~30mins). Those transactions currently cost a static gas fee of 100ubbn. Therefore, it is important that validators maintain enough unbonded funds in their keyring to pay for those transaction fees.

# Please make sure you have adjusted **moniker**, **identity**, **details** and **website** to match your values.

babylond tx checkpointing create-validator \
--amount 1000000ubbn \
--pubkey $(babylond tendermint show-validator) \
--moniker "YOUR_MONIKER_NAME" \
--identity "YOUR_KEYBASE_ID" \
--details "YOUR_DETAILS" \
--website "YOUR_WEBSITE_URL" \
--chain-id bbn-test-3 \
--commission-rate 0.05 \
--commission-max-rate 0.20 \
--commission-max-change-rate 0.05 \
--min-self-delegation 1 \
--from wallet \
--gas-adjustment 1.4 \
--gas auto \
--gas-prices 0.00001ubbn \
-y

Note: In order to become an active validator, you need to have more ubbn tokens bonded than the last validator ordered by the tokens bonded (or the validator set to not be full) as well as have at least 10000000ubbn bonded.

Congrats! You are now a validator on the Babylon system.