Run an Archive Node

Overview

An archive node stores the history of past blocks. Most of the time, an archive node is used as an RPC endpoint. RPC plays a vital role in our network: it connects users and dApps to the blockchain through WebSocket and HTTP endpoints. For example, our public endpoints

node1.mandalachain.io
wss://node1.mandalachain.io

run archive nodes for anyone to connect to the Mandala Chain quickly.

DApp projects must run their own RPC node as an archive to retrieve necessary blockchain data and not rely on public infrastructure. Public endpoints respond slower because of the large amount of users connected and are rate-limited.

CAUTION

Be careful not to confuse with a full node that has a pruned database: a full node only stores the current state and most recent blocks (256 blocks by default) and uses much less storage space.

We maintain two different networks: Madya mainnet and Niskala testnet.

MandalaChain	Token	Ticker
Madya	Kepeng	KPG
Niskala	Kepeng Testnet	KPGT

Requirements​

Machine

Madya (Mainnet)

Component	Requirement
System	Ubuntu 20.04
CPU	8 cores
Memory	16 GB
Hard Disk	500 GB SSD (NVMe preferable)

Niskala (Testnet)

Component	Requirement
System	Ubuntu 20.04
CPU	4 cores
Memory	8 GB
Hard Disk	200 GB SSD (NVMe preferable)

Ports​

The Mandala Chain node will listen at different ports by default for both the mainnet and the testnet.

Description	Testnet Port	Custom Port Flag
P2P	30333	--port
RPC	9944	--rpc-port
Prometheus	9615	--prometheus-port

For all types of nodes, ports 30333 and 30334 need to be opened for incoming traffic at the Firewall. Validator nodes should not expose WS and RPC ports to the public.

Installation​

There are 2 different ways to run a Mandala Chain node:

Using Binary - run the node from a binary file and set it up as systemd service

Using Docker - run the node within a Docker container