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Setup Guide

This is a step-by-step guide on how to set up your Tendermint validator with SignCTRL.

ℹ️ Please complete the Build & Install section in the README first.

Node Setup

In order to set up your node, you can follow Tendermint's official documentation.

Lastly, you need to configure your validator node to listen for connections from an external PrivValidator service. Add the address SignCTRL is going to run on (defaults to tcp://127.0.0.1:3000) to Tendermint's config.toml

# TCP or UNIX socket address for Tendermint to listen on for
# connections from an external PrivValidator process
priv_validator_laddr = "tcp://127.0.0.1:3000"

SignCTRL Setup

Each validator node runs in tandem with its own SignCTRL daemon, so each and every validator in the set needs to have its own configuration.

Initialization

SignCTRL needs to be configured in order to be able to talk to a validator. The configuration directory defaults to $HOME/.signctrl - it can be set to a custom directory, though, via the environment variable $SIGNCTRL_CONFIG_DIR.

First thing we're going to do is initialize SignCTRL via

$ signctrl init

This will create the following files in your configuration directory:

$HOME/.signctrl/
├── config.toml
└── conn.key

The config.toml is the configuration file for SignCTRL. The Configuration section covers it in detail.

The conn.key file is a secret key that is used to establish an encrypted connection between SignCTRL and the validator.

The last thing we need to do is import the validator node's priv_validator_key.json and priv_validator_state.json into the configuration directory. Your directory should now look like this:

$HOME/.signctrl/
├── config.toml
├── conn.key
├── priv_validator_key.json
└── priv_validator_state.json

ℹ️ If you don't already have a priv_validator_key.json and priv_validator_state.json, or want to use new ones, you can use signctrl init --new-pv.

Configuration

In the previous section, we've created a config.toml file in our configuration directory.

#############################################################
###              Base Configuration Options               ###
#############################################################

[base]

# Minimum log level for SignCTRL logs.
# Must be either DEBUG, INFO, WARN or ERR.
log_level = "INFO"

# Number of validators in the SignCTRL set.
# This value must be the same across all validators
# in the set.
# Must be 2 or higher.
set_size = 2

# Number of missed blocks in a row that triggers
# a rank update in the set.
# This value must be the same across all validators
# in the set.
# Must be 1 or higher.
threshold = 10

# Rank of the validator on startup.
# Rank 1 signs, while ranks 2..n serve as backups
# until the threshold is exceeded and ranks are
# updated.
# Must be 1 or higher.
start_rank = 0

# TCP socket address the validator listens on for
# an external PrivValidator process.
# Must be a TCP address in the host:port format.
validator_laddr = "tcp://127.0.0.1:3000"

# TCP socket address the validator's RPC server
# listens on.
# Must be a TCP address in the host:port format.
validator_laddr_rpc = "tcp://127.0.0.1:26657"

# Time after which SignCTRL assumes it lost the
# connection to the validator and retries dialing
# it.
# Must be 1 or higher. Use 's' for seconds, 'm' for
# minutes and 'h' for hours.
retry_dial_after = "15s"

#############################################################
###        Private Validator Configuration Options        ###
#############################################################

[privval]

# The chain the validator validates for.
chain_id = ""

The initial config.toml provides a set of default values for most fields. Please make sure to customize the fields start_rank and chain_id to your individual needs after generation.

Furthermore, there are a couple of things to consider:

  • set_size, threshold and chain_id must be shared values across all validators in the set
  • start_rank must be unique, so no two validators in the set can have the same rank

Example Configuration

The following two configurations are an example for a SignCTRL set of two validators.

Validator #1 Validator #2 
[base]

log_level = "INFO"
set_size = 2 # Shared value
threshold = 5 # Shared value
start_rank = 1 # Unique
validator_laddr = "tcp://127.0.0.1:3000"
validator_laddr_rpc = "tcp://127.0.0.1:26657"
retry_dial_after = "15s"

[privval]

chain_id = "testchain" # Shared value
 
[base]

log_level = "INFO"
set_size = 2 # Shared value
threshold = 5 # Shared value
start_rank = 2 # Unique
validator_laddr = "tcp://127.0.0.1:3000"
validator_laddr_rpc = "tcp://127.0.0.1:26657"
retry_dial_after = "15s"

[privval]

chain_id = "testchain" # Shared value

Unit File

It is recommended to use systemctl to run SignCTRL. Here's an example of a signctrl.service unit file:

[Unit]
Description=signctrl
Requires=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Restart=on-failure
User=signer
Group=signer
PermissionsStartOnly=true
ExecStart=/home/signer/go/bin/signctrl start
KillSignal=SIGTERM
LimitNOFILE=4096
Environment=SIGNCTRL_CONFIG_DIR=/Users/signer/.signctrl

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Running

ℹ️ Replace all occurrences of simd with the name of your binary.

Once all the nodes are configured, start the SignCTRL service first via

$ sudo systemctl start signctrl

and then, start your validator via

$ sudo systemctl simd start

For convenience, you can also chain the commands above with small delays in between:

$ sudo systemctl start signctrl; sleep 0.5s; sudo systemctl start simd

ℹ️ It doesn't matter which order you start your validators in. Ranks 2..n will always wait for a signature from rank 1 before they start counting blocks missed in a row and consequently updating their ranks.