althea-systemd

systemd scripts for running an althea validator

First do this: althea validator manual setup

Compatibility note

• These scripts were developed on and tested on one of the most recent versions of Ubuntu Server (specifically Ubuntu Server 20.10).
• Read the scripts (they are short) and adjust the binary locations and folders to match your setup
• ⚠️ If you want to use the high-speed /dev/shm/ approach (currently the default way, with the prep/cleanup scripts) to running althea, you will need 48GB RAM (or more, 64GB+ seems safe). That is because the prep script loads the entire .althea/ directory into RAM while running althea.
• You will need 50 GB storage (the althea data folder is almost 15GB at time of writing, so to be safe as the network grows I recommend a linode 2GB plan or higher)
• storage latency should be < 5ms (if you are not using the /dev/shm/ shared memory approach)

ℹ️ Test storage latency with the ioping tool: sudo ioping /dev/sdX -c5 where /dev/sdX is the device where your .althea data folder is mounted. Usually this is /dev/sda, but can be /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv on Ubuntu systems.

systemd note about /dev/shm/

⚠️ Important note: In order to safely use /dev/shm/, you need to make the following edits to /etc/systemd/logind.conf:

Add the following line to /etc/systemd/logind.conf:

RemoveIPC=no

Save the file, then reboot the system. By default, RemoveIPC is yes, which means that periodically, /dev/shm/ is cleaned up.

Since these scripts use /dev/shm/ to keep the Althea data in memory while running (optional, of course, but enabled by default in these scripts), we don't want /dev/shm/ to periodically clean up.

folder: althea-scripts

Place the scripts from the althea-scripts folder into the folder where you want to keep your althea run scripts (not the systemd service files, those are separate).

Maybe that's in /home/altheauser/althea-scripts, maybe it's /etc/althea/scripts, whatever. You decide. :)

Note about the prep- and cleanup- scripts

The scripts utilize /dev/shm/ (an in-RAM folder aka shared memory aka tmpfs) to store the althea database and files in memory (very fast, speedy bits) while the althea service runs. As the althea service shuts down, the /dev/shm/althea/ contents are backed up to disk.

If you don't want to load the althea database and files into memory, change the content of the prep- and cleanup- scripts. I might make the scripts take easily-changeable parameters in the future.

folder: etc-systemd-system

Place the scripts from the etc-systemd-system folder into /etc/systemd/system/, or wherever you keep your systemd scripts.

Then, run sudo systemctl enable althea.service, and do the same sudo systemctl enable for geth.service and orchestrator-althea.service

After enabling the systemd services, run the following:

1. Start Althea: sudo systemctl start althea.service
2. Start Geth: sudo systemctl start geth.service
3. Start the Orchestrator: sudo systemctl start orchestrator-althea.service

You can check the status of all the services with: sudo systemctl status althea.service geth.service orchestrator-althea.service (all statuses for all 3 services will show up, navigate with the arrow keys, press q to quit the status view)