Basic node management

Start and stop your node, test whether your blockchain is downloaded. Backup your keys and chain data. Create an account, check your AXL balance, get AXL tokens from the faucet.

Prerequisites

• Configure your environment as per CLI configuration and Node configuration.
• Install lz4
• Ensure QPD_HOME variable is set in your current session. See https://docs.QP.dev/node/config-node#home-directory (example QPD_HOME=“$HOME/.QP”).

Start your Quantum Portal node

You may wish to redirect log output to a file (your command will be launched in background):

$QPD_HOME/bin/QPd start --home $QPD_HOME >> $QPD_HOME/logs/QPd.log 2>&1 &

View your logs in real time:

tail -f $QPD_HOME/logs/QPd.log

Test whether your blockchain is downloaded

Eventually your Quantum Portal node will download the entire Quantum Portal blockchain and exit catching_up mode. At that time your logs will show a new block added to the blockchain every 5 seconds.

You can test whether your Quantum Portal node has exited catching_up mode:

$QPD_HOME/bin/QPd status

Look for the field catching_up:

• true: you are still downloading the blockchain.
• false: you have finished downloading the blockchain.

Stop your Quantum Portal node

Stop your currently running Quantum Portal node:

pkill -f "QPd start"

Check your Quantum Portal node status

ps aux | grep "QPd start"

No process should be running.

Backup and restore your node and validator keys

Each time you start your Quantum Portal node QPd will look for the following files in $QPD_HOME/config:

• node_key.json : The p2p identity of your node. Back this up if this is a seed node.
• priv_validator_key.json : Validator’s Tendermint consensus key. Back this up if this is a validator node.

These files will be created if they do not already exist. You can restore them from a backup simply by placing them in $QPD_HOME/config before starting your node.

Backup your chain data

Backup your entire node’s state simply by copying the $QPD_HOME directory:

cp -r $QPD_HOME ${QPD_HOME}_backup.$(date +"%Y%m%d_%H%M%S")

Create an account

$QPD_HOME/bin/QPd keys add my_account --home $QPD_HOME

Learn your address

The public address of your account my_account was printed to stdout when you created it. You can display the address at any time:

$QPD_HOME/bin/QPd keys show validator -a --home $QPD_HOME

Check your AXL balance

Let {MY_ADDRESS} denote the address of your my_account account.

$QPD_HOME/bin/QPd q bank balances {MY_ADDRESS}

If this is a new account then you should see no token balances.

Get AXL tokens from the faucet

Testnets: Go to the Quantum Portal testnet faucet and send some free AXL testnet tokens to {MY_ADDRESS}:

• Testnet Faucet