qubic - node

Qubic Node Source Code - this repository contains the source code of a full qubic node.

MAIN (current version running qubic)

DEVELOP (current version we're working on)

Prerequisites

To run a qubic node, you need the following spec:

• Bare Metal Server/Computer with at least 8 Cores (high CPU frequency with AVX2 support). AVX-512 support is recommended; check supported CPUs here
• At least 500GB of RAM
• 1Gb/s synchronous internet connection
• A USB Stick or SSD/HD attached to the Computer (via NVMe M.2 or USB)
• UEFI Bios

You will need the current spectrum, universe, and contract files to be able to start Qubic. The latest files can be found in our #computor-operator channel on the Qubic Discord server: https://discord.gg/qubic (inquire there for the files).

Prepare your USB Stick/SSD/HD

1. Your Qubic Boot device should be formatted as FAT32 with the label QUBIC.

# sample command in linux
mkfs.fat -F 32 -n QUBIC /dev/sda

If you have a disk and want to use partitions, this is possible too. use gdisk.

gdisk /dev/sda

# remove all existing partition with d command
# add the qubic partition with n command
# it is recommended to use <1TB of partition size; the start sector and the end sector can be specified with size. eg: 200G.
# set the type of partition to ef00

echo -e "o\nY\nd\nn\n\n\n+200G\n\nt\n\nef00\nw\nY" | gdisk /dev/sda

2. We recommend to have the following structure on the disk.

/contract0000.XXX
/contract0001.XXX
/contract0002.XXX
/contract0003.XXX
/contract0004.XXX
/contract0005.XXX
/spectrum.XXX
/system
/universe.XXX
/efi/boot
/efi/boot/Bootx64.efi
/efi/boot/startup.nsh
/efi/boot/Qubic.efi

• contract0000.XXX => must be the current contract #0 file. XXX must be replaced with the current epoch. (e.g. contract0000.114)
• contract0001.XXX => must be the current contract #1 file. XXX must be replaced with the current epoch. (e.g. contract0001.114). Data from Qx.
• contract0002.XXX => must be the current contract #2 file. XXX must be replaced with the current epoch. (e.g. contract0002.114). Data from Quottery.
• contract0003.XXX => must be the current contract #3 file. XXX must be replaced with the current epoch. (e.g. contract0003.114). Data from Random.
• contract0004.XXX => must be the current contract #4 file. XXX must be replaced with the current epoch. (e.g. contract0004.114). Data from QUtil.
• contract0005.XXX => must be the current contract #5 file. XXX must be replaced with the current epoch. (e.g. contract0005.114). Data from MyLastMatch.
• Other contract files with the same format as above. For now, we have 6 contracts.
• universe.XXX => must be the current universe file. XXX must be replaced with the current epoch. (e.g universe.114)
• spectrum.XXX => must be the current spectrum file. XXX must be replaced with the current epoch. (e.g spectrum.114)
• system => to start from scratch, use an empty file. (e.g. touch system)
• Bootx64.efi => boot loader
• startup.nsh => UEFI start script
• Qubic.efi => the compiled qubic node code (efi executable)

The content of your startup.nsh could look like this:

timezone -s 00:00
ifconfig -s eth0 dhcp
fs0:
cd efi
cd boot
Qubic.efi

• timezone -s 00:00 sets the timezone to UTC
• ifconfig -s eth0 dhcp tells the efi to get an ip address from DHCP; if you want to set a fixed ip you can use ifconfig -s eth0 static <IP> <SUBNETMASK> <GATEWAY>
• fs0: changes to drive 0
• Qubic.efi starts qubic

If you have multiple hard drives, the fs0: must changed to meet your environment.

To make it easier, you can copy & paste our prepared initial disk from https://github.com/qubic/core/blob/main/doc/qubic-initial-disk.zip

If you have multiple network interfaces, you may disconnect these before starting qubic.

Prepare your Server

To run Qubic on your server you need the following:

• UEFI Bios
• Enabled Network Stack in Bios
• Your USB Stick/SSD should be the boot device

General Process of deploying a node

1. Find knownPublicPeers public peers (e.g. from: https://app.qubic.li/network/live)
2. Set the needed parameters inside src/private_settings.h (https://github.com/qubic/core/blob/main/src/private_settings.h)
3. Compile Source to EFI
4. Start EFI Application on your Computer

How to run a Listening Node

To run a "listen-only" node, just add IP addresses of 3-4 known public peers to the code (including your own IP).

static const unsigned char knownPublicPeers[][4] = {
};

Compile with RELEASE.

How to run a Computor Node

1. Add your Computor Seed(s)

static unsigned char computorSeeds[][55 + 1] = {
    "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa",
};

2. Add your Operator Identity. The Operator Identity is used to identify the Operator. The Operator can send Commands to your Node.

#define OPERATOR "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

3. Add static IPs of known public peers (can be obtained from https://app.qubic.li/network/live). Ideally, add at least 4 including your own IP.

static const unsigned char knownPublicPeers[][4] = {
  {12,13,14,12}
};

The clock of the node needs to be in sync. We recommend to synchronize a Linux / Windows / MacOS machine with NTP permanently and run qubic-cli -synctime from that machine regularly, for example once a day with a cronjob.

License

The Anti-Military License. See LICENSE.md.

Installation and Configuration

Please refer to https://docs.qubic.org

Limited Support

We cannot support you in any case. You are welcome to provide updates, bug fixes, or other code changes by pull requests, see here.

More Documentation

• How to contribute
• Qubic protocol