Start a Node - LXC

1. Prerequisite

Before you start, make sure your device meets the following requirements:

2. Install the software

Install the latest NVIDIA driver

Download the latest NVIDIA driver from the NVIDIA official website, and finish the installation.

The Crynux Node requires the nvidia-smi command to be installed on the host machine. You need to make sure this command is available on your host.

On Ubuntu, the command can be installed via the nvidia-utils package. For other Linux distributions, please find the package that provides the nvidia-smi command and install it.

You can verify the installation by running nvidia-smi on your host machine:

$ nvidia-smi

Install NVIDIA Container Toolkit

Install the NVIDIA Container Toolkit by following the official guide: https://docs.nvidia.com/datacenter/cloud-native/container-toolkit/latest/install-guide.html

Install LXD or Incus

Install your chosen container manager by following its official guide:

• LXD: https://documentation.ubuntu.com/lxd/

• Incus: https://linuxcontainers.org/incus/docs/main/installing/

After installation, initialize it according to its documentation.

3. Setup the Configuration Profile

The Crynux Node repository provides a script to generate a ready-to-use profile configuration file tailored to your system.

a. Get the profile script from GitHub

Clone the crynux-node repository and navigate to the script directory:

$ git clone https://github.com/crynux-network/crynux-node.git
$ cd crynux-node/build/lxc/crynux-profile

b. Generate the profile configuration

Run the create-profile.sh script to generate the profile.yaml file. You must tell the script whether you are using lxc or incus.

# Using LXD
$ ./create-profile.sh lxc

# Using Incus
$ ./create-profile.sh incus

c. Create the profile

Now, create the crynux-node profile using the generated profile.yaml file:

# Using LXD
$ sudo lxc profile create crynux-node
$ cat profile.yaml | sudo lxc profile edit crynux-node

# Using Incus
$ sudo incus profile create crynux-node
$ cat profile.yaml | sudo incus profile edit crynux-node

4. Start the Node

a. Add the Crynux LXC image remote

The Crynux Node LXC images are hosted on a public image server. Add it to your remotes:

# Using LXD
$ sudo lxc remote add --protocol simplestreams crynux https://lxc.crynux.io

# Using Incus
$ sudo incus remote add --protocol simplestreams crynux https://lxc.crynux.io

You can list the available images:

# Using LXD
$ sudo lxc image list crynux:

# Using Incus
$ sudo incus image list crynux:

b. Launch the container

Now, launch the container using the profile you created. This is a clean, single command that applies all your configurations at once. Note that we apply both the default profile (for basic networking) and our new crynux-node profile.

Launch the Crynux Node container. There are different images for different blockchain networks.

# Using LXD
$ sudo lxc launch crynux:crynux-node:latest-dymension crynux-node -p default -p crynux-node

# Using Incus
$ sudo incus launch crynux:crynux-node:latest-dymension crynux-node -p default -p crynux-node

# Using LXD
$ sudo lxc launch crynux:crynux-node:latest-near crynux-node -p default -p crynux-node

# Using Incus
$ sudo incus launch crynux:crynux-node:latest-near crynux-node -p default -p crynux-node

c. Visit the WebUI in the browser

Open the browser and go to http://localhost:7412

You should see the WebUI of the Node:

5. Prepare the wallet

A wallet with enough test tokens must be provided to the node. If this is the first time you start a node, click the "Create New Wallet" button and follow the instructions to create a new wallet and finish the backup of the private keys.

Get the test CNX tokens from the Discord Server

Some test CNX tokens are required to start the node. The test CNX tokens can be acquired for free in the Discord server of Crynux:

Join the Crynux #DeAI Discord Server!Discord

Follow the instructions in the following document to get the test tokens:

6. Wait for the system initialization to finish

If this is the first time you start a node, it could take quite a long while for the system to initialize. The most time consuming step is to download ~40GB of the commonly used model files from the Huggingface. The time may vary depending on your network speed.

After the models are downloaded, a test image generation task will be executed locally to examine the capability of your device. If the device is not capable to generate images, or the generation speed is too slow, the node will not be able to join the network. If the task is finished successfully, the initialization is completed:

7. Join the Crynux Network

The Crynux Node will try to join the network automatically every time it is started. After the transaction is confirmed on-chain, the node has successfully joined the network. When the node is selected by the network to execute a task, the task will start automatically, and the tokens will be transferred to the node wallet after the task is finished.

Now the Node is fully up and running. You could just leave it there to run tasks automatically.

The Node could be paused or stopped at any time by clicking the control buttons. If the node is in the middle of running a task, after clicking the buttons, the node will go into the "pending" status and continue with the running task. When the task is finished, the node will pause/stop automatically.

The difference between pausing and stopping is that pausing will not cause the staked CNX tokens to be returned, so that the transaction costs less gas fee than stopping. If you have a plan of going back, you could use pausing rather than stopping.

8. Updating the Node

a. Pull the latest image

First, refresh your local image to pull the latest version from the remote server.

# Using LXD
$ sudo lxc image refresh crynux:crynux-node:latest-dymension --alias

# Using Incus
$ sudo incus image refresh crynux:crynux-node:latest-dymension --alias

# Using LXD
$ sudo lxc image refresh crynux:crynux-node:latest-near --alias

# Using Incus
$ sudo incus image refresh crynux:crynux-node:latest-near --alias

b. Stop and delete the old container

# Using LXD
$ sudo lxc stop crynux-node
$ sudo lxc delete crynux-node

# Using Incus
$ sudo incus stop crynux-node
$ sudo incus delete crynux-node

Don't worry, if you have mounted the data and config directories, your data will be safe on the host machine as it is managed by the profile.

c. Launch a new container with the latest image

Follow the instructions in step 4 to launch a new container. It will now use the latest image you just pulled, and automatically apply the crynux-node profile with all your settings.

# Using LXD
$ sudo lxc launch crynux:crynux-node:latest-dymension crynux-node -p default -p crynux-node

# Using Incus
$ sudo incus launch crynux:crynux-node:latest-dymension crynux-node -p default -p crynux-node

# Using LXD
$ sudo lxc launch crynux:crynux-node:latest-near crynux-node -p default -p crynux-node

# Using Incus
$ sudo incus launch crynux:crynux-node:latest-near crynux-node -p default -p crynux-node

Your node will restart with the new version, using your existing data and configuration.