Configure the node

Configuration lives in the node's home directory, ~/.nolus by default, and is split across two files. config/config.toml holds the CometBFT settings for networking and consensus, while config/app.toml holds the application settings such as the gas price, pruning and the API servers. To use another location, pass --home <dir> to any nolusd command.

Initialize the home directory

Create the home directory with a name for your node and the mainnet chain id:

nolusd init <moniker> --chain-id pirin-1

Replace <moniker> with the name of your node. The command creates ~/.nolus/config with config.toml, app.toml, a placeholder genesis.json, the node key in node_key.json and the consensus key in priv_validator_key.json.

Fetch the genesis file

Download the mainnet genesis file over the placeholder and check its chain id:

curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nolus-protocol/nolus-networks/main/mainnet/pirin-1/genesis.json \
  -o ~/.nolus/config/genesis.json
jq -r .chain_id ~/.nolus/config/genesis.json   # pirin-1

The last command prints pirin-1 when the right file is in place.

Add seeds and peers

A new node needs at least one seed or peer to find the network. The public seed nodes for pirin-1 are listed in the Cosmos chain registry, which names seeds.polkachu.com:19756, seeds.lavenderfive.com:11956, seed.publicnode.com:26656, nolus-mainnet-seed.autostake.com:27016 and nolus.rpc.kjnodes.com:14359. The following commands read them with their node ids straight from the registry and write them into config.toml:

SEEDS=$(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cosmos/chain-registry/master/nolus/chain.json \
  | jq -r '[.peers.seeds[] | .id + "@" + .address] | join(",")')
sed -i -e "s|^seeds *=.*|seeds = \"$SEEDS\"|" ~/.nolus/config/config.toml

Live peers are optional, although adding a few as persistent peers speeds up the first connection. Polkachu publishes the peers that are online right now, and the following commands set them as persistent peers:

PEERS=$(curl -s https://polkachu.com/api/v2/chains/nolus/live_peers \
  | jq -r '.live_peers | join(",")')
sed -i -e "s|^persistent_peers *=.*|persistent_peers = \"$PEERS\"|" ~/.nolus/config/config.toml

Each peer entry has the form <node-id>@<host>:<port>.

Set the minimum gas price

The minimum-gas-prices setting in ~/.nolus/config/app.toml is the lowest fee per unit of gas that your node accepts into its mempool, and nolusd init writes the following value:

minimum-gas-prices = "0.0025unls"

Because wallets and the chain registry use 0.025unls, either value works for transactions that wallets create.

Choose a pruning mode

Pruning decides how much historical state the node keeps, and the pruning setting in app.toml takes one of four values:

Nolus produces a block about every 2.2 seconds, so default keeps roughly nine days of state.

Recommended settings on start

Every time nolusd start runs, nolusd writes the following recommended values into config.toml and app.toml before the node starts:

Any edit you make to these keys is overwritten on the next start, so if you want to keep your own values, start the node with --reject-config-defaults.

Once the node is configured, restore it from a snapshot, and then either set up Cosmovisor or run the node.