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How to Become a Collator

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Some familiarity with the Linux/Mac command line and Docker is required.

Overview

Darwinia Collators are members of the Darwinia Network responsible for producing blocks and supporting block liveness. They collect parachain transactions from users and produce state transition proofs for Relay Chain validators. In short, collators offer blocks to validators on the relay chain for finalization.
Learn more about Collator by clicking here.

Reward that a Dariwnia Collator Can Get

where

Networks

Network
Chain Name
Collators Max
Session Length
Crab 2
crab
14
6 hours
Darwinia 2
darwinia
10
6 hours
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The following steps are based on Crab 2. Darwinia’s steps are similar.

Run Collator Node

Recommended Hardware

  • RAM: 16 GB:
  • Storage(SSD): 1 TB

Use Precompiled Binary

bash
#!/bin/bash DARWINIA_HOME="$HOME/darwinia" DARWINIA_DATA_DIR="$DARWINIA_HOME/data" mkdir -p $DARWINIA_DATA_DIR # Download and extract the darwinia binary to your DARWINIA_HOME directory wget -P $DARWINIA_HOME https://github.com/darwinia-network/darwinia/releases/download/v6.0.0-1/darwinia2-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.bz2 tar xvf $DARWINIA_HOME/darwinia2-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.bz2 -C $DARWINIA_HOME rm $DARWINIA_HOME/darwinia2-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.bz2 # Run $DARWINIA_HOME/darwinia \ --chain=crab \ --base-path=$DARWINIA_DATA_DIR \ --collator # Or, run by PM2 # pm2 start $DARWINIA_HOME/darwinia -- \ # --chain=crab \ # --base-path=$DARWINIA_DATA_DIR \ # --collator
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To increase the high availability of your collator node, consider using process management tools like PM2.
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error while loading shared libraries: libssl.so.1.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory If you encounter this error, try the following method: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72133316/libssl-so-1-1-cannot-open-shared-object-file-no-such-file-or-directory

Alternatively, you can use Docker

bash
#!/bin/bash DARWINIA_DATA_DIR="$HOME/darwinia/data" mkdir -p $DARWINIA_DATA_DIR chown -R 1000:1000 $DARWINIA_DATA_DIR docker run -dit \ --name collator \ -v $DARWINIA_DATA_DIR:/data ghcr.io/darwinia-network/darwinia:sha-a7ba402 \ --chain=crab \ --base-path=/data \ --collator
bash
docker logs -f --tail 10 collator

(Optional) Download History Kusama Data

The Kusama node may take up to 2 days to complete syncing. You can download the Kusama history data from a snapshot to accelerate the process. The download process may take approximately 1-2 hours.
bash
sudo apt install lz4 wget -c https://ksm-rocksdb.polkashots.io/snapshot -O - | tar -I lz4 -xf - -C $DARWINIA_DATA_DIR/polkadot/chains/ksmcc3/ # for darwinia # wget -c https://dot-rocksdb.polkashots.io/snapshot -O - | tar -I lz4 -xf - -C $DARWINIA_DATA_DIR/polkadot/chains/polkadot

(Optional) Download History Crab2 Data

You also can download Crab2 data from snapshots. http://snapshots.crab.network/
bash
sudo apt install zstd wget http://snapshots.crab.network/crab2-<LAST_SNAPSHOT>.tar.zst -O - | tar -I zstd -xf - -C $DARWINIA_DATA_DIR/chains/crab2

Prepare Session Key

  • Generate a session key
    • Enter your Docker container first if you are using Docker, docker exec -it collator bash
      shell
      curl -X POST \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{"id":1, "jsonrpc":"2.0", "method":"author_rotateKeys", "params":[]}' \ http://127.0.0.1:9933
      If everything is correct, this command will return the session key.
  • Or, Insert your existing sr25519 key as the session key
    • bash
      #!/bin/bash SR_PHRASE="..." # Mnemonic Phrase SR_PUB_KEY="..." curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ --data '{ "jsonrpc":"2.0", "method":"author_insertKey", "params":["aura", "'"${SR_PHRASE}"'", "'"${SR_PUB_KEY}"'"],"id":1 }' \ "http://127.0.0.1:9933"

Set Session Key & Your Commission Rate

  1. Open the following URL in your browser, and connect to your wallet account:
  1. Steps:
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Wait Until the Next Session

You are currently in the candidate collator waiting pool. If you rank among the top 14 when the next session begins (after up to 6 hours in Crab2), you will become a collator. Upon successfully performing your duties as a collator during the next session, you will be eligible for rewards.