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Node implementation for the Avalanche network - a blockchains platform with high throughput, and blazing fast transactions.

Installation

Avalanche is an incredibly lightweight protocol, so the minimum computer requirements are quite modest. Note that as network usage increases, hardware requirements may change.

The minimum recommended hardware specification for nodes connected to Mainnet is:

• CPU: Equivalent of 8 AWS vCPU
• RAM: 16 GiB
• Storage: 1 TiB
• OS: Ubuntu 20.04/22.04 or macOS >= 12
• Network: Reliable IPv4 or IPv6 network connection, with an open public port.

If you plan to build AvalancheGo from source, you will also need the following software:

• Go version >= 1.19.6
• gcc
• g++

Building From Source

Clone The Repository

Clone the AvalancheGo repository:

git clone git@github.com:ava-labs/avalanchego.git
cd avalanchego

This will clone and checkout the master branch.

Building AvalancheGo

Build AvalancheGo by running the build script:

./scripts/build.sh

The avalanchego binary is now in the build directory. To run:

./build/avalanchego

Binary Repository

Install AvalancheGo using an apt repository.

Adding the APT Repository

If you already have the APT repository added, you do not need to add it again.

To add the repository on Ubuntu, run:

sudo su -
wget -qO - https://downloads.avax.network/avalanchego.gpg.key | tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/avalanchego.asc
source /etc/os-release && echo "deb https://downloads.avax.network/apt $UBUNTU_CODENAME main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/avalanche.list
exit

Installing the Latest Version

After adding the APT repository, install avalanchego by running:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install avalanchego

Binary Install

Download the latest build for your operating system and architecture.

The Avalanche binary to be executed is named avalanchego.

Docker Install

Make sure Docker is installed on the machine - so commands like docker run etc. are available.

Building the Docker image of latest avalanchego branch can be done by running:

./scripts/build_image.sh

To check the built image, run:

docker image ls

The image should be tagged as avaplatform/avalanchego:xxxxxxxx, where xxxxxxxx is the shortened commit of the Avalanche source it was built from. To run the Avalanche node, run:

docker run -ti -p 9650:9650 -p 9651:9651 avaplatform/avalanchego:xxxxxxxx /avalanchego/build/avalanchego

Running Avalanche

Connecting to Mainnet

To connect to the Avalanche Mainnet, run:

./build/avalanchego

You should see some pretty ASCII art and log messages.

You can use Ctrl+C to kill the node.

Connecting to Fuji

To connect to the Fuji Testnet, run:

./build/avalanchego --network-id=fuji

Creating a Local Testnet

See this tutorial.

Bootstrapping

A node needs to catch up to the latest network state before it can participate in consensus and serve API calls. This process (called bootstrapping) currently takes several days for a new node connected to Mainnet.

A node will not report healthy until it is done bootstrapping.

Improvements that reduce the amount of time it takes to bootstrap are under development.

The bottleneck during bootstrapping is typically database IO. Using a more powerful CPU or increasing the database IOPS on the computer running a node will decrease the amount of time bootstrapping takes.

Generating Code

AvalancheGo uses multiple tools to generate efficient and boilerplate code.

Running protobuf codegen

To regenerate the protobuf go code, run scripts/protobuf_codegen.sh from the root of the repo.

This should only be necessary when upgrading protobuf versions or modifying .proto definition files.

To use this script, you must have buf (v1.11.0), protoc-gen-go (v1.28.0) and protoc-gen-go-grpc (v1.2.0) installed.

To install the buf dependencies:

go install google.golang.org/protobuf/cmd/protoc-gen-go@v1.28.0
go install google.golang.org/grpc/cmd/protoc-gen-go-grpc@v1.2.0

If you have not already, you may need to add $GOPATH/bin to your $PATH:

export PATH="$PATH:$(go env GOPATH)/bin"

If you extract buf to ~/software/buf/bin, the following should work:

export PATH=$PATH:~/software/buf/bin/:~/go/bin
go get google.golang.org/protobuf/cmd/protoc-gen-go
go get google.golang.org/protobuf/cmd/protoc-gen-go-grpc
scripts/protobuf_codegen.sh

For more information, refer to the GRPC Golang Quick Start Guide.

Running protobuf codegen from docker

docker build -t avalanche:protobuf_codegen -f api/Dockerfile.buf .
docker run -t -i -v $(pwd):/opt/avalanche -w/opt/avalanche avalanche:protobuf_codegen bash -c "scripts/protobuf_codegen.sh"

Running mock codegen

To regenerate the gomock code, run scripts/mock.gen.sh from the root of the repo.

This should only be necessary when modifying exported interfaces or after modifying scripts/mock.mockgen.txt.

Versioning

Version Semantics

AvalancheGo is first and foremost a client for the Avalanche network. The versioning of AvalancheGo follows that of the Avalanche network.

• v0.x.x indicates a development network version.
• v1.x.x indicates a production network version.
• vx.[Upgrade].x indicates the number of network upgrades that have occurred.
• vx.x.[Patch] indicates the number of client upgrades that have occurred since the last network upgrade.

Library Compatibility Guarantees

Because AvalancheGo's version denotes the network version, it is expected that interfaces exported by AvalancheGo's packages may change in Patch version updates.

API Compatibility Guarantees

APIs exposed when running AvalancheGo will maintain backwards compatibility, unless the functionality is explicitly deprecated and announced when removed.

Supported Platforms

AvalancheGo can run on different platforms, with different support tiers:

• Tier 1: Fully supported by the maintainers, guaranteed to pass all tests including e2e and stress tests.
• Tier 2: Passes all unit and integration tests but not necessarily e2e tests.
• Tier 3: Builds but lightly tested (or not), considered experimental.
• Not supported: May not build and not tested, considered unsafe. To be supported in the future.

The following table lists currently supported platforms and their corresponding AvalancheGo support tiers:

Architecture	Operating system	Support tier
amd64	Linux	1
arm64	Linux	2
amd64	Darwin	2
amd64	Windows	3
arm	Linux	Not supported
i386	Linux	Not supported
arm64	Darwin	Not supported

To officially support a new platform, one must satisfy the following requirements:

AvalancheGo continuous integration	Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3
Build passes	✓	✓	✓
Unit and integration tests pass	✓	✓
End-to-end and stress tests pass	✓

Security Bugs

We and our community welcome responsible disclosures.

Please refer to our Security Policy and Security Advisories.