Written by Andrebo, with assistance from Zantetsu.
Every day we get lots of similar questions about validating in the Solana discord. In this FAQ we have tried to address most of them. Before asking in the discord, please try to find answers to your questions below.
- Can I mine SOL?
- Can anyone become a validator?
- Do I need any skills?
- Can I validate on a Windows computer?
- Why isn't it easier to be a Solana validator?
- What are the hardware requirements?
- What are the network requirements?
- Can I run a validator from my home?
- How do I set up a validator?
- Does it cost anything to validate?
- How do I make my rewards as a validator?
- How much stake is needed to be profitable, and can future rewards be calculated?
- How can I attract stake to my validator?
- Can I get stake from the Solana foundation?
- What is slashing, and what is the likelihood of my validator getting slashed?
- What is Tour de SOL?
- Where can I find more information about Solana?
No. SOL cannot be mined. Miners are part of proof-of-work blockchains. Solana is based on proof-of-stake, where a “validator” is roughly the equivalent of a miner (but still different). You’ll find lots of information about these concepts on YouTube, Wikipedia and other sites. You should know the basics of proof-of-stake before reading any further.
Yes. The Solana network is permissionless, so anyone can become a validator. Please continue reading this FAQ to get more knowledge about running a validator node.
Yes. You need to be comfortable with command line interfaces and Linux administration. These skills are necessary for operating a validator node day-to-day. All validators have a responsibility to run their node in a secure manner, which requires sufficient knowledge about the operating system, the hardware, the network configuration and the relevant risks. There is no way around this!
One way to learn is by setting up a validator on devnet or testnet, and run it like you would a mainnet validator. Important tasks are securing and maintaining your validator, keeping the Solana software up to date in accordance with the Discord announcements, and monitoring your validator performance to ensure the highest uptime possible. Spend enough time learning before you think about becoming a mainnet validator.
No (well, sort of). The Solana validation runtime does not yet work on Windows. Technically you can validate through a Linux virtual machine on a Windows computer, but you would still need the Linux skills mentioned above, in addition to the skills needed to run a virtual machine securely. You would also lose some performance to the host operating system.
The Solana team is working hard to create the worlds fastest blockchain. Orders of magnitude faster than any other blockchain. Transferring the performance gains made during development to real-life improvements requires attentive and dedicated validators. All validators are responsible for managing risks, maintaining their node, ensuring the highest uptime possible, troubleshooting errors, interpreting logs, reporting bugs, upgrading hardware, keeping up to date on relevant topics etc. Validators need to be up to the tasks required of them, or else network performance will suffer. Being second-fastest is not an option.
You can find the official hardware requirements in the Solana docs. Some people think the requirements are too high. They are not. It's not possible to create the highest performing blockchain with mediocre hardware.
Note: The validator software runs better on high clock frequencies, so it's not only core count that matters. High boost frequencies matter just as much. A 32-core CPU @ 2 GHz will probably struggle, while a 16-core CPU @ 3 GHz can perform well. This is partly because one thread (running proof of history) will run at full capacity all the time. Older server CPUs with lower clocks are therefore less likely to be good performers, even if they have many cores.
You may want to have a look at the difference between devnet, testnet and mainnet in the docs before going any further. Unless you already know the difference, that is.
Mainnet validators should follow the official requirements. Running a mainnet validator comes with responsibilities. Real people with real assets rely on the continuous operation and well being of mainnet. To ensure this, it's critical that the network and its validators have enough performance headroom. The team is also working to increase performance, which is not possible if there is no headroom to scale into.
Officially the hardware requirements for testnet are the same as for mainnet. This makes sense, as testnet is where the team test updates, functionality, performance and stability (more info here). This means the load on testnet can be higher than on mainnet. However, since testnet is somewhat of a playground, with non-real assets at play, there is room to experiment.
The network is permissionless, so anyone can set up with the hardware they have and see how it fares. 8-core CPUs like the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and the Intel i9-9900K have proved sufficient in the past. You can likely get by with 32 GB RAM, but 64 GB would be more ideal. The official SSD recommendations from the docs are firm; at least one NVMe SSD with high IOPS and TBW ratings is needed. It's worth noting that previously working configurations may be outdated in the near future. As Solana is in rapid development, testnet demand can change rapidly. This is another reason to abide by the official recommendation.
Again, the requirements are officially the same as for mainnet. Though devnet usually has much less transaction throughput than mainnet or testnet. If you're looking to become a validator, devnet is a natural place to start. You can get to know the software and take Solana for a spin; in peace and without any pressure to perform. Validating on devnet is also a good way to learn without having to spend much. Most geeks have the hardware needed to run devnet stored somewhere dusty. A devnet validator can likely get by on any decent 4-core CPU. 16 GB RAM might work. An NVMe SSD is recommended, but a SATA SSD could work if the Solana accounts data is stored in RAM. You may get away with a 250 GB SSD if you run with the minimum ledger size (see next question). You can follow this tutorial on how to set up a devnet validator.
The ledger is infinitely big. You won't need to store the whole ledger, and you probably wouldn't have room for it anyway. Validators only store part of the ledger. You control how much of the ledger you store by passing the --limit-ledger-size option when you start your validator. If you don't specify a number it uses the default value of 200 million shreds. This requires ~400-500 GB of storage space. The minimum value you can pass is 50 million shreds (--limit-ledger-size 50000000). If you want to store an epoch worth of ledger (which can be useful for monitoring purposes) you need to specify ~260-270 million shreds.
The official requirement states 1 Gbit/s. Mainnet validators should abide by this. Current real-life usage indicates a minimum of 300 Mbit/s up and down. Egress is often higher than ingress. Highly staked nodes can have three to four times more egress than ingress traffic.
Running a validator requires awareness about any risks relevant to its secure and continuous operation, and running it from home even more so. A data center will usually ensure the necessary physical protection (access/theft/fire/flood etc.) in addition to high network and power availability. At home you need to mitigate those risks yourself. Will your node or any network components be accessible to others? Do you have kids or pets? Are there a lot of break-ins where you live? Is your power grid stable? Is your internet connection up to the task? Is your network shared with others? Do you have close to 100 % internet uptime? Is your area susceptible to natural disasters? You should think about all of these risks before you run a validator from home. Outsourcing some risk to a data center may be worth the cost.
- Install Ubuntu
- Install the Solana command line interface (CLI)
- Configure and start the validator software
You can also see this tutorial on how to set up a devnet validator.
Yes. A fee is charged for every transaction on the blockchain. A validator is expected to vote on all the blocks it receives, to help achieve network consensus. Every vote is a transaction, with the fee being charged to the validator. The voting costs for running a validator is currently ~1.1 SOL per day. A validator needs sufficient stake to make more in rewards than it spends on voting fees.
Solana is based on proof-of-stake, which is fundamentally different from proof-of-work. In a proof-of-stake blockchain a validator needs stake delegated to it to make rewards. More stake equals more rewards, because validators with higher stake are chosen to write new transactions to the ledger more often. The assumption is that nodes with higher stake are more trustworthy, because people have trusted them with their tokens. Stable returns are the result of high uptime, valid voting at a high rate, and producing valid blocks within their required time slot. The validator has incentive to be a good actor because stakers can withdraw their stake at any time. Losing stake means losing rewards. The stakers incentive is to get yield on their tokens. The yield depends on the commission the validator charges. You can read more about Staking in this section of the docs.
The amount of stake a validator needs to be profitable depends on multiple factors:
- Hardware costs
- Network costs
- Validator voting costs
- Validator commission
- Price of SOL tokens
- Amount of transactions in the network
Unfortunately there is no official way of calculating rewards. However, Zantetsu (from the Solana discord) has made a spreadsheet based on their experience. You can make your own copy of the spreadsheet and play with the numbers.
That’s for you to figure out! As rewards can be considerable, you should have more than enough incentive to attract stake. Being a resource for the community is a good start. Building something useful, suggesting amendments to the code, filing bug reports or supporting people in the Discord are actions that can attract attention (and stake) to validators.
Yes, you may be eligible to get stake via the Solana Foundation Delegation Program. Check out their FAQ for more information.
The following is stated about slashing in the docs:
Slashing involves the removal and destruction of a portion of a validator's delegated stake in response to intentional malicious behavior, such as creating invalid transactions or censoring certain types of transactions or network participants.
There is currently zero likelihood of a validator getting slashed, as slashing is not yet implemented. You can read more about slashing in the docs here and here.
Tour de SOL (TdS) was Solanas incentivized testnet program, where people were compensated for running testnet validators. Tour de SOL is permanently closed, but its function has been transfered to the Solana Foundation Delegation Program.
- The official website
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- Soltraders on Telegram (for price and trading talk)