Solana Validator Client Ids

Overview

The Solana gossip protocol allows each validator client to report a unique client identifier. The client identifier is used in gossip contact info messages to distinguish between different validator client implementations.

A client identifier is a 16-bit, little endian unsigned integer (range: 0-65535). All Solana validator clients must implement the same set of identifiers as defined in client-ids.csv.

Requesting a New Client Identifier

Prerequisites

A new client identifier request should meet the following criteria:

• The request comes from a team that is building and supporting a materially new validator client implementation
• The client is open source
• The client has (or plans to have) some percentage of stake on Solana mainnet-beta

Step-by-Step Process

1. Review existing identifiers: Check client-ids.csv to see which IDs are already assigned.

2. Choose the next available ID: Use the lowest available integer that hasn't been assigned. IDs should be assigned sequentially where possible.

3. Create a pull request with the following changes:

   • Add a new row to client-ids.csv with your chosen client_id and client_name
   • Follow the CSV format: client_id,client_name
   • Keep entries sorted by client_id (ascending)

4. Include in your PR description:

   • Brief description of your validator client
   • Link to the open source repository
   • Current mainnet-beta stake percentage (if applicable)
   • Any other relevant information about your client

5. Post PR Merge, Contact Other Clients

   • You are encouraged to make a PR to existing clients and link to your accepted PR.

Existing Client Requirements

All existing Solana validator clients are expected to monitor this repository and implement any changes to client-ids.csv as soon as possible in their client codebase. New clients are encouraged to make a pull reqeust to the existing validator clients and link to the merged pull request from this repository.