Run a Gatekeeper

Setup Environment

  • Hardware

    • CPU: 6th generation or newer Intel Core/Pentium/Celeron/Atom series.
    • Memory: 2GB - 8GB. 2GB is indeed the minimum memory you should operate your Gatekeeper with. For better performance, you can bump it up to 4GB or 8GB, but memory more than that is unnecessary. In order to compile the binary yourself, you will need around 8GB memory.
    • Mainboard: SGX-supported mainboard, and newer mainboards can support more SGX features. We strongly recommend you to consult our Miner Community team about the SGX module before purchasing a board to mine PHA.
    • Storage - A NVMe solid state drive, and should be reasonably sized to deal with blockchain growth. A SSD of 80GB - 160GB will be enough for the first six months of Phala Network, but this requirement needs to be re-evaluated every six months. For more detail, you may refer to the miner node requirement.

  • Software

The specs posted above are by no means the minimum specs that you could use when running a Gatekeeper.


Synchronize Chain Data

  1. Download the GK setup package.

  2. Open your Terminal and run the commands below:

    1sudo cp ./poc3_validator.service /etc/systemd/system
2sudo systemctl enable poc3_validator.service
3sudo systemctl start poc3_validator.service

  3. Type in vim validator.sh , press a, and replace YOUR NAME with a cool node name you like. 🤟

  4. Press ESC, and press Shift + ; , type in wq , and press Enter to save and return.

  5. Go to https://telemetry.polkadot.io/#list/Phala PoC-3, find your node name, and wait for its block synchronization until it's the same with others. The synchronization may take 1-2 hours and the exact duration depends on your bandwidth.

*To Compile Your Gatekeeper Node

Download the latest Phala Network binary from the Github release page.

You can also build the phala-node binary from the Phala-Network/phala-blockchain repository on GitHub using the source code available in the master branch. You will need to prepare the Rust build environment described in the Run a Full Node tutorial.

Note: If you prefer to use SSH rather than HTTPS, you can replace the first line of the below with git clone git@github.com/Phala-Network/phala-blockchain.git.

1  git clone https://github.com/Phala-Network/phala-blockchain
2  cd phala-blockchain
3  ./scripts/init.sh
4  git submodule update --init
5  cargo build --release

This step will take a while (generally 10 - 40 minutes, depending on your hardware).

Note: If you run into compile errors, you may have to switch to a less recent nightly Rust compiler. This can be done by running:

1rustup install nightly-2020-05-15
2rustup override set nightly-2020-05-15
3rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown --toolchain nightly-2020-05-15

If you are interested in generating keys locally, you can also install subkey from the same directory. You may then take the generated subkey executable and transfer it to an air-gapped machine for extra security.

1cargo install --force --git https://github.com/paritytech/substrate subkey

Note: By default, Gatekeeper nodes are in archive mode. If you've already synced the chain not in archive mode, you must first remove the database with phala-node purge-chain and then ensure that you run Phala Network with the --pruning=archive option.

You may run a Gatekeeper node in non-archive mode by adding the following flags: -unsafe-pruning --pruning OF BLOCKS>, but note that an archive node and non-archive node's databases are not compatible with each other, and to switch you will need to purge the chain data.

You can begin syncing your node by running the following command:

1./phala-node --pruning=archive

if you do not want to start in Gatekeeper mode right away.

The --pruning=archive flag is implied by the --validator and --sentry flags, so it is only required explicitly if you start your node without one of these two options. If you do not set your pruning to archive node, even when not running in Gatekeeper and sentry mode, you will need to re-sync your database when you switch.

Note: Gatekeepers should sync using the RocksDb backend. This is implicit by default, but can be explicit by passing the --database RocksDb flag. In the future, it is recommended to switch to using the faster and more efficient ParityDb option. Switching between database backends will require a resync.

If you want to test out ParityDB you can add the flag --database paritydb.

Depending on the size of the chain when you do this, this step may take a few minutes to a few hours.

If you are interested in determining how much longer you have to go, your server logs (printed to STDOUT from the phala-node process) will tell you the latest block your node has processed and verified. You can then compare that to the current highest block via Telemetry or the Phala Web App.

Note: If you do not already have PHA, this is as far as you will be able to go until the end of the soft launch period. You can still run a node, but you will need to have a minimal amount of PHA to continue, as balance transfers are disabled during the soft launch. Please keep in mind that Gatekeepers will be re-elected when the NPoS phase starts.


Bond PHA

The steps below have to be processed on the device you have set up.

  1. Create 2 accounts and be ensured that you have saved the mnemonics of your controller account correctly.
  2. Claim test tokens and be ensured that there are over 100 tPHA in the stash account and the controller account.
  3. Go to Network → Staking → Account Actions → +Stash
  4. Type in an amount of tPHA that you would like to bond.
  5. Click Bond and Sign.
  • Stash account - Select your Stash account. In this example, we will bond 100 PHA - make sure that your Stash account contains at least this much. You can, of course, stake more than this.
  • Controller account - Select the Controller account created earlier. This account will also need a small amount of PHA in order to start and stop validating.
  • Value bonded - How much PHA from the Stash account you want to bond/stake. Note that you do not need to bond all of the PHA in that account, and you can always bond more PHA later. However, withdrawing any bonded amount requires the duration of the unbonding period. In Phala Network, the unbonding period is 7 days.
  • Payment destination - The account to which the rewards from validating are sent. More info here.

After a few seconds, you should see an "ExtrinsicSuccess" message. You should now see a list with all your accounts (you may need to refresh the web page). The bonded amount on the right corresponds to the funds bonded by the Stash account.


Set Session Keys

Note: The session keys are consensus critical, so if you are not sure if your node has the current session keys that you made the setKeys transaction then you can use one of the two available RPC methods to query your node: hasKey to check for a specific key or hasSessionKeys to check the full session key public key string.

Generating the Session Keys

You need to tell the chain your Session keys by signing and submitting an extrinsic. This is what associates your Gatekeeper node with your Controller account in Phala Network.

Option 1: PolkadotJS-APPS

  1. Click the Phala logo → DEVELOPMENT, and type in ws://127.0.0.1:9944 , and click Switch.
  2. Go to Developers → RPC Calls, choose author → rotateKeys(), and click Submit. The number string on the page is exactly your session key. Copy your session key.
  3. Go back to Network → Staking → Account Actions, click Set Sessionkey right next to your bonded accounts. Paste the session key and save.

Option 2: CLI

If you are on a remote server, it is easier to run this command on the same machine (while the node is running with the default HTTP RPC port configured):

1curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"id":1, "jsonrpc":"2.0", "method": "author_rotateKeys", "params":[]}' http://localhost:9933

The output will have a hex-encoded "result" field. The result is the concatenation of the four public keys. Save this result for a later step. You can restart your node at this point, omitting the --unsafe-rpc-expose flag as it is no longer needed.

Set Your Sessions Keys

  1. Go to Network → Staking → Account Actions, click Set Sessionkey right next to your bonded accounts. Paste the number string and save.
  2. Now we go to Developers → Extrinsics, choose your stash account at the first line, choose phalaModule → setStash(controller) at the second line, choose your controller account at the third line. Click Submit Transaction.


pRuntime Setup

  1. Type in sudo docker pull phalanetwork/phala-poc3-pruntime to pull Phala pRuntime mirror files. It may take 10-30 mins according to the bandwidth of your network.

  2. Choose and type the commands below based on your driver. DCAP driver:

    1sudo docker run -d -ti --rm --name phala-pruntime -p 8000:8000 -v $HOME/phala-pruntime-data:/root/data --device /dev/sgx/enclave --device /dev/sgx/provision phalanetwork/phala-poc3-pruntime

    SGX driver:

    1sudo docker run -d -ti --rm --name phala-pruntime -p 8000:8000 -v $HOME/phala-pruntime-data:/root/data --device /dev/isgx phalanetwork/phala-poc3-pruntime

How to check the driver type of your computer?

  • Run ls /dev/isgx and it returns feedback: you are using SGX driver;
  • Run ls /dev/sgx and it returns feedback: you are using DCAP driver

If both of the commands work, use the commands of the DCAP driver in the following steps. If none of them work, please refer to the SGX driver installation in Phala Guide.


pHost Setup

  1. Type in vim runphost.sh in your Terminal.
  2. Press a until there's an INSERT tag at the lower-left corner. Replace the Key Key Key ... Key with your controller mnemonics. Press ESC, then press Shift + ; , type in wq , and press Enter to save and return.
  3. Type in ./runphost.sh . Wait for a moment until it reads OK(()) .

If it returns errors as below: ...FailedToCallRegisterWorker: Err(Rpc(Request(Error { code: ServerError(1010), message: "Invalid Transaction", data: Some(String("Inability to pay some fees (e.g. account balance too low)")) }))) bridge() exited with result: Err(FailedToCallRegisterWorker) Please kindly check your mnemonics written in vim runphost.sh or your operations in step 2 & step 3.


Validate Your Gatekeeper

  1. Go to Network → Staking → Account Actions
  2. Click the Validate button right next to your bonded accounts.
  3. Set the commission rate and sign.
  4. Your controller node will be on the waiting list in the next Epoch.

Note: This step will fail if you haven't successfully registered an SGX-enabled worker on your controller account. Please double check the steps before to make sure your hardware is correctly registered.

If you go to the "Staking" tab, you will see a list of active Gatekeepers currently running on the network. At the top of the page, it shows the number of Gatekeeper slots that are available as well as the number of nodes that have signaled their intention to be a Gatekeeper. You can go to the "Waiting" tab to double check to see whether your node is listed there.

staking queue

The Gatekeeper set is refreshed every era. In the next era, if there is a slot available and your node is selected to join the Gatekeeper set, your node will become an active Gatekeeper. Until then, it will remain in the waiting queue. If your Gatekeeper is not selected to become part of the Gatekeeper set, it will remain in the waiting queue until it is. There is no need to re-start if you are not selected for the Gatekeeper set in a particular era. However, it may be necessary to increase the number of PHA staked or seek out nominators for your Gatekeeper in order to join the Gatekeeper set.


Miner Community