Setting Up a Stacks Node

Create Miner Key

【Tips】In this section, I use the official Stacks tutorial, which uses npx to generate both Stacks and Bitcoin key pairs. These key pairs are generated in localhost. You must record the mnemonic and key info carefully and securely before closing the terminal.

Refer to official tutorial: Running a miner

First, a keychain needs to be generated. With this keychain, we'll purchase some BTC from a crytpocurrency exchange, and then use that BTC to start mining.To get a keychain, the simplest way is to use the stacks-cli. We'll use the make_keychain command.

npx @stacks/cli make_keychain 2>/dev/null | json_pp > keychain.txt

After this runs, you should see some JSON in the new keychain.txt file that looks like this:

{
  "mnemonic": "exhaust spin topic distance hole december impulse gate century absent breeze ostrich armed clerk oak peace want scrap auction sniff cradle siren blur blur",
  "keyInfo": {
    "privateKey": "2033269b55026ff2eddaf06d2e56938f7fd8e9d697af8fe0f857bb5962894d5801",
    "address": "STTX57EGWW058FZ6WG3WS2YRBQ8HDFGBKEFBNXTF",
    "btcAddress": "mkRYR7KkPB1wjxNjVz3HByqAvVz8c4B6ND",
    "index": 0
  }
}

Don't lose this information - we'll need to use the privateKey field later on. The above BTC address will then need to be imported into the BTC network.

Import BTC Address

To quickly query the UTXO's from the Bitcoin node, a miner should import their own BTC address into the Bitcoin node they have just set up.

bitcoin-cli -conf=/root/bitcoin-config-mainnet.conf importaddress <btcAddress from JSON above>

Setup Stacks Node

【Tips】This section does NOT use the official Stacks tutorial, which uses Docker. In our experience, Docker is not a friendly option for STX Miners, due to the need to frequently change the config file in the miner.

# download official binary release
wget https://github.com/blockstack/stacks-blockchain/releases/download/2.0.11.2.0-rc2/linux-x64.zip
# unzip
unzip linux-x64.zip -d stacks-node
cd stacks-node
ls

You will see:

blockstack-cli  blockstack-core  clarity-cli  stacks-node

We will use stacks-node binary later. Now creating config file

vim miner.toml

[node]
rpc_bind = "0.0.0.0:20443"
p2p_bind = "0.0.0.0:20444"
seed = "<YOUR-OWN-PRIVATE-KEY>"    # replace your own private key
local_peer_seed = "<YOUR-OWN-PRIVATE-KEY>"     # replace your own private key
miner = true                # should be true
bootstrap_node = "02da7a464ac770ae8337a343670778b93410f2f3fef6bea98dd1c3e9224459d36b@seed-0.mainnet.stacks.co:20444,02afeae522aab5f8c99a00ddf75fbcb4a641e052dd48836408d9cf437344b63516@seed-1.mainnet.stacks.co:20444,03652212ea76be0ed4cd83a25c06e57819993029a7b9999f7d63c36340b34a4e62@seed-2.mainnet.stacks.co:20444"
working_dir = "/root/stacks-node-data"   # dir you create above 


[burnchain]
chain = "bitcoin"
mode = "mainnet"
peer_host = "<YOUR-OWN-BITCOIN-NODE-IP>"   # your cloud server public IP  
rpc_port = 8332    # rpc port in your bitcoin config
peer_port = 8333   # peer port in your bitcoin config
username = "<YOUR-OWN-BITCOIN-RPC-USERNAME>"  # rpc_username in your bitcoin config
password = "<YOUR-OWN-BITCOIN-RPC-PASSWORD>"  # rpc_password in your bitcoin config
satoshis_per_byte = 150   # sats per bytes, it should be dynamicly changed by bitcoin mempool situation, for now 2021.7.29, 150 sats/bytes is big enough for miner commit transaction 
burn_fee_cap = 450000     # commit value(burn-fee), depends on your own strategy

The final miner.toml looks like:

[node]
rpc_bind = "0.0.0.0:20443"
p2p_bind = "0.0.0.0:20444"
seed = "<YOUR-OWN-PRIVATE-KEY>"   
local_peer_seed = "<YOUR-OWN-PRIVATE-KEY>"     
miner = true                
bootstrap_node = "02da7a464ac770ae8337a343670778b93410f2f3fef6bea98dd1c3e9224459d36b@seed-0.mainnet.stacks.co:20444,02afeae522aab5f8c99a00ddf75fbcb4a641e052dd48836408d9cf437344b63516@seed-1.mainnet.stacks.co:20444,03652212ea76be0ed4cd83a25c06e57819993029a7b9999f7d63c36340b34a4e62@seed-2.mainnet.stacks.co:20444"
working_dir = "/root/stacks-node-data"   


[burnchain]
chain = "bitcoin"
mode = "mainnet"
peer_host = "<YOUR-OWN-BITCOIN-NODE-IP>"   
rpc_port = 8332    
peer_port = 8333   
username = "<YOUR-OWN-BITCOIN-RPC-USERNAME>"  
password = "<YOUR-OWN-BITCOIN-RPC-PASSWORD>" 
satoshis_per_byte = 150   
burn_fee_cap = 450000

【Tips】 Value of satoshis_per_byte and burn_fee_cap you should get more infomation from stacks mining discord channel or mining-monitor.

Final Step, start the node. For running stacks-node in deamon, I recommend using screen.

screen     # create new screen
./stacks-node start --config="./miner.toml"  # start stacks-node

You will see:

<YOUR-OWN-BTC-ADDRESS> UTXO found, start a miner node .......

That means your BTC address has balance and imported to your own btc node successfully. Syncing blocks info from bitcoin and stacks network will take at least 30 minutes. Then you can use CTRL+A+D quit the screen. And come back to your screen by:

screen -ls

There are screens on:
	5597.pts-0.iZj6c3n5wqfabuvi4en67jZ	(07/01/2021 05:17:01 PM)	(Detached)

Then use:

screen -dr 5597 # will go back to your own screen

【Tips】 Here are some instructions for screen linux package command. If you have more efficient way to run stacks-node in daemon, you can use your own method, don't hesitate to share your experience here.

Any step you meet problems, you can leave your questions in our github repo.