Things look bad, really bad.
After reviewing steem seed nodes list, which many of us use in their config.ini, I found that 12 nodes were not working at all. That is 36% of all the nodes on the list.
Hard fork 16 and its economic changes cut the rewards for active witnesses to a significant extent, but the role of a witness was never meant to be a free money making machine.
"To Protect and to Serve", right?
As a witness, I am running a public seed node at: gtg.steem.house:2001.
Also I am running a few other steemd instances for my own needs, which as a side effect, serve the p2p role for the steem network.
That is currently one of the 21 publicly listed AND available seed nodes.
We need a lot more than that.
I am ok with witnesses running their useful services such as web tools, APIs, or exchanges, which requires them to allocate a lot more resources (full nodes). What about others?
With current prices, a runner up witness who generates 6-7 blocks a day for a month is able to cover his hardware expenses related to both the witness node and the seed node. Currently, ~2% of network approval is needed for that, which is equivalent to being within top 60.
So why do we have only 20 nodes on the list?
I hope that some nodes were temporarily unavailable because they were being upgraded to v0.16.1
Soon I am going to replace seednodes.txt with an updated list of working nodes. If you want to add or update your node, please leave a comment or make a pull request to my forked branch (for later, single, consolidated pull request to the steemit repository)
Please, add your node only if you have a fast (preferably at least 100Mbps upstream), low latency network connection.
I am going to update the list periodically.
Maybe blockchain should pay for people to maintain seed nodes?
It is how it works. Block producers are rewarded. It is expected that they provide also seed nodes.
Exactly right and there is no excuse for top 19 witnesses not to have at least one working seed node. Please check the list posted by liondani and vote accordingly.
Thank you for that post.
I currently 4 blocks day.
Could it not be made a requirement to run a seed node in order to be a witness in the first place?
It was stated as a requirement when the blockchain was launched and people were first coming forward to be witnesses. Now you can't literally force people to do anything, it is up to voters.
So anyone can just be voted into witness-hood without any hardware?
You at least need a node to sign blocks or you won't get any rewards (regardless of votes), but that's separate from a public seed node.
I think it applies only to witness nodes, which are selected through an election. In election only a few elites win. I really can't trust that they would not be contacted by some governments dealers asking them for IP logging of bloggers in exchange of some money
Hello.
I am quite new to stemmit and not a programer. I am crypto currency fan and Larimer vision's fan. Member of the Bitcoin foundation since 2012 and occasionally bitcoin miner. I am studying steem in order to better understand eos. I woul like to run a node at steempool.net (Germany) but unable to set the steemd config.ini probably because I am not a witness. May I still help?
Thank you for your willingness to help but since you are not a witness, it would be unfair to make you have expenses instead of those who already get their block producing rewards.
Fortunately situation with nodes improved since the time when I wrote that post (it's quite old).
Of course, you don't need to be a witness to run your own Steem node. It's actually a great idea to get some better knowledge about this platform.
For your own needs you can follow same instructions that are for exchanges (using your account name). It's a consensus node that runs account history plugin for a single account (your own in your case).
I think I will cover such configuration in my next episode of Steem Pressure.
Good luck.
Thank you for your keen and clear answer. Anyway even being an absolute fan of Larimer's general goals for humanity and definitely considering him one if not the major "blockchain thinker", of present times, on the way to provide a blockchain technology able to be the future of the internet itself. My old believes as a bitcoin miner get my into hard times in truly understanding the value of DPOS. It is good that the miners (the witnesses) don't compete between themselves, but to become a witness is the big challenge. I would deem interesting that the voters for the witnesses get a reward for their vote, a little bit like the bitcoin miners who join a pool and get a share of whatever block a miner of the pool has the luck to produce, . i.e. I am trying to figure out the would-be functioning of a Steem mining pool
Oh, you are wrong.
They do and that's great.
There's a lot of blood, sweat and tears on the blockchain.
Everybody wants to be better than others which in this case is serving the platform the best they can.
Otherwise, the minimum that they have to do would be as simple as generating blocks i.e. running single machine with some software on it. Monkeys can do that.
Also, it's not really a mining. Most of STEEM goes to non-witnesses, i.e. authors, curators, shareholders. Smallest piece of cake is shared between the witnesses.
It's not the witnesses who are important on this platform. It's YOU. Those who have Steem Power and vote.
If a witness doesn't do what you expect (within your subjective opinion about being best for the platform) you take away your vote and such witness is fired.
We hare now Jun 2018 and we see that's exactly the inverse happening on EOS. Hopefully. The witness don't compete (no blood, no tears) in this Blockchain. Thank you to the EOS Constitution, Arbitration and ECAF. EOS is the first blockchain with governance with legislation (the voters) and execution (the BPs). Thank you for this 21 BPs + reserve that are smart people and doing all to serving the plaform the best they can.
If - as you say - they don't compete then how can you say, that current top 21 BPs are smart? :-D
That's your point of view.
Because if you follow the EMLG and closely, you will see that is not necessary to compete to be smart :-D The BPs are not compete , they collaborate, that's a big difference !
EOS is really the first blockchain with a heart. EOS can mean also "Everyone's Open Society". EOS.IO software will retain 21 but a BP has interest to be in good contact with another BP for the network sustain, for the community satisfaction. That's that ... also ... DPOS
See in real time which seednodes are online...
https://status.steemnodes.com/
PS Witness wackou created it
This is a cool list. A nice feature would be a "vote for witness" link next to each node.
My seed node at steem.global:2001 is operational. Hopefully more continue to run for witness and start up seed nodes as well.
it should be nearly mandatory that a witness runs a seed node in my opinion. We're here acting as server jockeys for the network and it's not terribly difficult nor expensive to set up a seed node.
Is yours in seednodes.txt? If not, please send a PR.
Looks like it is on line 24 on the seednodes.txt seen here:
https://github.com/steemit/steem/blob/master/doc/seednodes.txt
Is there a reason for it currently not being obligatory?
Here is mine:
176.31.126.187:2001
I saw your node on @wackou's list and already added it to my branch.
Thank you.
http://seeds.quisquis.de/steem.html has a list of seed nodes worth checking. cyrano.witness made it a while back and I think it still updates automatically.
True, that is pretty useful tool. Please note, however, that those are not only seed nodes, but also other p2p participants, looks like a lot, but for example 13 of them are those I run (or I was running temporarily).
I upvote and resteem this important post.
I could start up an AWS instance, does anyone have recommendations as to what EC2 server type to use?
An 8GB instance with SSD should be more than enough. An
m3.large(~$100 USD monthly on-demand, or $69 USD/mo with a 1 year commit (-29%)) should be ideal with its 32GB instance store. (You may have to issue some additional commands in addition to those below to make sure the local SSD instance store is formatted and mounted on/var/lib/docker.)Simply run the following on a fresh Ubuntu 16.04:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install -y apt-transport-https ca-certificates sudo apt-key adv \ --keyserver hkp://ha.pool.sks-keyservers.net:80 \ --recv-keys 58118E89F3A912897C070ADBF76221572C52609D echo "deb https://apt.dockerproject.org/repo ubuntu-xenial main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install -y linux-image-extra-$(uname -r) linux-image-extra-virtual sudo apt-get install -y docker-engine sudo service docker start sudo docker run -d -p 2001:2001 -p 8090:8090 --restart unless-stopped \ --name steemd steemit/steem:stableWith these exact commands you should have a steem p2p node up and running. Don't forget to open the ports in your security group.
To watch it synchronize, run:
sudo docker logs -f steemdAt that price what is the motivation to run one of these? Kind of lost here, have it setup and running just seems like a zero sum game.
Ouch, yeah, looks like that had higher requirements than I thought.
It would be cool if a node could be run on a Raspberry Pi. XD
I agree, but even the beefiest rPIs have only 1GB of ram AFAIR. Also, there are sadly still some x86-isms in the code. I've actually tried building (works) and running (doesn't work) steemd on a Pi 3 Model B (in theory it should work with a low memory build and lots of swapping).
Thank you for your willingness but as I replied already to @ervin-lemark: since you are not a witness, it would be unfair to make you have expenses instead of those who already get their block producing rewards for being a witnesses.
So same advice here: please review your votes for witnesses. Ask your candidates if they are running seed node or any other service to support Steem network (API? Exchange? Steem powered website?). Vote for those who do.
Just witnesses running seed nodes is not enough seed nodes. Everyone who can, should.
I am replaying the blockchain now on this one 89.36.26.82:2001.
Also, ignore the dumb question in chat, I figured it out.
Do not worry. There is no such thing as a dumb question.
Thank you.
I am ready to setup node (I have one very powerfull dedicated server, which is mostly not used), but I would appreciate your help :)
Awesome! :-)
While I cannot set it up for you because of the chronic lack of time, I can assist you if you have any questions.
Catch me on steemit.chat
Here's mine 104.198.222.18 :2001. Hopefully it's working now? :P I have been updating and running tests here and there so my seed node may go down from time to time but only when I need to replay.
Yea it's not really worth being a witness unless your top 19 or after the proposed changes, top 20. I've have to downgrade my full witness to only witnessing and signing transactions atm since it was too much for me to maintain cost wise not being in the top witnesses.
It's worth it. All depending on what your monthly expenses for server are.
if you're not willing to run a witness at a loss until it finds support in the community I wouldn't really advise running one. It's not meant to be a highly profitable venture but one as a show of support for our network and it's smooth running.
I was speaking in financial aspects. Running at a loss makes it difficult for anyone outside the top 19 to continue to support the network, hence why we see a list of under 100 witnesses globally... with @gtg assessment, there is only 20... There was more witnesses before...
But if you believe in the platform and want to support the network and learn and all that to see in that value then yes it's very worth it.
As someone who's been a witness for months with varying degrees of success along the way I can safely say at current STEEM prices you only need to be ranked around #40 on the witness list if you were aiming to break even using a minimum requirements server.
It all depends on what you're using for servers really.
When you add the seed node, a main and backup witness server it can get costly all depending on how much you're paying per box.
That was with the old economic model... The current made it difficult which is why we seen a lot of witnesses shutdown. but yes with current steem prices you're right.
I get what you're saying but not everyone is aware of the information on how to reduce server costs, I wasn't. I know it's a competition too but there's more to being a witness than running nodes right? :)
The primary function of the witness is to ensure their witness server is operational and able to produce a block when it's called to do so.
Everything else is a bonus and we have a number of individuals that serve as witness that bring different skills and talents to the table.
If you're not aware nor willing to do the research into how to minimize server costs when running a STEEM witness that is fine, but fundamentally the witness payout is acceptable compensation and anyone wishing to become a witness can do so given enough ambition.
It's not expensive by any means to set up a seed node and witness server. In fact I'd go as far to say that anyone who's got a job or making income on their skillset can afford to do so.
You don't need a backup witness server until you get up into the top #50 list in my opinion anyways. So depending on what type of security you need for your servers for less than a case of beer a month you could run a witness server in theory.
@klye you know how much I spent before I figured this out? lol Ah but it's not about the money, it's about the information :)
Thank you @bitcoinparadise, it is working now :-)
Okay, I have set up a seed node for my witness @chittty, here is the address:
138.197.17.188:2001
Thanks for this post and helping me on steemit.chat @gtg
Thank you.
What are requirements for running a node?
To run a seed node you need
steemdcompiled withLOW_MEMORY_NODE=ON8GB RAM, low latency storage and network. CPU usage for seed node is negligible.
Thanks for your quick reply.
8 GB is enough? How many CPU cores, how much disk space, swap file?
Is it possible to run it on some cloud solution? Both HW-wise and cost-wise?
If it is possible than I am willing to set up some nodes on clouds :)
For now 8GB it is enough, hard to say when it comes to next releases. Also if you want to run some more plugins that required for just seed node then you would need more... a lot more for account_history, etc.
Currently you would need 10GB of disk.
That is minimum. To work comfortable you need more.
Maybe when I get some time I would write more details about my seed node specification.
Sure, you can use some cloud solutions but it is tricky when it comes to storage IO. If you can't put it all in RAM, then cloud solution iops limits might be very troublesome.
Thank you for your willingness but since you are not a witness, it would be unfair to make you have expenses instead of those who already get their block producing rewards.
But you can make one thing instead: review your votes for witnesses. Ask your candidates if they are running seed node or any other service to support Steem network (API? Exchange? Steem powered website?).
Thanks a gain for your reply.
Can rewards be enough to cover cloud solution expenses? How are rewards determined, anyways?
A slightly unrelated question - can I display steem data without a local node? Read only is OK.
To be exact: there are no rewards for running seed node. There are rewards for running witness node, but since Steem is DPoS all depends on amount of stake behind your witness. Rewards are determined by number of blocks produced. As I mentioned already, with current conditions being within top60 witnesses makes it possible but not easy to cover hardware expenses (but not taking into account your time / money / effort).
Yes, you can. All you need locally is to run
cli_walletand connect to one of public nodes (regular seed node might be not enough for that as it lacks of many plugins)@gtg Thanks #3 :)
How will this change with forthcoming fork? Will there be rewards for running a seed node?
I am asking to find out if the cost of hosting can be zeored with rewards for running the node. I am not talking about the profit. No deficit would be enough :)
cli_walletis linux only, I guess? OK, I will give it a try. I tried several months ago without success. I hope I'll be able to put it up this time.Ps: 6th level reached. Congrats :)
1 core is sufficient. 8GB of RAM and ~20GB of SSD storage.
Amazon m3.large instances are great - they're ~$100/mo on-demand, or $69/mo on a 1 year reservation with no upfront.
Just FYI my seed node is running on an AWS spot instance. Monthly costs are around:
Thank you. Very helpful.
@abit I've been reading through the discussion (late) is this still the case? What are the monthly costs now running on AWS spot instance (in 2018)
TNX!
Still trying to wrap my head around how all this works, but if you still need ppl come march (when I get Gigabit fiber), I can devote a VM or 2.
Sorry for not reading all comments before posting, but can you point me towards the proper resources for anyone interested in helping out?
EDIT: Nvm, found some useful links @ /witness-category/@gtg/re-witness-questionnaire
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I wish I knew HOW to do any of this because it's interesting and appealing and I sincerely want to help. It speaks to my inner geek...but it's a completely foreign language to me. Unfortunately I don't know the first thing about how to set one up.
Can you link instructions to set one up? I have the hardware and connection speed.
Most straightforward would be to use @sneak's instructions from one of his comments here.
(If you want to get better idea what is going on under the hood you might want to search through other posts on steemit regarding setting up witness nodes and seed nodes)
After you set it up please let us know on #seed-nodes channel on steemit.chat
need some help, pm me in chat please, thanks!
sure :-)
Will do, does a node include mining or is that separate?
Well, would be possible to mine on your seed node by adding appropriate config entries, like:
witness = "your_witness_id" private-key = WIF_SIGNING_PRIVATE_KEY miner = ["your_witness_id","WIF_ACTIVE_PRIVATE_KEY"] mining-threads = 4or so.
not sure where to add this info
Thanks for the info, would I still be getting steem for just running a node?
No, just running a seed node is not rewarded.
Lots of googling and a 2 year old post :) While I am here, I would like to ask if you have any links I can check out to create a node that only runs steem discussions posts specifically I don't need anything else... Is this possible? or is that what they call the p2p node?
I don't understand what exactly you need.
Think about set of API that you will going to use in your project, then what exactly do you need (in terms of steemd config / plugins) to satisfy those API calls.
Btw, upcoming changes to api nodes provided by Steemit Inc.
mmm... Ok get_discussion_by_created will be moving to hivemind but I don't understand how I can get that content and only that then still serve it say for public, I would like to build an advanced filter tool like steemlookup that curie made , my only option now seems to actually just hit a public node and get all the posts and keep it updated that seems very harsh and that is all I want is a up to date copy of the latest posts. I will check futher and see how they do things thanx for pointing that out. Aka I basically know some php and js so yeah maybe out of my depth here. :)
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