Joining Interchain Security testnet

Introduction

This short guide will teach you how to join the Interchain Security testnet.

The experience gained in the testnet will prepare you for validating interchain secured chains.

tip

Provider and consumer chain represent distinct networks and infrastructures operated by the same validator set.

For general information about running cosmos-sdk based chains check out the validator basics and Running a Node section of Cosmos SDK docs

Joining the provider chain

A comprehensive guide is available here.

Initialization

First, initialize your $NODE_HOME using the provider chain binary.

NODE_MONIKER=<your_node>
CHAIN_ID=provider
NODE_HOME=<path_to_your_home>

gaiad init $NODE_MONIKER --chain-id $CHAIN_ID --home $NODE_HOME

Add your key to the keyring - more details available here.

In this example we will use the test keyring-backend. This option is not safe to use in production.

gaiad keys add <key_moniker> --keyring-backend test

# save the address as variable for later use
MY_VALIDATOR_ADDRESS=$(gaiad keys show my_validator -a --keyring-backend test)

Before issuing any transactions, use the provider testnet faucet to add funds to your address.

curl https://faucet.rs-testnet.polypore.xyz/request?address=$MY_VALIDATOR_ADDRESS&chain=provider

# example output:
{
    "address": "cosmos17p3erf5gv2436fd4vyjwmudakts563a497syuz",
    "amount": "10000000uatom",
    "chain": "provider",
    "hash": "10BFEC53C80C9B649B66549FD88A0B6BCF09E8FCE468A73B4C4243422E724985",
    "status": "success"
}

Then, use the account associated with the keyring to issue a create-validator transaction which will register your validator on chain.

gaiad tx staking create-validator \
  --amount=1000000uatom \
  --pubkey=$(gaiad tendermint show-validator) \
  --moniker="choose a moniker" \
  --chain-id=$CHAIN_ID" \
  --commission-rate="0.10" \
  --commission-max-rate="0.20" \
  --commission-max-change-rate="0.01" \
  --min-self-delegation="1000000" \
  --gas="auto" \
  --gas-prices="0.0025uatom" \
  --from=<key_moniker>

tip

Check this guide to edit your validator.

After this step, your validator is created and you can start your node and catch up to the rest of the network. It is recommended that you use statesync to catch up to the rest of the network.

You can use this script to modify your config.toml with the required statesync parameters.

# create the statesync script
$: cd $NODE_HOME
$: touch statesync.sh
$ chmod 700 statesync.sh # make executable

Paste the following instructions into the statesync.sh:

#!/bin/bash

SNAP_RPC="https://rpc.provider-state-sync-01.rs-testnet.polypore.xyz:443"

LATEST_HEIGHT=$(curl -s $SNAP_RPC/block | jq -r .result.block.header.height); \
BLOCK_HEIGHT=$((LATEST_HEIGHT - 2000)); \
TRUST_HASH=$(curl -s "$SNAP_RPC/block?height=$BLOCK_HEIGHT" | jq -r .result.block_id.hash)

sed -i.bak -E "s|^(enable[[:space:]]+=[[:space:]]+).*$|\1true| ; \
s|^(rpc_servers[[:space:]]+=[[:space:]]+).*$|\1\"$SNAP_RPC,$SNAP_RPC\"| ; \
s|^(trust_height[[:space:]]+=[[:space:]]+).*$|\1$BLOCK_HEIGHT| ; \
s|^(trust_hash[[:space:]]+=[[:space:]]+).*$|\1\"$TRUST_HASH\"|" $NODE_HOME/config/config.toml

Then, you can execute the script:

$: ./statesync.sh # setup config.toml for statesync

Finally, copy the provider genesis and start your node:

$: GENESIS_URL=https://github.com/cosmos/testnets/raw/master/interchain-security/provider/provider-genesis.json
$: wget $GENESIS_URL -O genesis.json
$: genesis.json $NODE_HOME/config/genesis.json
# start the service
$: gaiad start --x-crisis-skip-assert-invariants --home $NODE_HOME --p2p.seeds="08ec17e86dac67b9da70deb20177655495a55407@provider-seed-01.rs-testnet.polypore.xyz:26656,4ea6e56300a2f37b90e58de5ee27d1c9065cf871@provider-seed-02.rs-testnet.polypore.xyz:26656"

Additional scripts to setup your nodes are available here and here. The scripts will configure your node and create the required services - the scripts only work in linux environments.

Joining consumer chains

tip

We strongly recommend that you assign a separate key for each consumer chain. Check out this guide to learn more about key assignment in interchain security.

To join consumer chains, simply replicate the steps above for each consumer using the correct consumer chain binaries.

info

When running the provider chain and consumers on the same machine please update the PORT numbers for each of them and make sure they do not overlap (otherwise the binaries will not start).

Important ports to re-configure:

• --rpc.laddr
• --p2p.laddr
• --api.address
• --grpc.address
• --grpc-web.address

Re-using consensus key

To reuse the key on the provider and consumer chains, simply initialize your consumer chain and place the priv_validator_key.json into the home directory of your consumer chain (<consumer_home>/config/priv_validator_key.json).

When you start the chain, the consensus key will be the same on the provider and the consumer chain.

Assigning consensus keys

Whenever you initialize a new node, it will be configured with a consensus key you can use.

# machine running consumer chain
consumerd init <node_moniker> --home <home_path> --chain-id consumer-1

# use the output of this command to get the consumer chain consensus key
consumerd tendermint show-validator
# output: {"@type":"/cosmos.crypto.ed25519.PubKey","key":"<key>"}

Then, let the provider know which key you will be using for the consumer chain:

# machine running the provider chain
gaiad tx provider assign-consensus-key consumer-id '<consumer_pubkey>' --from <key_moniker> --home $NODE_HOME --gas 900000 -b sync -y -o json

After this step, you are ready to copy the consumer genesis into your nodes's /config folder, start your consumer chain node and catch up to the network.