Run an Avalanche Node as a Background Service

Overview

This page demonstrates how to set up a avalanchego.service file to enable a manually deployed validator node to run in the background of a server instead of in the terminal directly.

Prerequisites

• AvalancheGo installed

Steps

Fuji Testnet Config

Run this command in your terminal to create the avalanchego.service file

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/avalanchego.service

Paste the following configuration into the avalanchego.service file

Remember to modify the values of:

• user=
• group=
• WorkingDirectory=
• ExecStart=

For those that you have configured on your Server

[Unit]
Description=Avalanche Node service
After=network.target

[Service]
User='YourUserHere'
Group='YourUserHere'
Restart=always
PrivateTmp=true
TimeoutStopSec=60s
TimeoutStartSec=10s
StartLimitInterval=120s
StartLimitBurst=5
WorkingDirectory=/Your/Path/To/avalanchego
ExecStart=/Your/Path/To/avalanchego/./avalanchego \  
   --network-id=fuji \
   --api-metrics-enabled=true 

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Press Ctrl + X then Y then Enter to save and exit.

Now, run:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Mainnet Config

Run this command in your terminal to create the avalanchego.service file

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/avalanchego.service

Paste the following configuration into the avalanchego.service file

[Unit]
Description=Avalanche Node service
After=network.target

[Service]
User='YourUserHere'
Group='YourUserHere'
Restart=always
PrivateTmp=true
TimeoutStopSec=60s
TimeoutStartSec=10s
StartLimitInterval=120s
StartLimitBurst=5
WorkingDirectory=/Your/Path/To/avalanchego
ExecStart=/Your/Path/To/avalanchego/./avalanchego \
   --api-metrics-enabled=true

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Press Ctrl + X then Y then Enter to save and exit.

Now, run:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Start the Node

This command makes your node start automatically in case of a reboot, run it:

sudo systemctl enable avalanchego

To start the node, run:

sudo systemctl start avalanchego
sudo systemctl status avalanchego

Output:

socopower@avalanche-node-01:~$ sudo systemctl status avalanchego
● avalanchego.service - Avalanche Node service
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/avalanchego.service; enabled; vendor p>
     Active: active (running) since Tue 2023-08-29 23:14:45 UTC; 5h 46min ago
   Main PID: 2226 (avalanchego)
      Tasks: 27 (limit: 38489)
     Memory: 8.7G
        CPU: 5h 50min 31.165s
     CGroup: /system.slice/avalanchego.service
             └─2226 /usr/local/bin/avalanchego/./avalanchego --network-id=fuji

Aug 30 03:02:50 avalanche-node-01 avalanchego[2226]: INFO [08-30|03:02:50.685] >
Aug 30 03:02:51 avalanche-node-01 avalanchego[2226]: INFO [08-30|03:02:51.185] >
Aug 30 03:03:09 avalanche-node-01 avalanchego[2226]: [08-30|03:03:09.380] INFO >
Aug 30 03:03:23 avalanche-node-01 avalanchego[2226]: [08-30|03:03:23.983] INFO >
Aug 30 03:05:15 avalanche-node-01 avalanchego[2226]: [08-30|03:05:15.192] INFO >
Aug 30 03:05:15 avalanche-node-01 avalanchego[2226]: [08-30|03:05:15.237] INFO >
Aug 30 03:05:15 avalanche-node-01 avalanchego[2226]: [08-30|03:05:15.238] INFO >
Aug 30 03:05:19 avalanche-node-01 avalanchego[2226]: [08-30|03:05:19.809] INFO >
Aug 30 03:05:19 avalanche-node-01 avalanchego[2226]: [08-30|03:05:19.809] INFO >
Aug 30 05:00:47 avalanche-node-01 avalanchego[2226]: [08-30|05:00:47.001] INFO

To see the synchronization process, you can run the following command:

sudo journalctl -fu avalanchego