SLV - The Toolkit for Solana Devs

Solana Mainnet Validator - Migrate Solana Validator Node With No Downtime

🚀 Zero-Downtime Migration Guide for Solana Mainnet Validators

This guide explains how to migrate an existing mainnet validator to a new server without stopping the validator.

Prerequisites

This guide assumes that you already have a Solana mainnet validator node set up.
We assume that the following two validator nodes are set up:
1. Active mainnet validator node - The currently running validator node
2. New mainnet validator node - The validator node you are migrating to
⚠️ Important Note
In this guide, we assume:
The name set during slv v init for the active mainnet validator node is labo.
And,
The name set during slv v init for the new mainnet validator node is labo-spare.
Both validator nodes are assumed to have been set up using the slv v deploy -n mainnet -p labo and slv v deploy -n mainnet -p labo-spare commands respectively.
Both nodes should have the same configuration except for the Solana validator IP and name.
For example, when setting up a spare validator, when using the slv v init command for setup, use a name as shown below:
bash
slv v init
.
.
? Do you want to create a new identity key now? (Y/n) › No
? Please Enter Your Identity Public Key › xxxxxxxxxxxxx
? Enter Inventory Name (xxxxxxxxxxxxx) › labo-spare

Migrating the Validator Node

When you run the slv v switch command, you will be prompted to select the network to migrate to.

Select the Solana Network

bash
slv v switch
? Select Solana Network ( mainnet)
  testnet
❯ mainnet
Here, select mainnet.

Enter the Name of the Source Validator

bash
✨ Switching Testnet Validator Identity...
? From Validator Identity › labo

Enter the Name of the Destination Validator

bash
? To Validator Identity › labo-spare
.
.
.
PLAY RECAP **************************************************************************************************
labo-spare      : ok=3    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=2    rescued=0    ignored=0   
labo : ok=4    changed=3    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=1    rescued=0    ignored=0   

Successfully swapped hosts labo and labo-spare in mainnet_validators
âś… Successfully Switched Validator Identity
The validator node migration is now complete.
When this command succeeds, the configuration in the following file will also be changed to the switched node:
~/.slv/inventory.mainnet.validators.yml

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