Solana Mainnet Validator - Quickstart | SLV - The Toolkit for Solana Devs

Introduction

To deploy a Solana mainnet validator, you'll use the SLV command-line tool. This quickstart guide explains how to launch and deploy a mainnet validator hot spare.

You must have Ubuntu 24.04 LTS clean installed on your server.

Preparing a Baremetal Server

While it is possible to run a Solana node on VPS or virtual machines (VM), achieving optimal performance and stable operation is challenging. Solana officially recommends the use of baremetal servers.

Mainnet validators should be provisioned to stay stable during congestion.
Below is a guideline based on the official Solana / Agave / Firedancer documentation.

Agave Validator (official requirements and recommendations)

SOL requirements

There is no strict minimum SOL requirement
The Vote Account needs 0.02685864 SOL to be rent-exempt
Voting transactions can cost up to ~1.1 SOL / day

Hardware requirements (guideline)

Component	Validator	RPC Node (reference)
CPU	2.8GHz+ / AMD Gen3+ / Intel Ice Lake+ / SHA extensions / AVX2	16 cores / 32 threads+
RAM	256GB+	512GB+
Disk	NVMe Gen3 x4 or better / Accounts-Ledger-Snapshots separation recommended	Larger capacity recommended
GPU	Not required	Not required

Note:
Clock speed and effective throughput are considered more important than core count.

Firedancer (Frankendancer)

Firedancer (Frankendancer) currently depends on Agave,
so at minimum it assumes the Agave recommended configuration or higher.

Minimum

24-core CPU @ >2.8GHz
256GB RAM
2TB NVMe (High TBW)

Recommended

32-core CPU @ >3GHz (AVX512 supported)
512GB RAM (ECC)
Accounts / Ledger separation
Network bandwidth of 1Gbps or higher

For a balanced cost-performance setup, Agave with a 24-core CPU and 384GB RAM is a practical guideline.

When you run the slv v init command, you will be asked whether your baremetal server is already set up:

bash
➜ slv v init
? Select Solana Network (testnet) › mainnet
? 🛡️ Do you have a Solana Node Compatible Server? (no)
❯ yes
  no

This tutorial assumes you select yes.

If you have not yet prepared your baremetal server, please refer to the Baremetal Server Setup Guide.

Additionally, you may find these resources helpful:

Deploy Solana Mainnet Firedancer Jito Validator

New SLV deployments always use unstaked-keypair.json as the identity key. This is a best practice to prevent double voting and other issues.

Therefore, after deployment, please use slv v set:identity to set the authorized identity key.

In most mainnet validator operations, you will use slv v switch to change the identity key. For no-downtime migration, please refer to this guide.

Select the Solana Network

Select the Solana Network you want to deploy.

bash
slv v init
? Select Solana Network (mainnet)
  testnet
❯ mainnet

Input Server's Default Username

Most of the time, the default username is ubuntu or root.

bash
? What's the user for the server? (ubuntu) › ubuntu

Input Server's IP Address

Input the IP address of the server.

bash
? What's the IP address of the server? ›

Set RSA Key for SSH

※ Please set the path to your RSA key. The default path is ~/.ssh/id_rsa.

bash
? What's the path to your RSA key? (~/.ssh/id_rsa) › ~/.ssh/id_rsa
🔍 Checking SSH connection...
✔︎ SSH connection succeeded

Then SLV will check the connection to the server. If the connection is successful, the next step will be prompted.

Select Solana Validator Type

Select the type of Solana validator.

bash
? Select Validator Type (firedancer-jito)
  agave
  jito
  jito-bam
  firedancer-agave
❯ firedancer-jito

Set Commission Rate

Set the commission rate for your validator. ※ 1000 equals 10%.

bash
? Enter Commission BPS (Max 1000 = 10%) (1000)

Generate or Set the Solana Validator Identity Key

You can generate a new identity key or set an existing identity key. This example shows how to set an existing identity key with the name "epics-sub".

bash
? Do you want to create a new identity key now? (Y/n) › No
? Please Enter Your Identity Public Key › KTMkUG8WCw9FdH44jLMBpc1teGafnYL6SgP4fHHbsNM
? Enter Inventory Name (KTMkUG8WCw9FdH44jLMBpc1teGafnYL6SgP4fHHbsNM) › epics-sub
⚠️ Please place your identity key in

  ~/.slv/keys/KTMkUG8WCw9FdH44jLMBpc1teGafnYL6SgP4fHHbsNM.json
.
.
✔︎ Success
✔ Inventory updated to ~/.slv/inventory.yml
✔ Successfully created solv user on x.x.x.x

Please place your identity key in ~/.slv/keys/<your-pubkey>.json.

Automatic Region Detection

Next, the system will ping each block engine from your configured node to automatically detect the nearest region. By measuring actual ping values, you can select the optimal region.

bash
✔ Inventory updated to ~/.slv/inventory.mainnet.validators.yml

📍 Measuring latencies from x.x.x.x to mainnet regions...
  Pinging Amsterdam (amsterdam.mainnet.block-engine.jito.wtf)...
  Pinging Dublin (dublin.mainnet.block-engine.jito.wtf)...
  Pinging Frankfurt (frankfurt.mainnet.block-engine.jito.wtf)...
  Pinging London (london.mainnet.block-engine.jito.wtf)...
  Pinging New York (ny.mainnet.block-engine.jito.wtf)...
  Pinging Salt Lake City (slc.mainnet.block-engine.jito.wtf)...
  Pinging Singapore (singapore.mainnet.block-engine.jito.wtf)...
  Pinging Tokyo (tokyo.mainnet.block-engine.jito.wtf)...
  ✅ London: 8.801 ms
  ✅ Dublin: 12.946 ms
  ✅ Frankfurt: 5.888 ms
  ✅ Amsterdam: 0.169 ms
  ✅ New York: 74.321 ms
  ✅ Salt Lake City: 115.577 ms
  ✅ Singapore: 154.200 ms
  ✅ Tokyo: 229.989 ms

🎯 Nearest region: 🇳🇱 Amsterdam
   Latency: 0.169 ms
   Block Engine: https://amsterdam.mainnet.block-engine.jito.wtf
   Shred Receiver: 74.118.140.240:1002
   Relayer: http://amsterdam.mainnet.relayer.jito.wtf:8100
   NTP Server: ntp.amsterdam.jito.wtf

Generate or Set the Solana Validator Vote Account Key

You can generate a new vote account key or set an existing vote account key. This example shows how to set an existing vote account key.

bash
? Do you want to create a new vote account key now? (Y/n) › No
? Please Enter Your Vote Account Public Key > <your-vote-account>

The validator node information will be saved to ~/.slv/inventory.mainnet.validators.yml.

bash
✔︎ Success
✔ Inventory updated to ~/.slv/inventory.mainnet.validators.yml
✔ Successfully created solv user on epics-sub
✔︎ Validator Mainnet Config Saved To ~/.slv/inventory.mainnet.validators.yml
Now you can deploy with:

$ slv v deploy -n mainnet -p epics-sub

Deploy the Validator

Once you confirm the configuration, the deployment will start.

bash
slv v deploy -n mainnet -p epics-sub

bash
Your Mainnet Validators Settings:
┌────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Identity Key   │ KTMkUG8WCw9FdH44jLMBpc1teGafnYL6SgP4fHHbsNM  │
├────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Vote Key       │ EpicsoqLdDP8qRn3wQRKTSKAXbjK9dUgFfNPRQS77MQD │
├────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Authority Key  │ authAccount                                  │
├────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ IP             │ x.x.x.x                                      │
├────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Validator Type │ firedancer-jito                              │
├────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Version        │ 0.712.30006                                  │
└────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
? Do you want to continue? (Y/n) › Yes
.
.
.
Successfully Deployed RPC on mainnet
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You can monitor your Node with the following steps:

Log in to your server with SSH:
ssh [email protected]

Then, run the following command to monitor your node:
$ solv m

It's done! Your Solana Validator is now deployed. It will take some time to sync with the Solana network.

Debugging & Monitoring

After deployment, you can debug and monitor within the Solana RPC node. You can check the status of the Solana RPC node using the following commands:

bash
$ solv m

solv is an alias for agave-validator -l /mnt/ledger. This setting is added to ~/.profile during the RPC node deployment.

Change the Identity Key

After deployment, you need to change the unstaked key to the authorized identity key.

bash
slv v set:identity -n mainnet --pubkey epics-sub

This command will change the identity key to the authorized identity key.

※ For no-downtime migration, please refer to this guide.

SLV Validator Commands

bash
slv validator --help
Usage:   slv validator
Version: 0.9.700

Description:

  🛠️ Manage Solana Validator Nodes 🛠️

Options:

  -h, --help  - Show this help.

Commands:

  init               - 🚀 Initialize a new validator configuration
  deploy             - 📦 Deploy Validators
  list               - 📋 List validators
  set:identity       - 🪪  Set Validator Identity
  set:unstaked       - 📴 Set Validator Identity to Unstaked Key
  setup:firedancer   - 🔥 Setup/Update Firedancer Validator
  update:firedancer  - 🔄 Update Firedancer Version
  build:solana-cli   - 🛠️ Build Solana CLI from Source
  install:solana     - ➡️ Install Solana CLI Binary
  update:script      - ⚙️  Update Validator Startup Config
  update:jinja       - 🧩 Update Jinja Template
  start              - 🟢 Start Validator
  stop               - 🔴 Stop Validator
  restart            - ♻️  Restart Validator
  cleanup            - 🧹 Cleanup Validator - Remove Ledger/Snapshot Unnecessary Files
  get:snapshot       - 💾 Download Snapshot with aria2c
  gen:vote-account   - 🗳️  Generate Vote Account
  switch             - 🔁 Switch Validator Identity - No DownTime Migration