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

Installation & Validator Launch

bash
curl -fsSL https://storage.slv.dev/slv/install | sh
slv validator init
slv validator deploy

Deploy Solana Validator Testnet with Firedancer

🚀 Prerequisites Ensure your server has a clean installation of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

🔑 About Validator Keys For new SLV deployments, the initial identity key will always be unstaked-keypair.json, as a best practice to avoid critical issues like double voting.

SLV supports keyless operation, meaning no sensitive validator keys or confidential data are ever stored on your validator node.

✅ Setting Your Validator Identity After deployment, make sure to set your verified validator identity key using the following command:

bash
slv v set:identity -n testnet --pubkey <your-identity-pubkey>

Bare Metal Server Preparation

Solana officially recommends using bare metal servers. Bare metal servers provide higher performance than other virtualized environments. Solana nodes have high CPU and memory requirements. Typically, a minimum of 24 CPU cores and 384 GB of memory is required. For stable earnings, 768 GB or more of memory is recommended.

When you run the slv v init command, you'll be asked if you already have a bare metal server set up.

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

We'll proceed with the yes tutorial here. If you haven't set up a bare metal server yet, select no. Please refer to this guide to secure a bare metal server.

Input Server's Default Username

Most of the time, the default username is ubuntu.

bash
slv v init
? 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. ※ Currently, only the default path is supported.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.

Generate or Set the Solana Validator Identity

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

bash
? Do you want to create a new identity key now? (Y/n) › No
? Please Enter Your Identity Public Key › EjDwu2Czy8eWEYRuNwtjniYks47Du3KNJ6JY9rs3aFSV
⚠️ Please place your identity key in

  ~/.slv/keys/EjDwu2Czy8eWEYRuNwtjniYks47Du3KNJ6JY9rs3aFSV.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. Then, slv will create solv user with your password.

Generate or Set the Solana Vote Account

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>
⚠️ Please place your voteAccount pubkey in

  ~/.slv/keys/<your-vote-account>.json

Please place your vote account key in ~/.slv/keys/<your-vote-account>.json.

Set Your Authority Public Key

Please input your authority public key. This key is used to withdraw rewards from the vote account.

bash
? Please Enter Your Vote Account's Authority Key › <your-authority-pubkey>
✔︎ Validator testnet config saved to ~/.slv/inventory.testnet.validators.yml

Now you can deploy with:

$ SLV v deploy -n testnet

Now your configuration is saved to ~/.slv/inventory.testnet.validators.yml.

Deploy the Solana Validator

Once you confirm the configuration, the deployment will start.

bash
slv v deploy -n testnet
Your Testnet Validators Settings:
┌────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Identity Key   │ EjDwu2Czy8eWEYRuNwtjniYks47Du3KNJ6JY9rs3aFSV │
├────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Vote Key       │ EwoVPLUhdhm722e7QWk8GMQ43917qRXiC9HFyefEMiSV │
├────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Authority Key  │ EcT4NsMPwxanusdy3dza5nznqwuKo9Pz3GzW5GPD32SV │
├────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ IP             │ x.x.x.x                                      │
├────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Validator Type │ firedancer                                   │
├────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Version        │ 0.302.20104                                  │
└────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
? Do you want to continue? (Y/n) › Yes

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

Debugging & Monitoring

You can debug and monitor the Solana RPC node after deployment.

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 from Unstaked Key to Authorized Identity Key

After the deployment, you need to change the identity key from the unstaked key

to the authorized identity key.

bash
slv v set:identity -n testnet --pubkey <your-identity-pubkey>

This command sets your identity key from your local computer at:

~/.slv/keys/<your-identity-pubkey>.json

to your validator node.

No key information is stored on the validator node 🛡️

Restart Firedancer

If you have any issues with the validator, you can restart the firedancer with the following command.

If you use the --rm option, the validator will be stopped and removed ledger and snapshot dirs, and Download Snapshot with the snapshot finder and start the validator.

bash
slv v restart -n testnet --pubkey <your-identity-pubkey> --rm

SLV Validator Commands

bash
Usage:   slv validator
Version: 0.8.2        

Description:

  Manage Solana Validator Nodes

Options:

  -h, --help  - Show this help.  

Commands:

  init                - Initialize a new validator                                       
  deploy              - Deploy Validators                                                
  list                - List validators                                                  
  set:identity        - Set Validator Identity                                           
  set:unstaked        - Set Validator Identity to Unstaked Key Stop/Change Identity/Start
  restart             - Stop and Start Validator                                         
  setup:firedancer    - Setup Firedancer Validator - Testnet Only                        
  setup:relayer       - Setup Jito Relayer - Mainnet Only                                
  deploy:relayer      - Setup Jito Relayer - Mainnet Only                                
  update:version      - Update Validator Version                                         
  update:script       - Update Validator Startup Config                                  
  apply               - Apply Ansiible Playbook                                          
  update:allowed-ips  - Update allowed IPs for mainnet validator nodes                   
  switch              - Switch Validator Identity - No DownTime Migration