Configuring a Node as a Linux Service

Prerequisites

Download or compile the gear executable file for the operating system. See more

Configuration

Copy the gear executable to the /usr/bin directory:

sudo cp gear /usr/bin

To run the Vara node as a Linux service, configure the systemd file:

cd /etc/systemd/system
sudo nano gear-node.service

Configure and save:

[Unit]
Description=Vara Node
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=root
WorkingDirectory=/root/
ExecStart=/usr/bin/gear --name "NODE_NAME" --telemetry-url "wss://telemetry.rs/submit 0"
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
LimitNOFILE=10000

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

note

The ExecStart declaration points to the location of the gear binary file. In this case, it is in the /usr/bin directory. Additional launch parameters can be added after -- but are not mandatory.

Starting the Node

Run the following command to start the service:

sudo systemctl start gear-node

Enable the service to start on boot:

sudo systemctl enable gear-node

Check the status of the gear-node service:

sudo systemctl status gear-node

Checking Logs

To view the service logs, run:

journalctl -u gear-node

Use navigation keys to browse the logs and the q key to exit.

View the last 50 lines of logs by adding the -n 50 parameter:

journalctl -u gear-node -n 50

See the last lines of logs in continuous mode (press Ctrl+C to exit):

journalctl -u gear-node -fn 50

Updating the Node to a New Version

After running the node for a while, updating to the latest version may be necessary.

Replace the node executable (gear) with the latest version and restart the service. For example, if the Linux executable is located at /usr/bin/gear (as configured above), run:

curl https://get.gear.rs/gear-v1.1.1-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.xz | sudo tar -xJC /usr/bin
sudo systemctl restart gear-node

Removing the Node

If running the node is no longer needed, completely purge it from the disk.

warning

Once the node is deleted, it cannot be fully restored. Refer to the Backup and Restore article for important data backup information.

Remove the node's storage, the service configuration, and the executable:

sudo systemctl stop gear-node
sudo systemctl disable gear-node
sudo rm -rf /root/.local/share/gear
sudo rm /etc/systemd/system/gear-node.service
sudo rm /usr/bin/gear