How to Run Zold Node?

Even though we have some documentation in GitHub, there are many questions from newcomers who want to join Zold networks and become Hosters to earn hosting bonuses and taxes—how to run a node? Were is the video? Why it doesn’t work for me? Who can help? Here is a short summary of how it is supposed to work. If it doesn’t, please post your comments below, one of us will help you out.

First of all, you will need a server. I’d recommend to use a VPS, instead of a dedicated one. You can get it cheap, just browse LowEndBox, they have plenty of offers. Make sure your VPS has at least 2 Gb of RAM. The size of the HDD/SDD doesn’t matter. It should cost you around $40 a year. I recommend: Contabo, DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Linode.

What is the best operating system? I’ve tried Ubuntu and CentOS. Ubuntu seems easier to configure and more stable. But it’s a matter of taste.

Then, you need to install Ruby 2.5+. Here is our installation manual. When it’s installed, you should be able to do something like this:

$ ruby -v
ruby 2.5.1p57 (2018-03-29 revision 63029) [x86_64-linux]

If something goes wrong, ask for help in StackOverflow or in our Telegram group.

Now it’s time to install Zold. It should be as simple as this:

$ gem install zold
$ zold -v
0.21.4

If it doesn’t work, submit a ticket to our GitHub repo. Copy everything you see in the console and paste it to the ticket. It is very possible that our software has bugs, it’s still in the very early experimental stage.

Once Zold is installed, I would suggest you to to go WTS and create a wallet there. Then, go to the Invoice page there and get your invoice.

Now you are ready to join the network! Run this:

$ zold node --nohup --invoice=<your invoice>

Your node should be up and running. It will be visible in your IP address via the port 4096 (you will need to open that port for inbound connections, if you have a firewall). To check whether your node is alive, “open” it in a browser. It should look similar to this page: b2.zold.io:4096

Now, wait for a few hours and check the presence of your node in our network monitoring page: /health. If it’s not there and the score of your node is above 4, ping us in Telegram, maybe there is something wrong.

Once you see your node up and running, get ready to get some hosting bonuses and taxes. Regularly check your wallet in WTS.

You may also want to subscribe to our Telegram channel, where WTS posts system messages about the network. They may help you understand what’s going on under the hood.

Thanks for supporting Zold and Zerocracy!