How to Host a STORJ Node"

content/tutorials/how-to-host-a-storj-node/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,193 @@
+---
+title: "How to Host a STORJ Node"
+description: "Step by step guide to run STORJ Node, an open-source cloud storage platform, S3-compatible platform and suite of decentralized applications."
+# linkTitle:
+date: 2021-10-26T23:12:05+07:00
+lastmod:
+draft: false
+noindex: false
+# comments: false
+nav_weight: 1000
+# nav_icon:
+#   vendor: bootstrap
+#   name: toggles
+#   color: '#e24d0e'
+series:
+#  - Tutorial
+categories:
+  - SysAdmin
+tags:
+  - StorJ
+  - S3
+  - Docker
+images:
+# menu:
+#   main:
+#     weight: 100
+#     params:
+#       icon:
+#         vendor: bs
+#         name: book
+#         color: '#e24d0e'
+authors:
+  - ditatompel
+---
+
+**Storj** (pronounced as *"storage"*), is an open-source cloud storage platform, *S3-compatible* platform and suite of decentralized applications that allows you to store data in a secure and decentralized manner. Basically, it uses a decentralized network of nodes to host user data. The platform also secures hosted data using advanced encryption.
+
+<!--more-->
+
+In a [white paper](https://storj.io/whitepaper) published in December,2014, Storj was first introduced to the world as a concept. It was to be a decentralized peer-to-peer encrypted cloud storage platform.
+
+To host a Node, your hardware and bandwidth will need to meet a few requirements:
+- One processor core
+- Minimum 550GB of available disk space
+- Minimum of 2TB of available bandwidth a month
+- Minimum upstream bandwidth of 5 Mbps
+- Minimum download bandwidth of 25 Mbps
+- Keep your node online 24/7
+- Read and agree to the [Storj Storage Node Operator Terms and Conditions](https://storj.io/storj-operator-terms)
+
+If you can follow above requirement, you are good to go. In this article, I use Ubuntu 18.04 running on VPS with public IP address, 4 cores processor, 2GB RAM and 600GB additional disk partition for Storj data.
+
+## Request authorization token
+[Sign up](https://registration.storj.io/) and request authorization token. Make sure you have received your personal single-use authorization token. It looks like this:
+
+![StorJ Auth Token](storj-node-auth-token.png#center)
+
+The entire string, including your email is your auth token.
+
+## Prepare the system
+Make sure your system is up to date by running `apt update` and `apt upgrade`.
+
+### UDP config
+UDP transfers on high-bandwidth connections can be limited by the size of UDP recieve buffer.
+
+Storj sofware attemps to increase the UDP recieve buffer size. However, on Linux, an application is only allowed to increase the buffer size up to a max value set in the kernel, and the the default maximum value is too small for high bandwidth UDP transfers.
+
+Its is recommended to increase the max buffer size by running the following command to increase it to 2.5MB.
+
+```shell
+echo "net.core.rmem_max=2500000" >> /etc/sysctl.conf
+sysctl -w net.core.rmem_max=2500000
+```
+### Generate node identity
+Every node is required to have a unique identifier on the network.
+
+You need to download StorJ identity binary to generate your node identity (**as regular user, not as root**):
+```shell
+curl -L https://github.com/storj/storj/releases/latest/download/identity_linux_amd64.zip -o identity_linux_amd64.zip
+unzip -o identity_linux_amd64.zip
+chmod +x identity
+sudo mv identity /usr/local/bin/identity
+```
+Run command below to create an identity:
+```shell
+identity create storagenode
+```
+This process can take several minutes or hours or days, depending on your machines processing power and luck.
+
+This process will continue until it reaches a difficulty of at least 36. On completion, it will look something like this:
+
+```plain
+Generated 5186393 keys; best difficulty so far: 36
+Found a key with difficulty 36!
+Unsigned identity is located in "/home/USERNAME/.local/share/storj/identity/storagenode"
+Please *move* CA key to secure storage - it is only needed for identity management and isn't needed to run a storage node!
+        /home/USERNAME/.local/share/storj/identity/storagenode/ca.key
+```
+### Authorize the identity
+Authorize your Storage Node identity using your single-use authorization token from **"Request authorization token"** section above. (_replace the placeholder `<email:characterstring>` to your actual authorization token_):
+
+```shell
+identity authorize storagenode <email:characterstring>
+```
+When it's done and success, you will get result similar like this:
+
+```plain
+2021/10/26 02:07:22 proto: duplicate proto type registered: node.SigningRequest
+2021/10/26 02:07:22 proto: duplicate proto type registered: node.SigningResponse
+Identity successfully authorized using single use authorization token.
+Please back-up "/home/USERNAME/.local/share/storj/identity/storagenode" to a safe location.
+```
+
+To make sure the authorizing identity is successful, run these 2 following commands:
+```shell
+grep -c BEGIN ~/.local/share/storj/identity/storagenode/ca.cert
+grep -c BEGIN ~/.local/share/storj/identity/storagenode/identity.cert
+```
+
+The first command should return `2`, and the second command should return `3`.
+
+### Move the identity to the subfolder in the storage location (optional)
+In this example, I use `/dev/sdb1` partition and mount it to `/mnt/storj1` directory using `/etc/fstab` conffiguration file (_don't forget to change the `/mnt/storj1` ownership to your regular user using `chown` command_).
+
+Create 2 folder named `identity` and `data` under `/mnt/storj1` directory (we will use them latter).
+
+```shell
+mkdir /mnt/storj1/{identity,data}
+```
+
+Then, copy your **generated identity folder** to `/mnt/storj1/identity` :
+```shell
+cp -rfv ~/.local/share/storj/identity/storagenode /mnt/storj1/identity/
+```
+
+### Install docker and download the Storage Node Docker Container
+To setup a Storage Node, you first must have Docker installed. You can follow this official [Ubuntu Docker Installation](https://docs.docker.com/install/linux/docker-ce/ubuntu/).
+
+After docker is successfully installed and running, download the Storage Node Docker Container:
+```shell
+docker pull storjlabs/storagenode:latest
+```
+
+### Setting up the storage node
+> _You must static mount your storage partition via /etc/fstab. Failure to do so will put you in high risk of failing audits and getting disqualified._
+
+> _The setup step must be performed only once. If a node has already been set up, running with the SETUP flag will result in failure._
+
+
+```shell
+docker run --rm -e SETUP="true" \
+    --mount type=bind,source="<identity-dir>",destination=/app/identity \
+    --mount type=bind,source="<storage-dir>",destination=/app/config \
+    --name storagenode storjlabs/storagenode:latest
+```
+Replace the `<identity-dir>` and `<storage-dir>` with your parameters.
+
+In this article I use `/mnt/storj1/identity/storagenode` for `<identity-dir>` and `/mnt/storj1/data` for `<storage-dir>` (see section **"Move the identity to the subfolder in the storage location"** above).
+
+After running the command above, your node has been set up.
+
+## Run the Storage Node
+Run the command below (edit the `WALLET`, `EMAIL`, `ADDRESS`, `STORAGE` and replace the `<identity-dir>`, and `<storage-dir>` with your parameters)
+
+```shell
+docker run -d --restart unless-stopped --stop-timeout 300 \
+    -p 28967:28967/tcp \
+    -p 28967:28967/udp \
+    -p 14002:14002 \
+    -e WALLET="0xXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX" \
+    -e EMAIL="youremail@example.com" \
+    -e ADDRESS="host.yourdomain.com:28967" \
+    -e STORAGE="500GB" \
+    --mount type=bind,source="<identity-dir>",destination=/app/identity \
+    --mount type=bind,source="<storage-dir>",destination=/app/config \
+    --name storagenode storjlabs/storagenode:latest
+```
+You're officially a Storage Node operator! You can also check to see if the node was started properly by by running the following command in the terminal
+```shell
+docker ps -a
+```
+
+### Check the status of your node
+You can check the status of your node, along with many other statistics by accessing web dashboard from browser: `http://host.yourdomain.com:14002`.
+
+Or using command line:
+```shell
+docker exec -it storagenode /app/dashboard.sh
+```
+
+## Resources:
+- [https://docs.storj.io/node/](https://docs.storj.io/node/)
+- [https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/](https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/)