Using Source Code

The following steps walk through downloading the AvalancheGo source code and locally building the binary program. If you would like to run your node using a pre-built binary, follow this guide.

Install Dependencies

• Install gcc
• Install go

Build the Node Binary

mkdir -p $GOPATH/src/github.com/ava-labs

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ava-labs
git clone https://github.com/ava-labs/avalanchego.git

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ava-labs/avalanchego
./scripts/build.sh

Start the Node

For running a node on the Avalanche Mainnet:

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ava-labs/avalanchego
./build/avalanchego

For running a node on the Fuji Testnet:

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/ava-labs/avalanchego
./build/avalanchego --network-id=fuji

Bootstrapping

A new node needs to catch up to the latest network state before it can participate in consensus and serve API calls. This process (called bootstrapping) currently takes several days for a new node connected to Mainnet, and a day or so for a new node connected to Fuji Testnet. When a given chain is done bootstrapping, it will print logs like this:

[09-09|17:01:45.295] INFO <C Chain> snowman/transitive.go:392 consensus starting {"lastAcceptedBlock": "2qaFwDJtmCCbMKP4jRpJwH8EFws82Q2yC1HhWgAiy3tGrpGFeb"}
[09-09|17:01:46.199] INFO <P Chain> snowman/transitive.go:392 consensus starting {"lastAcceptedBlock": "2ofmPJuWZbdroCPEMv6aHGvZ45oa8SBp2reEm9gNxvFjnfSGFP"}
[09-09|17:01:51.628] INFO <X Chain> snowman/transitive.go:334 consensus starting {"lenFrontier": 1}

Check Bootstrapping Progress​

To check if a given chain is done bootstrapping, in another terminal window call info.isBootstrapped by copying and pasting the following command:

curl -X POST --data '{
    "jsonrpc":"2.0",
    "id"     :1,
    "method" :"info.isBootstrapped",
    "params": {
        "chain":"X"
    }
}' -H 'content-type:application/json;' 127.0.0.1:9650/ext/info

If this returns true, the chain is bootstrapped; otherwise, it returns false. If you make other API calls to a chain that is not done bootstrapping, it will return API call rejected because chain is not done bootstrapping. If you are still experiencing issues please contact us on Discord.

Learn more about bootstrapping here.

RPC

When finished bootstrapping, the X, P, and C-Chain RPC endpoints will be:

localhost:9650/ext/bc/P
localhost:9650/ext/bc/X
localhost:9650/ext/bc/C/rpc

if run locally, or

XXX.XX.XX.XXX:9650/ext/bc/P
XXX.XX.XX.XXX:9650/ext/bc/X
XXX.XX.XX.XXX:9650/ext/bc/C/rpc

if run on a cloud provider. The “XXX.XX.XX.XXX" should be replaced with the public IP of your EC2 instance.

For more information on the requests available at these endpoints, please see the AvalancheGo API Reference documentation.

Going Further

Your Avalanche node will perform consensus on its own, but it is not yet a validator on the network. This means that the rest of the network will not query your node when sampling the network during consensus. If you want to add your node as a validator, check out Add a Validator to take it a step further.

Also check out the Maintain section to learn about how to maintain and customize your node to fit your needs.

To track an Avalanche L1 with your node, head to the Avalanche L1 Node tutorial.