Manual Node Upgrade

Any syntax in <> brackets is a user’s unique variable. Exchange with a corresponding name without the <> brackets.

Upgrading your node is a straight forward two-step process:

1. Updating the binary and ~/.nym/<NODE>/<YOUR_ID>/config/config.toml on your VPS

2. Updating the node information in the mixnet smart contract. This is the information that is present on the mixnet explorer.

Step 1: Upgrading your binary

Follow these steps to upgrade your node binary and update its config file:

1. Pause your node process.
   • if you see the terminal window with your node, press ctrl + c
   • if you run it as systemd service, run: service <NODE> stop
2. Replace the existing <NODE> binary with the newest binary (which you can either compile yourself or download.
3. Re-run with the same values as you used initially for your <NODE>. This will just update the config file, it will not overwrite existing keys.
   • if your node is not automated, just run your <NODE> with ./<NODE> run --id <ID>.
   • if you automated your node with systemd (recommended) run:

systemctl daemon-reload # to pickup the new unit file

service <NODE> start && journalctl -f -u <NODE>.service # to monitor log of you node

If you prefer to automate the process, try to setup your flow with Nymvisor.

Step 2: Updating your node information in the smart contract

Follow these steps to update the information about your <NODE> which is publicly available from the nym-api and information displayed on the Mixnet explorer.

You can either do this graphically via the Desktop Wallet, or the CLI.

Updating node information via the Desktop Wallet (recommended)

1. Navigate to the Bonding page and click the Node Settings link in the top right corner:

2. Update the fields in the Node Settings page (usually the field Version is the only one to change) and click Submit changes to the blockchain.

Updating node information via the CLI

If you want to bond your <NODE> via the CLI, then check out the relevant section in the Nym CLI docs.

Upgrading your validator

Upgrading from v0.31.1 -> v0.32.0 process is fairly simple. Grab the v0.32.0 release tarball from the nyxd releases page, and untar it. Inside are two files:

• the new validator (nyxd) v0.32.0
• the new wasmvm (it depends on your platform, but most common filename is libwasmvm.x86_64.so)

Wait for the upgrade height to be reached and the chain to halt awaiting upgrade, then:

• copy libwasmvm.x86_64.so to the default LD_LIBRARY_PATH on your system (on Ubuntu 20.04 this is /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/) replacing your existing file with the same name.
• swap in your new nyxd binary and restart.

You can also use something like Cosmovisor - grab the relevant information from the current upgrade proposal here.

Note: Cosmovisor will swap the nyxd binary, but you’ll need to already have the libwasmvm.x86_64.so in place.

Common reasons for your validator being jailed

The most common reason for your validator being jailed is that your validator is out of memory because of bloated syslogs.

Running the command df -H will return the size of the various partitions of your VPS.

If the /dev/sda partition is almost full, try pruning some of the .gz syslog archives and restart your validator process.