APTOS TestNet Node Guide

APTOS Incentivized Testnet 3 Node Install Guide. Aptos Labs remains focused on launching Mainnet to bring the community the safest, fastest and most reliable foundation for building within Web3.

Official links to Aptos TestNet: Website, Discord, GitHub, Medium, Twitter, LinkedIn

Aptos Incentivized Testnet Roadmap

IT1 (Incentivized Testnet 1): Decentralized Startup

• Registration May 13, 2022
• Begins May 16, 2022
• Completes May 27, 2022
• Major Deliverables
  • Registration and tracking website will be available prior to the start of IT1
  • Initially limited to 100 validator nodes (to be expanded in following later phases)
  • Tooling for decentralised network startup using GitHub
  • Documentation for running a production grade Validator
• Goals
  • Perform decentralised network startup using GitHub / Genesis tooling
  • Remain online and participate through the completion of the testnet as measured by Aptos
• Results – https://aptoslabs.com/it1

IT2: Staking

• Estimated start time: June, 2022
• Major Deliverables
  • Staking and staking rewards support with test coins
  • Decentralised faucet support
  • Updated gas schedule, e.g., improved and well-documented cost for each operation within a transaction to make the cost of transactions predictable
• Goals
  • Validate that staking, rewards, and delegation work as expected
  • Motivate validators to offer tokens via faucets to support distribution of test coins, delegation to validators, and ecosystem engagement
• Results – https://aptoslabs.com/it2

IT3: Governance and upgrades

• Estimated start time: July, 2022
• Major Deliverables
  • On-chain voting and governance
  • Lightweight state synchronisation through backup and restore technology
• Goals
  • Perform a decentralised network upgrade via the on-chain governance
  • Support new validators joining the network via backup and restore
• Results – TBA

IT4: Dynamic validator topology

• Estimated start time: August 2022
• Major Deliverables
  • Support as many validators as possible
  • Validator DDoS protection
• Goals
  • Final warm-up before moving to Mainnet
  • Validator DDoS validation
• Results – TBA

Community Opportunities

• Aptoversity (education)
• Bounties + Hackathons (development)
• Creative Challenge (growth)

Technical Roadmap

Between now and through the end of the incentivized testnets, will be upgrading the Aptos blockchain with many technical contributions. Many of these are listed below, most of which can be tracked via issues in APTOS GitHub repository

Aptos Incentivised TestNet 3 Guide

This incentivised testnet brings forward the last major deliverable for mainnet: on-chain governance and upgrades! To reflect a realistic environment for the mainnet launch, the number of AIT-3 participants will be nearly the same as AIT-2, so roughly 225 participants. The goal is to ensure that Aptos can safely and securely launch the mainnet. Sometime in the upcoming winter, APTOS will bring AIT-4 with an emphasis on scaling decentralisation and further performance optimisations.

All accepted participants are expected to join the TestNet within 24 hours of notification.

Key Objectives of AIT-3

A key new experience in AIT-3 is the various roles within the Aptos governance structure. Each node is backed by stake in an owner account; however, the node itself can be managed by an authorised operator account that is independent of the owner account. This means that, unlike AIT-2, the node operator and token owner can now be separate entities.

Similarly, in governance, the owner can be different from the voter. This means that owners can delegate their voting rights to a separate voter account. In AIT-3, the operator account will be managed via the CLI, whereas both the owner and voter accounts will be managed via the Petra wallet. The explorer has also expanded its functionality to support a governance platform for both owner and voter operations.

To stress-test the blockchain, AIT-3 will have 3 distinct types of governance proposals:

• Trivial configuration change
• Move framework upgrade
• Breaking change that will require both a Move framework upgrade and an updated binary.

Accomplishing all of these goals will be a strong indicator that both the Aptos software and community are ready to launch this blockchain!

All selected participants are expected to:

• Access the Aptos governance platform to register, stake, and designate their operator (the account associated with the validator)
• Register their validator node’s configuration on-chain
• Join the validator set
• Vote in the 3 distinct governance proposals
• Leave the validator set at the end of AIT-3

Success Criteria and Rewards

• Perform all the required objectives on time
• Meet node liveness as defined by metrics push data ≥ 95%
• On-chain reward earned ≥ 80% of maximum
• Successful participation in all Aptos-created governance operations

Everyone meeting these criteria will receive 800 Aptos tokens. In addition, the team will offer two opportunities to gain an extra 200 Aptos tokens:

• Run a validator fullnode with an open REST API for load testing
• Successfully participate in all operations

Any Aptos tokens can only be given to non-US participants, due to regulatory considerations. Any rewards in connection with the incentivised testnet will be provided only following a successful mainnet launch and any tokens provided will be subject to a minimum one-year lockup period. More details are provided in APTOS terms and conditions.

Registration

You will need to follow these steps to register for AIT-3:

Join APTOS Community website

Create an account (or log into your existing one) on the community site.

When prompted, provide your email address and username, and make sure to confirm your email

I suggest you use discord because the next step will discord connection anyway.

Join Aptos Discord

Confirm you have a Discord account and have joined the Aptos Server.

You will be asked to connect a Discord account for AIT-3

You will see successful connection:

Download and install the Petra wallet

You will see step 2: connect wallet

in new window click learn more and you will be redirected to Building the Wallet Extension page

Click the link to GitHub Petra (Aptos Wallet) Extension latest release

Download the wallet-extension.zip

Unzip dowloaded wallet-extension.zip and go .../More Tools/Extensions

Turn on developer mode and Load Unpacked

Now Petra Wallet is installed. You will see it in your extensions and I suggest to pin it.

Click on Wallet extension you just installed, Create strong password, Write down Seed phrase and keep it in safe place. You will need to restore wallet

You successful register Petra Wallet, Now you can request some tokens from Aptos Faucet

Refresh page and connect your wallet

Approve it in new window

You will see this and it means your wallet is now connected

Complete survey

Click on continue to complete the survey

Answer all questions and submit

You will see this and your survey is done

Install and start up a validator node

For the next step you will need to install Aptos node. Here is step by step guide.

Server requirements

Here is official server requirements from Aptos (source)

I will use Hetzner AX41-NVME

Node Install Guide

Connect to your server using terminal and follow the guide

Setting up vars

Put your node name in <YOUR_NODENAME>

NODENAME=<YOUR_NODENAME>

Save and import variables into system

echo "export NODENAME=$NODENAME" >> $HOME/.bash_profile
echo "export WORKSPACE=testnet" >> $HOME/.bash_profile
echo "export PUBLIC_IP=$(curl -s ifconfig.me)" >> $HOME/.bash_profile
source $HOME/.bash_profile

Update packages

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install dependencies

sudo apt-get install jq unzip -y

 Install docker

sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl gnupg lsb-release -y
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/docker-archive-keyring.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io -y

 Install docker compose

docker_compose_version=$(wget -qO- https://api.github.com/repos/docker/compose/releases/latest | jq -r ".tag_name")
sudo wget -O /usr/bin/docker-compose "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/${docker_compose_version}/docker-compose-`uname -s`-`uname -m`"
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/docker-compose

Download Aptos CLI

wget -qO aptos-cli.zip https://github.com/aptos-labs/aptos-core/releases/download/aptos-cli-v0.3.1/aptos-cli-0.3.1-Ubuntu-x86_64.zip
sudo unzip -o aptos-cli.zip -d /usr/local/bin
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/aptos
rm aptos-cli.zip

 Install Validator node

Create directory

mkdir ~/$WORKSPACE && cd ~/$WORKSPACE

Download config files

wget -qO docker-compose.yaml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aptos-labs/aptos-core/main/docker/compose/aptos-node/docker-compose.yaml
wget -qO validator.yaml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aptos-labs/aptos-core/main/docker/compose/aptos-node/validator.yaml

Generate keys

This will create four key files under ~/$WORKSPACE/keys directory: public-keys.yaml, private-keys.yaml, validator-identity.yamland validator-full-node-identity.yaml

aptos genesis generate-keys --output-dir ~/$WORKSPACE/keys

If you see aptos: error while loading shared libraries: libssl.so.1.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory use this and then repeat previous command.

wget http://nz2.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/o/openssl/libssl1.1_1.1.1f-1ubuntu2.16_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i libssl1.1_1.1.1f-1ubuntu2.16_amd64.deb

You will see this and it means everything is ok:

Backup your key files somewhere safe. These key files are important for you to establish ownership of your node, and you will use this information to claim your rewards later if eligible. Never share those keys with anyone else.

Here is command:

scp -r root@<your server IP>:/root/testnet/keys /Users/your_local_machine_path/

Configure validator

This will create two YAML files in the ~/$WORKSPACE/$USERNAME directory: owner.yaml and operator.yaml

aptos genesis set-validator-configuration \
    --local-repository-dir ~/$WORKSPACE \
    --username $NODENAME \
    --owner-public-identity-file ~/$WORKSPACE/keys/public-keys.yaml \
    --validator-host $PUBLIC_IP:6180 \
    --stake-amount 100000000000000

You will see this:

–full-node-host flag is optional Only use it if you plan or already have installed Fullnode on a separate server

Create layout file

Create a layout template file, which defines the node in the Aptos validatorSet.

aptos genesis generate-layout-template --output-file ~/$WORKSPACE/layout.yaml

Edit the layout.yaml, add the root_key, the Validator node username, and chain_id:

cd testnet
nano layout.yaml

CTRL+X to exit, “y” to save changes, and press Enter.

Please make sure you use the same root public key as shown in the example and same chain ID, those config will be used during registration to verify your node.

• root_key: “D04470F43AB6AEAA4EB616B72128881EEF77346F2075FFE68E14BA7DEBD8095E”
• chain_id: 43

Download Aptos Framework

wget -qO framework.mrb https://github.com/aptos-labs/aptos-core/releases/download/aptos-framework-v0.3.0/framework.mrb -P ~/$WORKSPACE

Compile genesis blob and waypoint

This will create two files in your working directory: genesis.blob and waypoint.txt

aptos genesis generate-genesis --local-repository-dir ~/$WORKSPACE --output-dir ~/$WORKSPACE

Here is what you will see:

When installation is finished please load variables into system

source $HOME/.bash_profile

Check your node health

1. Visit Aptos Node Checker –  https://node.aptos.zvalid.com/
2. Enter your node public IP address and change API port to 80
3. If everything good you will see this:

Pass KYC

Individuals should only register once. Aptos reserves the right to exclude those that abuse this policy from AIT, and they will not be eligible for any rewards.

Node Registration

Click Register and follow the steps

Here is information you need to input:

• OWNER KEY: the first wallet public key. From Petra Wallet Extension Settings -> Credentials
• CONSENSUS KEY: consensus_public_key from public-keys.yaml
• CONSENSUS POP: consensus_proof_of_possession from public-keys.yaml
• ACCOUNT KEY: account_public_key from public-keys.yaml
• VALIDATOR NETWORK KEY: validator_network_public_key from public-keys.yaml

Here is how to get Public Key from Petra wallet extension:

All other keys copy from public-keys.yaml you have back up on your local machine (just open the file with any text editor) or you can see it on your server using command:

cd testnet/keys
nano public-keys.yaml

Here is the result:

Hit VALIDATE NODE and you will see this:

and after a few minutes:

Node Registration is done

Identity Verification (KYC)

You need to pass KYC as last step click VERIFY

You will be redirected to another site to proceed all steps:

You will need to make photo or upload your documents and make a selfie, after that you will get this message about successful identity verification

Identity must be verified by noon (PST) August 27 to get into the selection process.

Finally you get email from Aptos Community with this text:

Your registration for Aptos Incentivized Testnet 3 is complete and your status is “AIT (Aptos Incentivized Testnet) Eligible’. You’ll hear from us on whether you are selected by August 27th.

Useful links

Official Aptos Testnet 3 page: https://aptoslabs.com/it3

AIT-3 DOCUMENTATION: https://aptos.dev/nodes/ait/ait-3

Aptos Node Checker / Tester: https://node.aptos.zvalid.com/

Petra Wallet Extension GitHub: https://github.com/aptos-labs/aptos-core/releases/

Official Node Install Guide: https://aptos.dev/nodes/validator-node/run-validator-node-using-source/

FAQ

Thank you for reading, hope it helped. Drop a comment if you have any questions.

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