Raspberry Pi configuration for Astar node

This is a simple readme containing main steps to setup a Raspberry Pi running an Astar node.

Requirements:

• Raspberry Pi 4 with 2 Gb RAM minimum, recomended 4 Gb
• A USD hard drive (preferably SSD) of 1 Tb
• Internet connection (Wifi is fine)
• A SD Card

Setup Raspberry Pi to boot from USB disk

Raspberry Pi natively loads OS from MicroSD card. As we need a hard drive to store the blockchain database, we start by configuring the Raspberry to boot OS from USB disk.

Download Raspberry Pi Imager: https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/

Insert the SD card

Start RPi imager

Choose OS > Misc Utility Images > Bootloader > USB Boot

Choose storage > select the SD card

Write

Insert the SD card into the Raspberry Pi

Plug the Pi and wait for 10-20 seconds after the green light blinks constantly

Turn off the Pi and remove the SD card

Install OS

Plug the USD hard drive

Start RPi imager

Choose OS > Other general-purpose OS > Ubuntu > Ubuntu Server 22.04.2 LTS (64-bit)

Choose storage > select the USB disk

If advance menu doesn't show up, open it with Ctrl + Shift + X

Set hostname, enable SSH, user and wireless LAN

Write

Plug the USB drive on the Pi and turn it on

Configure the Raspberry Pi

SSH to the Pi from your computer

• On Linux/Mac: ssh user@pi_name.local
• On Windows, you will need a SSH client like PuTTY

Check that partition / uses the full size of the disk: lsblk

Update and upgrade the OS with latest packages: sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Install package required: sudo apt install -y adduser libfontconfig1

To prevent Out Of Memory issues, create a swap file

sudo fallocate -l 4g /file.swap
sudo chmod 600 /file.swap
sudo mkswap /file.swap
sudo swapon /file.swap

Add swap file to fstab so that swap will be loaded on reboot: echo '/file.swap none swap sw 0 0' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

Install Astar node

Get the aarch64 binary link from Astar release page: https://github.com/AstarNetwork/Astar/releases

Download and unarchive ARM binary (example here with v5.21.0)

wget https://github.com/AstarNetwork/Astar/releases/download/v5.21.0/astar-collator-v5.21.0-ubuntu-aarch64.tar.gz && tar -xf astar-collator*.tar.gz

Create a dedicated user for the node and move the node binary:

sudo useradd --no-create-home --shell /usr/sbin/nologin astar
sudo mv ./astar-collator /usr/local/bin
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/astar-collator

Create a dedicated directory for the chain storage data:

sudo mkdir /var/lib/astar && sudo chown astar:astar /var/lib/astar

Create the Astar service file changing the name {NODE_NAME}

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/astar.service

    [Unit]
    Description=Astar Archive node

    [Service]
    User=astar
    Group=astar
    
    ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/astar-collator \
    --state-pruning archive \
    --blocks-pruning archive \
    --name {NODE_NAME} \
    --chain astar \
    --base-path /var/lib/astar \
    --telemetry-url 'wss://telemetry.polkadot.io/submit/ 0' \
    -- \
    --state-pruning 100 \
    --blocks-pruning 100

    Restart=always
    RestartSec=10

    [Install]
    WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save the file: Ctrl+O > Yes

Start the service: sudo systemctl start astar.service

Check the node log to ensure proper syncing: journalctl -f -u astar.service -n100

Enable the service: sudo systemctl enable astar.service

Extra

Polkadot node management

The Astar client embeeds an Astar node and a Polkadot node.

To pass commands to the Polkadot node, you need to add -- in between, just like we did in the service file above where we are passing a different pruning mode for the Polkadot node (this node doesn't need to be an archive as we only use its current state) and a warp sync mode (only possible on a full node, doesn't apply to an archive node).

Database location

In case you want to change the database mode, you need to stop the node, delete the database, then restart the node.

Astar db is located in /var/lib/astar/chains/astar/db.

Polkadot db is located in /var/lib/astar/polkadot/chains/polkadot/db.

Example: delete the Polkadot db after stopping the node:

sudo rm -rf /var/lib/astar/polkadot/chains/polkadot/db