How to run Celestia Light Node on the Mocha Testnet

Follow along to learn how to install Celestia light node on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Resources

• Docs - https://docs.celestia.org/

• Explorer - https://celestia.explorers.guru/

• Twitter - https://twitter.com/CelestiaOrg

• Discord - https://discord.com/invite/je7UVpDuDu

Celestia node types

Celestia is a modular blockchain that tackles scalability issues by attempting to scale vertically which is a stark contrast when compared to monolithic chains like Ethereum and Solana. Celestia simplified it's scaling solution and focused on manufacturing only key ingredients that are needed for massive scalability. That is transaction ordering and making data available.

Celestia network consists of various types of nodes. They are split into two categories:

1. Consensus Nodes

   1. Validator Nodes

   2. Consensus Full Nodes

2. Data Availability Nodes

   1. Bridge Nodes

   2. Full Storage Nodes

   3. Light Nodes

Since there are already plenty of validator nodes on the testnet network and it is unlikely that new users will be able to join active validator set, the team encourages community to run light nodes. Hence this guide will provide instructions on how to get up to speed with running light nodes on a Linux machine. Light nodes are in charge of data availability sampling on the Data Availability network.

Celestia block size scales with the number of data sampling light nodes on the network.

Hardware requirements

Running a light node is not an intensive process and you can run it on basically any machine you can find laying around. We will use a tiny Ubuntu 20.04 VPS as an example.

Update system and install dependencies

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y && sudo apt install curl tar clang pkg-config libssl-dev jq build-essential git make ncdu -y

Install Go

if ! [ -x "$(command -v go)" ]; then
  ver="1.19.1"
  cd $HOME
  wget "https://golang.org/dl/go$ver.linux-amd64.tar.gz"
  sudo rm -rf /usr/local/go
  sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf "go$ver.linux-amd64.tar.gz"
  rm "go$ver.linux-amd64.tar.gz"
  echo "export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin:$HOME/go/bin" >> ~/.bash_profile
  source ~/.bash_profile
fi

After the setup is completed, use go version to check if the Go has been successfully installed.

Install Celestia light node

git clone https://github.com/celestiaorg/celestia-node.git
cd celestia-node/
git checkout tags/v0.6.0
make install
make cel-key

Check if the freshly built binary is working with the following command: celestia version

Initialize the light node

celestia light init

Generate wallet

./cel-key add celwallet --keyring-backend test --node.type light

Don't forget to save the mnemonic phrase just in case. You can optionally import your existing wallet if you already have one using the command below:

./cel-key add oldcelwallet --keyring-backend test --node.type light --recover

List wallets

./cel-key list --node.type light --keyring-backend test

Now you can join the Discord server linked above and request testnet tokens in the faucet channel.

Create light node service

sudo tee <<EOF >/dev/null /etc/systemd/system/celestia-lightd.service
[Unit]
Description=celestia-lightd Light Node
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=$USER
ExecStart=$HOME/go/bin/celestia light start --core.ip https://rpc-mocha.pops.one:9090 --keyring.accname celwallet
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=3
LimitNOFILE=4096

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

Enable and start light node service

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable celestia-lightd
systemctl start celestia-lightd

Check light node logs

journalctl -u celestia-lightd.service -f

Check wallet balance

curl -X GET http://127.0.0.1:26658/balance

Managing light node service

Check service status

systemctl status celestia-lightd

Stop the service

systemctl stop celestia-lightd

Restart the service

systemctl restart celestia-lightd

Delete Celestia light node

sudo systemctl stop celestia-lightd
sudo systemctl disable celestia-lightd
sudo rm /etc/systemd/system/celestia* -rf
sudo rm $HOME/.celestia* -rf
sudo rm $HOME/celestia* -rf

Thanks for reading and enjoy helping Celestia network with data availability sampling,

Njokac