Contents

Set up a production environment

Set up a production environment#

Use the following information to set up and manage your production-level full Terra node.

For information about running a validator node, visit the validator guide.

Create a dedicated user#

Although terrad does not require a super user account, during the setup process you’ll need super user permission to create and modify some files. It is strongly recommended to use a normal user when running terrad.

Increase the maximum files terrad can open#

terrad is set to open 1024 files by default. It is recommended that you increase this amount.

Modify /etc/security/limits.conf* to increase the amount, where nofile is the number of files terrad can open.

# If you have never changed this system config or your system is fresh, most of this file will be commented
# ...
*                soft    nofile          65535   # Uncomment the following two lines at the bottom
*                hard    nofile          65535   # Change the default values to ~65535
# ...

Run the server as a daemon#

terrad must be running at all times. It is recommended that you register terrad as a systemd service so that it will be started automatically when the system reboots.

Register terrad as a service#

  1. Create a service definition file in /etc/systemd/system/terrad.service.

    Example:

    [Unit]
Description=Terra Daemon
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=<TERRA_USER>
ExecStart=<PATH_TO_TERRAD>/terrad start  
Restart=on-abort

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Service]
LimitNOFILE=65535

  2. Modify the Service section according to your environment:

    • Enter the user (likely your username, unless you created a user specifically for terrad)

    • Enter the path to the terrad executable. <PATH_TO_TERRAD> is likely /home/<YOUR_USER>/go/bin/terrad or /usr/go/bin. Confirm this with whereis terrad

    • Make sure you made the correct edits to /etc/security/limits.conf

  3. Run systemctl daemon-reload followed by systemctl enable terrad. This will register terrad as a system service and turn it on upon startup.

  4. Now start the serivce with systemctl start terrad.

Controlling the service#

Use systemctl to start, stop, and restart the service:

# Check health
systemctl status terrad
# Start
systemctl start terrad
# Stop
systemctl stop terrad
# Restart
systemctl restart terrad

Access logs#

Use journalctl -t to access entire logs, entire logs in reverse, and the latest and continuous log.

# Entire log reversed
journalctl -t terrad -r
# Entire log
journalctl -t terrad
# Latest and continuous
journalctl -t terrad -f

previous

Build Terra core

next

Configure general settings