Set up a production environment

Use this guide to set up and manage a 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 permissions to create and modify some files. It is strongly recommended to use a normal user when running Terrad.

Increase limit of file descriptors per process

Linux systems set the maximum number of file descriptors that a process may open to 1024 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 a process may open at a time.

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# If you have never changed this system config or your system is fresh, most of this file will be commented

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# ...

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* soft nofile 65535 # Uncomment the following two lines at the bottom

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* hard nofile 65535 # Change the default values to ~65535

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# ...

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:

   
   

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   [Unit]

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   Description=Terra Daemon

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   After=network.target

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   [Service]

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   Type=simple

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   User=<TERRA_USER>

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   ExecStart=<PATH_TO_TERRAD>/terrad start

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   Restart=on-abort

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   [Install]

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   WantedBy=multi-user.target

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   [Service]

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   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 run the program upon startup.

4. Now start the serivce with systemctl start terrad.

Controlling the service

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

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# Check health

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systemctl status terrad

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# Start

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systemctl start terrad

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# Stop

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systemctl stop terrad

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# Restart

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systemctl restart terrad

Access logs

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

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# Entire log reversed

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journalctl -t terrad -r

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# Entire log

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journalctl -t terrad

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# Latest and continuous

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journalctl -t terrad -f