Transition from a voting validator to another validator without downtime.
How to run node transition
We offer a script called node-transition.sh that enables you to relocate your voting validator to a different machine without experiencing any downtime. This script is integrated into the solana home directory via our ansible playbook installation process
Take time to read the script to fully understand how it works before running it.
Initial Setup
Copying the Public SSH Key of solana user into the remote host
Before running the script, you must be able to ssh between your nodes with the Solana user.
The content of your id_rsa.pub file will have to be added to a file ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on your remote machine somehow.
Define remote host IP in node-transition.sh
#!/bin/bash
# Define here the IP of the node to transition the voting operation
TRANSITIONAL_NODE_IP=
...
Validator keypair setup
Each validator must have alternative identities that can be used when they are not actively voting. You can create these fictitious identities on each of your validators as follows:
solana-keygen new -s --no-bip39-passphrase -o unfunded-validator-keypair.json
Assuming that you have executed the init_validator.sh script on both nodes, the unfunded-validator-keypair.json file should already exist.
Your real validator-keypair.json have to be named funded-validator-keypair.json and copied on each node.
Create a symlink validator-keypair.json pointing to funded-validator-keypair.json your primary node.
Assuming that you have executed the init_validator.sh script on both nodes, the unfunded-validator-keypair.json file should already exist.
Start your nodes
Your primary and secondary nodes should be running.
The primary node is voting and validator-keypair.json point to funded-validator-keypair.json
The secondary node is started, as catches up with the network but it is not voting and validator-keypair.json point to unfunded-validator-keypair.json
You can check that the second is not voting by tailing the log file. You should see Unable to vote.
[2023-03-21T22:52:26.226528450Z INFO solana_core::replay_stage] Vote account node_pubkey mismatch: FnpP7TK6F2hZFVnqSUJagZefwRJ4fmnb1StS1NokpLZM (expected: DCbiSAQwvSrWkDhiqTfcTUWacY4jxDZWG1s1GSPQ5TwZ). Unable to vote
Run node-transition.sh on primary to switch to secondary node
At this stage, you can run the script and observe your logs on both nodes.
./node-transition.sh
Jito Labs is currently developing a solution to make Jito Solana Software compatible with Node Transition, but it is not fully compatible yet. In the meantime, you can use the Stock Solana software to run your Solana secondary (Hot Spare) node.
