Setting Up a Validator

Validators participate in Sui’s consensus protocol and secure the network. This guide covers the complete process of setting up a validator node.

Prerequisites

Before setting up a validator:

Meet the validator system requirements
Have sufficient SUI for staking (minimum stake requirement)
Generate validator key pairs
Obtain genesis.blob for the target network

Key Generation

Validators require four cryptographic key pairs:

Key	Scheme	Purpose
protocol.key	BLS12381	Transaction signing, consensus
account.key	Ed25519	Controls validator assets and staking
network.key	Ed25519	P2P networking, state sync
worker.key	Ed25519	Narwhal worker validation

Generate Keys

Using the Sui CLI:

# Download sui CLI
wget https://releases.sui.io/$SUI_SHA/sui
chmod +x sui

# Generate protocol key (BLS12381)
./sui keytool generate bls12381

# Generate account, network, and worker keys (Ed25519)
./sui keytool generate ed25519
./sui keytool generate ed25519
./sui keytool generate ed25519

This creates key files like:

bls-0x1b7a4038f207d6c65cc106dd5be7270b3031e671fc8f9c1318b19e94a3bf3ed5.key
0x0061b30cdda02b6f55f575f1485a2890ec5c95b753deabbf823b6de7c936eb26.key

Rename and secure these files:

chmod 600 *.key
mv bls-*.key protocol.key
mv 0x*.key account.key
# Rename remaining keys to network.key and worker.key

Store your private keys securely. Loss of these keys means loss of validator access and staked funds. Use hardware security modules (HSMs) or encrypted storage for production validators.

Installation

Download Binary

export SUI_SHA=<version>
wget https://releases.sui.io/$SUI_SHA/sui-node
chmod +x sui-node
sudo mv sui-node /opt/sui/bin/

Using Docker

docker pull mysten/sui-node:$SUI_SHA

Configuration

Create directory structure

sudo useradd sui
sudo mkdir -p /opt/sui/bin
sudo mkdir -p /opt/sui/config
sudo mkdir -p /opt/sui/db
sudo mkdir -p /opt/sui/key-pairs
sudo chown -R sui:sui /opt/sui

Copy keys to the validator

sudo cp protocol.key account.key network.key worker.key /opt/sui/key-pairs/
sudo chmod 600 /opt/sui/key-pairs/*.key
sudo chown -R sui:sui /opt/sui/key-pairs

Create validator configuration

Create /opt/sui/config/validator.yaml:

protocol-key-pair:
  path: /opt/sui/key-pairs/protocol.key
worker-key-pair:
  path: /opt/sui/key-pairs/worker.key
network-key-pair:
  path: /opt/sui/key-pairs/network.key
account-key-pair:
  path: /opt/sui/key-pairs/account.key
db-path: /opt/sui/db/authorities_db
network-address: /ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/8080/http
metrics-address: 0.0.0.0:9184
admin-interface-port: 1337
json-rpc-address: 0.0.0.0:9000

consensus-config:
  db-path: /opt/sui/db/consensus_db

p2p-config:
  listen-address: 0.0.0.0:8084
  external-address: /dns/$HOSTNAME/udp/8084  # UPDATE THIS
  anemo-config:
    max-concurrent-connections: 0

genesis:
  genesis-file-location: /opt/sui/config/genesis.blob

enable-index-processing: false

authority-store-pruning-config:
  num-epochs-to-retain: 0
  num-epochs-to-retain-for-checkpoints: 2

checkpoint-executor-config:
  checkpoint-execution-max-concurrency: 200
  local-execution-timeout-sec: 10

metrics:
  push-interval-seconds: 60
  push-url: https://metrics-proxy.mainnet.sui.io:8443/publish/metrics

Copy genesis blob

sudo cp genesis.blob /opt/sui/config/
sudo chown sui:sui /opt/sui/config/genesis.blob

Deployment

Using Systemd

Create /etc/systemd/system/sui-node.service:

[Unit]
Description=Sui Node

[Service]
User=sui
WorkingDirectory=/opt/sui/
Environment=RUST_BACKTRACE=1
Environment=RUST_LOG=info,sui_core=debug,consensus=debug,jsonrpsee=error
ExecStart=/opt/sui/bin/sui-node --config-path /opt/sui/config/validator.yaml
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable sui-node
sudo systemctl start sui-node

Using Docker Compose

Create docker-compose.yaml:

version: "3"

services:
  validator:
    container_name: validator
    image: mysten/sui-node:${SUI_SHA}
    environment:
      - RUST_BACKTRACE=1
      - RUST_LOG=info,sui_core=debug,consensus=debug,jsonrpsee=error
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
      - "8081:8081/tcp"
      - "8081:8081/udp"
      - "8082:8082/udp"
      - "8084:8084/udp"
      - "9184:9184"
    network_mode: "host"
    volumes:
      - ./validator.yaml:/opt/sui/config/validator.yaml:ro
      - ./genesis.blob:/opt/sui/config/genesis.blob:ro
      - ./key-pairs:/opt/sui/key-pairs/:ro
      - /opt/sui/db:/opt/sui/db:rw
    command:
      [
        "/opt/sui/bin/sui-node",
        "--config-path",
        "/opt/sui/config/validator.yaml",
      ]
    restart: on-failure
    logging:
      driver: "json-file"
      options:
        max-file: "10"
        max-size: "5g"

Start the validator:

export SUI_SHA=<version>
docker compose up -d

Network Configuration

Open the following ports on your firewall:

Port	Protocol	Direction	Purpose
8080	TCP	Inbound	Protocol/transaction interface
8081	TCP/UDP	Inbound/Outbound	Consensus interface
8082	UDP	Inbound/Outbound	Narwhal worker
8084	UDP	Inbound/Outbound	P2P state sync
8443	TCP	Outbound	Metrics push
9184	TCP	Localhost	Metrics scraping

On-Chain Registration

Become a Validator Candidate

Create validator info

sui validator make-validator-info \
  "My Validator" \
  "Validator description" \
  "https://example.com/image.png" \
  "https://example.com" \
  "validator.example.com" \
  1000

This generates validator.info and copies keys from your sui.keystore.

Submit candidacy on-chain

sui validator become-candidate validator.info

Verify the transaction succeeded in the output.

Stake SUI tokens

Stake tokens to your validator address. Once you have the minimum stake, you can join the committee.

Join the validator committee

sui validator join-committee

You will become an active validator starting from the next epoch.

Verification

Check validator status:

# View logs
journalctl -u sui-node -f

# Check metrics
curl http://localhost:9184/metrics | grep highest_synced_checkpoint

# Check on-chain metadata
sui validator display-metadata

Monitor your validator on:

Next Steps

Configure monitoring for your validator
Review validator operations
Understand staking and rewards
Set up committee management

Running Nodes

Operations

Validator Guide

Setting Up a Validator

Prerequisites

Key Generation

Generate Keys

Installation

Download Binary

Using Docker

Configuration

Deployment

Using Systemd

Using Docker Compose

Network Configuration

On-Chain Registration

Become a Validator Candidate

Verification

Next Steps

​Prerequisites

​Key Generation

​Generate Keys

​Installation

​Download Binary

​Using Docker

​Configuration

​Deployment

​Using Systemd

​Using Docker Compose

​Network Configuration

​On-Chain Registration

​Become a Validator Candidate

​Verification

​Next Steps

Prerequisites

Key Generation

Generate Keys

Installation

Download Binary

Using Docker

Configuration

Deployment

Using Systemd

Using Docker Compose

Network Configuration

On-Chain Registration

Become a Validator Candidate

Verification

Next Steps