nihilist@mainpc - 2024-01-31

Monero Node Setup

In this tutorial we're going to take a look at how to setup a monero node

Sidenote: Help us improve this tutorial by letting us know if there's anything missing or incorrect on this git issue directly!

Initial Setup

First install monero and tor from the repositories:

[ nowhere.moe ] [ /dev/pts/0 ] [/srv/nowhere.moe]
→ apt install monero tor -y

Then, create the following systemd service if you want to have a monero node to be publicly accessible via the IP directly:

[ nowhere.moe ] [ /dev/pts/0 ] [/srv/nowhere.moe]
→ vim /etc/systemd/system/moneronode.service

[ Wonderland ] [ /dev/pts/9 ] [/srv]
→ cat /etc/systemd/system/moneronode.service
[Unit]
Description=monerod
After=network.target
Wants=network.target

[Service]

# sync the monero node without going through Tor
ExecStart=/usr/bin/monerod --zmq-pub tcp://127.0.0.1:18083 --disable-dns-checkpoints --enable-dns-blocklist --data-dir /srv/XMR --block-sync-size=50 --out-peers 100 --prep-blocks-threads=128 --prune-blockchain --sync-pruned-blocks --rpc-bind-port=18081 --rpc-bind-ip=0.0.0.0 --p2p-bind-ip=0.0.0.0 --p2p-bind-port=18080 --confirm-external-bind --non-interactive


Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10s

StandardOutput=journal
StandardError=journal

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

However if your users are well-educated and are aware that Chainalysis are running malicious Monero nodes, then they are NOT going to connect to non-onion monero nodes (and neither should you). Plus if Monero is illegal in your country, you'll also want to synchronize it via Tor instead, so you can use this config instead:

[ Wonderland ] [ /dev/pts/9 ] [/mnt/md3]
→ cat /etc/systemd/system/moneronode.service
[Unit]
Description=monerod
After=network.target
Wants=network.target

[Service]

# sync the monero node while actually going through Tor (in case if Monero is illegal in your country)
ExecStart=/usr/bin/monerod --zmq-pub tcp://127.0.0.1:18083 --disable-dns-checkpoints --enable-dns-blocklist --data-dir /srv/XMR --block-sync-size=50 --out-peers 100 --prep-blocks-threads=128 --prune-blockchain --sync-pruned-blocks --rpc-bind-port=18081 --rpc-bind-ip=127.0.0.1 --p2p-bind-ip=127.0.0.1 --p2p-bind-port=18080 --non-interactive  --proxy 127.0.0.1:9050 --tx-proxy tor,127.0.0.1:9050

Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10s


StandardOutput=journal
StandardError=journal

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then wait for it to sync after enabling the systemd service:

[ nowhere.moe ] [ /dev/pts/0 ] [/srv/nowhere.moe]
→ systemctl daemon-reload

[ nowhere.moe ] [ /dev/pts/0 ] [/srv/nowhere.moe]
→ systemctl enable --now moneronode
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/moneronode.service → /etc/systemd/system/moneronode.service.

[ nowhere.moe ] [ /dev/pts/0 ] [/srv/nowhere.moe]
→ systemctl status moneronode
● moneronode.service - monerod
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/moneronode.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2023-07-09 15:36:44 CEST; 2min 22s ago
   Main PID: 8410 (monerod)
      Tasks: 30 (limit: 77000)
     Memory: 1.7G
        CPU: 1min 53.681s
     CGroup: /system.slice/moneronode.service
             └─8410 /usr/bin/monerod --zmq-pub tcp://127.0.0.1:18083 --disable-dns-checkpoints --enable-dns-blocklist --data-dir /srv/XMR --block-sync-size=50 --out-peers 100 --prep-blocks-threads=128 --prune-blockchain --sync-pruned-blocks --rpc-bind-port=18081 --rpc-bind-ip=0.0.0.0 ->

Jul 09 15:39:06 Datura monerod[8410]: 2023-07-09 13:39:06.055        I Synced 88702/2925934 (3%, 2837232 left)
Jul 09 15:39:06 Datura monerod[8410]: 2023-07-09 13:39:06.188        I Synced 88752/2925934 (3%, 2837182 left)
Jul 09 15:39:06 Datura monerod[8410]: 2023-07-09 13:39:06.310        I Synced 88802/2925934 (3%, 2837132 left)
Jul 09 15:39:06 Datura monerod[8410]: 2023-07-09 13:39:06.452        I Synced 88852/2925934 (3%, 2837082 left)
Jul 09 15:39:06 Datura monerod[8410]: 2023-07-09 13:39:06.576        I Synced 88902/2925934 (3%, 2837032 left)
Jul 09 15:39:06 Datura monerod[8410]: 2023-07-09 13:39:06.756        I Synced 88952/2925934 (3%, 2836982 left)
Jul 09 15:39:06 Datura monerod[8410]: 2023-07-09 13:39:06.890        I Synced 89002/2925934 (3%, 2836932 left)
Jul 09 15:39:07 Datura monerod[8410]: 2023-07-09 13:39:07.060        I Synced 89052/2925934 (3%, 2836882 left)
Jul 09 15:39:07 Datura monerod[8410]: 2023-07-09 13:39:07.182        I Synced 89088/2925934 (3%, 2836846 left)
Jul 09 15:39:07 Datura monerod[8410]: 2023-07-09 13:39:07.376        I Synced 89138/2925934 (3%, 2836796 left)
	

On a NVMe SSD it may take 2 days, and weigh approximately 90 gigs at the time of writing this tutorial. The synchronisation is a very disk-intensive process, and so it is required to do it on a nvme disk or ssd at least. If you try to do that on a HDD it will take much, much longer. If you don't have a choice, sync it on a nvme somewhere and then rsync it to a server that has only HDDs.

Onion Setup

Once your monero node is synchronized, you can allow tor users to access it via a .onion link like so:

[ Wonderland ] [ /dev/pts/9 ] [~]
→ apt install tor

[ Wonderland ] [ /dev/pts/9 ] [~]
→ cat /etc/tor/torrc
HiddenServiceDir /var/lib/tor/monero-service/
HiddenServicePort 18080 127.0.0.1:18080
HiddenServicePort 18081 127.0.0.1:18081


[ Wonderland ] [ /dev/pts/9 ] [~]
→ systemctl restart tor@default

Then find your onion link right here:

[ Wonderland ] [ /dev/pts/9 ] [~]
→ cat /var/lib/tor/monero-service/hostname
uyjehlovjudh2wlvkp5a2seme5vgqc4o463atkv2ulsovloqrqw2icyd.onion

And then you can use it to connect to it via your monero wallet. as shown here

apt install monero -y

monero-wallet-cli
#follow the instructions to create your wallet
#synchronize it with this command:
set_daemon http://uyjehlovjudh2wlvkp5a2seme5vgqc4o463atkv2ulsovloqrqw2icyd.onion:18081 trusted
#then wait for the daemon to finish synchronizing, and type "refresh" regularly to make sure that it synchronizes with the node, expect to type that command a few times as tor connections are unstable at times.
refresh
status