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--- title: "Solana on the Raspberry Pi and VPSs" summary: "Running a Solana test validator on Ubuntu on a Raspberry Pi 64bit ARM Cortex-A72 cross CPU architectures. Examples on how to authenticate a test validator on Vultr, Digital Ocean and Linode VPSs." date: 2021-12-29T16:17:52+08:00 toc: true archive: true categories: [Solana,Ubuntu] thumbnail: posts/thumbnails/solana-web3-nox.im.jpeg aliases:
/posts/2021/1229/solana-on-the-raspberry-pi /posts/2021/1229/solana-on-the-raspberry-pi-and-vps
---
The Solana test validator is convenient to develop on, since it has the following advantages before hitting devnet/testnet with dApps.
- easy to monitor `msg!()` logs from on-chain programs
- no RPC rate-limits
- no airdrop limits
- load accounts from files
- ...
In shared dev environments where we separate frontend and backend (on-chain) work we ran into situations where it would be nice to connect and test on a shared test ledger. Beyond unit tests on local validators, an environment for quick integration tests without the need to sync each others work stations is neat and supports the paradigm of a single shared data store, that isn't really common in modern SOA software development. The Raspberry Pi is ideal and portable for this setup.
I'm using a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (ARM Cortex-A72 ARMv8 64bit) with 8GB of RAM in the following, but the steps should only depend on Ubuntu and work with other hardware as well.
Raspberry Pi 4, Model 4b, B 8GB[1]
1: Raspberry Pi 4, Model 4b, B 8GB
Ubuntu is a popular and widely supported Linux distribution. I'd choose it for general purpose Raspberry Pi installations that need to be usable by normi hipster IT folks. I will use it as the basis of the instructions in this post for wide applicability. This will work just as well on a Vultr[1] VPS.
We're of course no fan of piping scripts from the internet via curl to a shell and I'm going to install things the proper way.
Install rust, via rustup via snap via apt-get:
sudo apt-get install -y snapd pkg-config build-essential libudev-dev libclang-dev libssl-dev zlib1g-dev sudo snap install rustup --classic rustup component add rustfmt
Install solana from solana-labs/solana@latest[1].
At the time of writing I get the package `@1.9.2` but it may differ for you.
wget https://github.com/solana-labs/solana/archive/refs/tags/v1.9.2.tar.gz tar xzf v1.9.2.tar.gz cd solana-v1.9.2/ ./scripts/cargo-install-all.sh . export PATH=$PWD/bin:$PATH
solana --version solana-cli 1.9.2 (src:devbuild; feat:4100269022)
if this works add the solana bin directory to your path by default:
echo "export PATH=$PWD/bin:\$PATH" >> ~/.bashrc
error: could not compile `libsecp256k1` Caused by: process didn't exit successfully: `rustc --crate-name libsecp256k1 --edition=2018 /root/.cargo/registry/src/github.com-1ecc6299db9ec823/libsecp256k1-0.6.0/src/lib.rs --error-format=json --json=diagnostic-rendered-ansi,artifacts --crate-type lib --emit=dep-info,metadata,link -C opt-level=3 -C embed-bitcode=no --cfg 'feature="default"' --cfg 'feature="hmac"' --cfg 'feature="hmac-drbg"' --cfg 'feature="sha2"' --cfg 'feature="static-context"' --cfg 'feature="std"' --cfg 'feature="typenum"' -C metadata=ee27440a3946853b -C extra-filename=-ee27440a3946853b --out-dir /root/solana-1.9.10/target/release/deps -L dependency=/root/solana-1.9.10/target/release/deps --extern arrayref=/root/solana-1.9.10/target/release/deps/libarrayref-ee1f5e5cb538f6d3.rmeta --extern base64=/root/solana-1.9.10/target/release/deps/libbase64-61ff7f70cf1b36b4.rmeta --extern digest=/root/solana-1.9.10/target/release/deps/libdigest-fb177bf38edca269.rmeta --extern hmac_drbg=/root/solana-1.9.10/target/release/deps/libhmac_drbg-34caf16e695357dc.rmeta --extern libsecp256k1_core=/root/solana-1.9.10/target/release/deps/liblibsecp256k1_core-5bcfe5db170b9021.rmeta --extern rand=/root/solana-1.9.10/target/release/deps/librand-8596ccae0b5ffafe.rmeta --extern serde=/root/solana-1.9.10/target/release/deps/libserde-f099ce955301f0ae.rmeta --extern sha2=/root/solana-1.9.10/target/release/deps/libsha2-76c40ab06078d839.rmeta --extern typenum=/root/solana-1.9.10/target/release/deps/libtypenum-8f37907d38043bf5.rmeta --cap-lints allow` (signal: 9, SIGKILL: kill) warning: build failed, waiting for other jobs to finish... The following warnings were emitted during compilation: warning: c++: fatal error: Killed signal terminated program cc1plus warning: compilation terminated. error: build failed
If you bring this setup around, it may be recommended to set up basic firewall rules as we only really need to expose the 8899 JSON RPC and 8900 socket port next to ssh and web.
sudo apt-get install ufw sudo ufw allow ssh sudo ufw allow 8899/tcp sudo ufw allow 8900/tcp sudo ufw enable
Status: active To Action From -- 22/tcp ALLOW Anywhere 8899/tcp ALLOW Anywhere 22/tcp (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6) 8899/tcp (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6)
Unlike my other posts where we create OpenRC scripts on OpenBSD, most Linux distributions use systemd as init and service manager in 2021. [screeching noise in the background]. The KISS people lost the holy war on init systems. Redhat pushed for it and made it a requirement for one of the most popular desktop environments, Gnome 3[1].
But I digress.
We will create a systemd service file that will allow us to control the Solana test validator service using the systemctl command and auto start it at boot with the Ubuntu server.
Find and copy the test validator binary to `/usr/loca/bin`
which solana-test-validator /home/ubuntu/solana-1.9.2/bin/solana-test-validator sudo cp /home/ubuntu/solana-1.9.2/bin/solana-test-validator /usr/local/bin/
Create the systemd service file
sudo touch /etc/systemd/system/solana-test-validator.service sudo chmod 664 /etc/systemd/system/solana-test-validator.service sudo mkdir -p /var/db/solana/test-ledger
[Unit] Description=Solana Test Validator [Service] Restart=always ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/solana-test-validator -q --ledger /var/db/solana/test-ledger [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
after edit, reload systemd configuration
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
now we should be able to start the service and get service logs
# start/stop/restart the daemon sudo systemctl start solana-test-validator # daemon status systemctl status solana-test-validator # daemon logs journalctl -u solana-test-validator
-- Journal begins at Wed 2021-10-13 13:32:52 UTC, ends at Thu 2021-12-30 03:07:30 UTC. -- Dec 30 03:06:08 ubuntu systemd[1]: Started Solana Test Validator. Dec 30 03:06:08 ubuntu solana-test-validator[2962]: Notice! No wallet available. `solana airdrop` localnet SOL after creating one Dec 30 03:06:08 ubuntu solana-test-validator[2962]: Ledger location: test-ledger Dec 30 03:06:08 ubuntu solana-test-validator[2962]: Log: test-ledger/validator.log Dec 30 03:06:08 ubuntu solana-test-validator[2962]: Initializing... Dec 30 03:06:15 ubuntu solana-test-validator[2962]: Waiting for fees to stabilize 1... Dec 30 03:06:15 ubuntu solana-test-validator[2962]: Connecting... Dec 30 03:06:15 ubuntu solana-test-validator[2962]: Identity: FMvWE59pQ22TLBgLhprRLZu8TJZnmDnekFJduqALE3g3 Dec 30 03:06:15 ubuntu solana-test-validator[2962]: Genesis Hash: CWynMUHN1rVvmRGzzdC8KvfLmTQJRMogt53VE38nFcza Dec 30 03:06:15 ubuntu solana-test-validator[2962]: Version: 1.9.2 Dec 30 03:06:15 ubuntu solana-test-validator[2962]: Shred Version: 62322 Dec 30 03:06:15 ubuntu solana-test-validator[2962]: Gossip Address: 127.0.0.1:1024 Dec 30 03:06:15 ubuntu solana-test-validator[2962]: TPU Address: 127.0.0.1:1027 Dec 30 03:06:15 ubuntu solana-test-validator[2962]: JSON RPC URL: http://127.0.0.1:8899 ...
and finally auto start the daemon with the system
sudo systemctl enable solana-test-validator
In the web3[1] world, we connect browser extension wallets to blockchain network nodes. The extension injects Javascript into pages and allows to connect our wallet to the client dApps. A good browser extension wallet to test during Solana dApp development with a custom cluster URL is Sollet[2]. It has its quirks but I found nothin easier to set up so far.
Sollet is supported by the solana-labs/wallet-adapter[1].
The version in the chrome app store doesn't currently support custom endpoints at the time of writing, it is however supported by the extension source, so I ended up compiling it myself.
Note that if we want to build this on our Ubuntu machine, we have to add NodeJS, npm and yarn.
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs npm zip npm install -g yarn
On most dev machines it will then be
git clone https://github.com/project-serum/spl-token-wallet.git cd spl-token-wallet yarn install yarn build:extension
Unzip it, go to `chrome://extensions/` and enable "Developer mode". Then select "Load unpacked" and load the `./build` directory.
From the extension, add a new custom endpoint with the IP address of the Raspberry Pi in your local area network, e.g.
Sollet Chrome Extension: Custom endpoint[1]
1: Sollet Chrome Extension: Custom endpoint
Request airdrop should work after connection as seen in the right hand screenshot. Boom! The majority of the setup is done, the team can develop frontend and backend together now and in parallel.
If you have the solana toolchain installed, you can remotely trail logs now:
solana logs --url http://10.3.141.135:8899
e.g. from an airdrop request from the sollet chrome browser extesion we should see something like this:
Streaming transaction logs. Confirmed commitment
Transaction executed in slot 243:
Signature: 4wygVivwi9soFSYVMwnLEL285UPZzr6B5eu72aYLEks1jTsUkCVzRmJUAQVjbn6qj8K4Mqj9w3C9ZbtLeuu4wQF2
Status: Ok
Log Messages:
Program 11111111111111111111111111111111 invoke [1]
Program 11111111111111111111111111111111 success
We just need to configure our local dev environment to our networked node:
solana config set --url http://10.3.141.135:8800 --ws ws://10.3.141.135:8900 solana airdrop 10
Anchor is a Solana framework providing several convenient dev tools. Such as Rust crates and eDSL for programs, IDL specification generation and TypeScript package for generating clients from IDL. We build Anchor from source:
cargo install --git https://github.com/project-serum/anchor --tag v0.19.0 anchor-cli --locked
After `anchor build` we get the program ID or can generate it from scratch with
solana-keygen new -o target/deploy/rpi_test-keypair.json
Update the source and deploy it.
The deployment constantly resends transactions and errors like this:_
Blockhash expired. 5 retries remaining Blockhash expired. 4 retries remaining Blockhash expired. 3 retries remaining Blockhash expired. 2 retries remaining Blockhash expired. 1 retries remaining Error: Data writes to account failed: Custom error: Max retries exceeded
_I didn't investigate a lot yet as a viable workaround is a simple deploy script that scp's the shared object and key for the program id (this is just a test env) and subsequently deploys it from the local ARM environment._
# copy the shared object scp ./target/deploy/* ubuntu@10.3.141.135:~ # execute solana program deploy ssh ubuntu@10.3.141.135 ./solana-1.9.2/bin/solana program deploy --program-id ./solana_raspberry_pi_test-keypair.json ./solana_raspberry_pi_test.so
This wasn't an issue related to architecture as far as I'm aware of.
Create a new project as usual
anchor init solana-raspberry-pi-test
Edit the `Anchor.toml` file and point it to our node on the network
[provider] cluster = "http://10.3.141.135:8899" wallet = "/Users/noxim/.config/solana/id.json"
As mentioned above, Solana deploy currently doesn't finalize and subsequently `anchor deploy` will not neither. We can add the above workaround to an anchor script in `Anchor.toml` however to retain convenience:
[scripts] test = "yarn run ts-mocha -p ./tsconfig.json -t 1000000 tests/**/*.ts" deploy ="scp ./target/deploy/* ubuntu@10.3.141.135:~ && ssh ubuntu@10.3.141.135 ./solana-1.9.2/bin/solana program deploy --program-id ./solana_raspberry_pi_test-keypair.json ./solana_raspberry_pi_test.so"
Instead of `anchor deploy` we then run `anchor run deploy`. The test convenience target will run into similar issues which we can also work around with an `anchor run test` script analogously if we want to not run build, deploy and tests separately.
In the test switch out the provider to be the remote Solana node:
// Configure the client to use the remote cluster.
// from
// anchor.setProvider(anchor.Provider.env());
// to, e.g.
anchor.setProvider(anchor.Provider.local("http://10.3.141.135:8899"));
Another annoyance is that the workspace management doesn't work for custom clusters with Anchor. Since we cannot specify one of the hardcoded clusters, our program ID doesn't end up in the IDL and therefore tests will not natively work.
If we regenerate the IDL (any run of `anchor build` will do so), we will have to manually copy the program ID into the bottom of the IDL. E.g.
{
// ...
"metadata": {
"address": "7abScw4KgUtHGVqCRNDKFRXMo2jPPs674VSj9JH9eYQz"
}
}
Once that is in, runs of `anchor run test` will continue to work, against a remote test validator. So far this is pretty cool!
The steps are therefore
solana config set --url http://10.3.141.135:8899 anchor build anchor run deploy # patch up program id in IDL anchor run test
This isn't perfect, but it works already without much hassle. I hope to update this post with simpler steps and less workarounds soon!
I'd recommend against running a test validator on the open internet. As we cannot easily add authentication, you can set up an SSH tunnel to localhost and all Solana tools will work out of the box. We have to tunnel both the RPC and the WebSocket port:
ssh -L 8899:10.3.141.135:8899 -L 8900:10.3.141.135:8900 -N noxim@10.3.141.135
And point your Solana toolchain back to localhost:
solana config set --url http://localhost:8899 Config File: /Users/noxim/.config/solana/cli/config.yml RPC URL: http://localhost:8899 WebSocket URL: ws://localhost:8900/ (computed) Keypair Path: /Users/noxim/.config/solana/id.json Commitment: confirmed
See also the snippet summaries on Ubuntu servers:
- Ubuntu Expose Services Behind an Nginx Reverse Proxy[1]
1: Ubuntu Expose Services Behind an Nginx Reverse Proxy
- Ubuntu Deploy Build and Run Go Services[1]