Production Configuration

This guide details the configuration options available for Harmonic Salsa validators in production environments.

Environment Variables

Critical Environment Variables

RUST_LOG: Controls log verbosity using the env_logger crate syntax.

export RUST_LOG=info
# Or more specific:
export RUST_LOG=solana=info,solana_runtime::bank=debug

SOLANA_METRICS_CONFIG: Configures metrics reporting to InfluxDB.

export SOLANA_METRICS_CONFIG="host=<influx-host>:<port>,db=<database>,u=<username>,p=<password>"

PATH: Ensure Solana binaries are in PATH:

export PATH=/home/sol/.local/share/solana/install/active_release/bin:$PATH

Optional Environment Variables

SOLANA_BANKING_THREADS: DEPRECATED in v3.0+. Use --block-production-num-workers instead.

Configuration Files

Validator Keypairs

Identity Keypair (validator-keypair.json):

Location: /home/sol/validator-keypair.json
Purpose: Uniquely identifies your validator
Security: Backup securely, required for validator operations
Permissions: chmod 600

Vote Account Keypair (vote-account-keypair.json):

Location: /home/sol/vote-account-keypair.json
Purpose: Identifies the vote account
Note: Only public key is needed after account creation
Permissions: chmod 600

Authorized Withdrawer Keypair:

Location: DO NOT store on validator
Purpose: Ultimate authority over vote account
Security: Store in hardware wallet, paper wallet, or secure offline location
Critical: Loss of this key means permanent loss of vote account control

Solana CLI Configuration

Location: ~/.config/solana/cli/config.yml Configure via CLI:

# Set cluster
solana config set --url https://api.mainnet-beta.solana.com

# Set keypair
solana config set --keypair /home/sol/validator-keypair.json

# Verify configuration
solana config get

Validator Command-Line Arguments

Required Arguments

—identity <PATH>: Path to validator identity keypair.

--identity /home/sol/validator-keypair.json

—vote-account <PATH>: Path to vote account keypair.

--vote-account /home/sol/vote-account-keypair.json

—ledger <PATH>: Ledger directory location.

--ledger /mnt/ledger

—entrypoint <HOST:PORT>: Cluster entrypoint for bootstrapping.

--entrypoint entrypoint.mainnet-beta.solana.com:8001

Network Arguments

—dynamic-port-range <MIN-MAX>: Port range for validator networking (minimum 25 ports recommended).

--dynamic-port-range 8000-8020

—rpc-port <PORT>: RPC server port (default: 8899).

--rpc-port 8899

—bind-address <IP>: IP address to bind gossip and services.

--bind-address 0.0.0.0

—public-rpc-address <IP:PORT>: Advertised RPC address for public access.

**--public-rpc-address `<your-public-ip>`:8899

Trust and Security Arguments

—known-validator <PUBKEY>: Trusted validators for snapshot downloads (highly recommended).

--known-validator 7Np41oeYqPefeNQEHSv1UDhYrehxin3NStELsSKCT4K2 \
--known-validator GdnSyH3YtwcxFvQrVVJMm1JhTS4QVX7MFsX56uJLUfiZ

—only-known-rpc: Only download genesis and snapshots from known validators.

--only-known-rpc

—expected-genesis-hash <HASH>: Expected genesis hash to prevent wrong cluster joins.

--expected-genesis-hash 5eykt4UsFv8P8NJdTREpY1vzqKqZKvdpKuc147dw2N9d

Storage Arguments

—accounts <PATH>: Accounts database location (separate high-IOPS drive recommended).

--accounts /mnt/accounts

—limit-ledger-size [SHRED_COUNT]: Limit ledger disk usage (default targets ~500GB blockstore).

--limit-ledger-size

—accounts-db-skip-shrink: Disable account storage shrinking (reduces I/O but increases disk usage).

--accounts-db-skip-shrink

Snapshot Configuration

—snapshots <PATH>: Snapshot storage location (default: ledger directory).

--snapshots /mnt/ledger/snapshots

—full-snapshot-interval-slots <SLOTS>: Full snapshot generation interval (default: 100,000 slots in v3.0+).

--full-snapshot-interval-slots 100000

—incremental-snapshot-interval-slots <SLOTS>: Incremental snapshot interval (default: 10,000 slots).

--incremental-snapshot-interval-slots 10000

—no-snapshots: Disable snapshot generation.

--no-snapshots

—snapshot-archive-format <FORMAT>: Snapshot compression format (zstd, bz2, tar, none).

--snapshot-archive-format zstd

—snapshot-zstd-compression-level <LEVEL>: Compression level for zstd (1-21, default varies).

--snapshot-zstd-compression-level 10

RPC Configuration

—enable-rpc-transaction-history: Enable historical transaction info storage (increases disk usage).

--enable-rpc-transaction-history

—enable-extended-tx-metadata-storage: Store CPI instructions, logs, and return data (requires transaction history).

--enable-extended-tx-metadata-storage

—rpc-threads <COUNT>: Number of RPC request threads (default: CPU count).

--rpc-threads 16

—rpc-blocking-threads <COUNT>: Threads for CPU-intensive RPC requests (default: max(1, CPU count / 4)).

--rpc-blocking-threads 4

—rpc-max-request-body-size <BYTES>: Maximum RPC request body size.

--rpc-max-request-body-size 52428800

—full-rpc-api: Expose full RPC API (required for public RPC nodes).

--full-rpc-api

—health-check-slot-distance <SLOTS>: Slot distance for health check (default: 128 in v2.0+).

--health-check-slot-distance 128

Performance Tuning Arguments

—block-production-method <METHOD>: Block production scheduler (default: central-scheduler-greedy in v2.2+).

--block-production-method central-scheduler-greedy

—block-verification-method <METHOD>: Block verification method (default: unified-scheduler in v2.1+).

--block-verification-method unified-scheduler

—replay-forks-threads <COUNT>: Threads for fork replay (default: 4).

--replay-forks-threads 4

—accounts-db-background-threads <COUNT>: Background threads for accounts DB operations.

--accounts-db-background-threads 8

—accounts-db-read-cache-limit <SIZE>: Accounts read cache size limit.

--accounts-db-read-cache-limit 100000000

Logging Arguments

—log <PATH>: Log file path (use - for stdout).

--log /home/sol/agave-validator.log

—log-messages-bytes-limit <BYTES>: Limit transaction log message storage.

--log-messages-bytes-limit 10000

Monitoring Arguments

—enable-rpc-bigtable-ledger-storage: Use BigTable for historical ledger data.

--enable-rpc-bigtable-ledger-storage

—account-index <INDEX_TYPE>: Enable account indexing for RPC performance.

--account-index program-id \
--account-index spl-token-owner \
--account-index spl-token-mint

Recovery Arguments

—wal-recovery-mode <MODE>: RocksDB WAL recovery mode (options: tolerate_corrupted_tail_records, skip_any_corrupted_record).

--wal-recovery-mode skip_any_corrupted_record

—use-snapshot-archives-at-startup <WHEN>: When to use snapshot archives at startup (default: when-newest).

--use-snapshot-archives-at-startup when-newest

Tuning Parameters

CPU Optimization

Performance Governor:

echo performance | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor

Clock Speed: Ensure base clock is 2.8GHz+ for proper PoH performance.

Memory Settings

Accounts Index: By default, accounts index is kept entirely in memory (v3.1+). Read Cache: Tune --accounts-db-read-cache-limit based on available RAM.

Network Tuning

QUIC Connections:

Default max unstaked connections: 500
Default max staked connections: 2000
Configure via --max-unstaked-connections and --max-staked-connections

UDP Buffers: Configured via sysctl (see deployment guide).

Storage I/O

Mount Options: Use noatime in fstab to reduce write operations. Separate Drives: Always use separate high-performance drives for ledger and accounts.

Security Settings

Key Management

File Permissions:

chmod 600 /home/sol/validator-keypair.json
chmod 600 /home/sol/vote-account-keypair.json
chown sol:sol /home/sol/*-keypair.json

Network Security

Firewall: See deployment guide for UFW configuration. SSH Hardening:

Use key-based authentication only
Disable password authentication
Install fail2ban

Process Isolation

Run as Non-Root: Always run validator as dedicated sol user, never as root. Systemd Hardening:

# Optional hardening in systemd service
NoNewPrivileges=true
PrivateTmp=true

Configuration Examples

Mainnet Validator

exec agave-validator \
    --identity /home/sol/validator-keypair.json \
    --vote-account /home/sol/vote-account-keypair.json \
    --known-validator 7Np41oeYqPefeNQEHSv1UDhYrehxin3NStELsSKCT4K2 \
    --known-validator GdnSyH3YtwcxFvQrVVJMm1JhTS4QVX7MFsX56uJLUfiZ \
    --only-known-rpc \
    --log /home/sol/agave-validator.log \
    --ledger /mnt/ledger \
    --accounts /mnt/accounts \
    --rpc-port 8899 \
    --dynamic-port-range 8000-8020 \
    --entrypoint entrypoint.mainnet-beta.solana.com:8001 \
    --entrypoint entrypoint2.mainnet-beta.solana.com:8001 \
    --entrypoint entrypoint3.mainnet-beta.solana.com:8001 \
    --expected-genesis-hash 5eykt4UsFv8P8NJdTREpY1vzqKqZKvdpKuc147dw2N9d \
    --wal-recovery-mode skip_any_corrupted_record \
    --limit-ledger-size \
    --full-snapshot-interval-slots 100000 \
    --incremental-snapshot-interval-slots 10000

RPC Node Configuration

exec agave-validator \
    --identity /home/sol/validator-keypair.json \
    --vote-account /home/sol/vote-account-keypair.json \
    --known-validator 7Np41oeYqPefeNQEHSv1UDhYrehxin3NStELsSKCT4K2 \
    --only-known-rpc \
    --log /home/sol/agave-validator.log \
    --ledger /mnt/ledger \
    --accounts /mnt/accounts \
    --rpc-port 8899 \
    --full-rpc-api \
    --enable-rpc-transaction-history \
    --enable-extended-tx-metadata-storage \
    --account-index program-id \
    --account-index spl-token-owner \
    --account-index spl-token-mint \
    --rpc-threads 16 \
    --rpc-blocking-threads 4 \
    --dynamic-port-range 8000-8020 \
    --entrypoint entrypoint.mainnet-beta.solana.com:8001 \
    --expected-genesis-hash 5eykt4UsFv8P8NJdTREpY1vzqKqZKvdpKuc147dw2N9d \
    --wal-recovery-mode skip_any_corrupted_record \
    --limit-ledger-size

Refer to agave-validator --help for the complete list of configuration options.

Deployment

Maintenance

Production Configuration

Production Configuration

Environment Variables

Critical Environment Variables

Optional Environment Variables

Configuration Files

Validator Keypairs

Solana CLI Configuration

Validator Command-Line Arguments

Required Arguments

Network Arguments

Trust and Security Arguments

Storage Arguments

Snapshot Configuration

RPC Configuration

Performance Tuning Arguments

Logging Arguments

Monitoring Arguments

Recovery Arguments

Tuning Parameters

CPU Optimization

Memory Settings

Network Tuning

Storage I/O

Security Settings

Key Management

Network Security

Process Isolation

Configuration Examples

Mainnet Validator

RPC Node Configuration

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Deployment

Maintenance

​Production Configuration

​Environment Variables

​Critical Environment Variables

​Optional Environment Variables

​Configuration Files

​Validator Keypairs

​Solana CLI Configuration

​Validator Command-Line Arguments

​Required Arguments

​Network Arguments

​Trust and Security Arguments

​Storage Arguments

​Snapshot Configuration

​RPC Configuration

​Performance Tuning Arguments

​Logging Arguments

​Monitoring Arguments

​Recovery Arguments

​Tuning Parameters

​CPU Optimization

​Memory Settings

​Network Tuning

​Storage I/O

​Security Settings

​Key Management

​Network Security

​Process Isolation

​Configuration Examples

​Mainnet Validator

​RPC Node Configuration

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Production Configuration

Environment Variables

Critical Environment Variables

Optional Environment Variables

Configuration Files

Validator Keypairs

Solana CLI Configuration

Validator Command-Line Arguments

Required Arguments

Network Arguments

Trust and Security Arguments

Storage Arguments

Snapshot Configuration

RPC Configuration

Performance Tuning Arguments

Logging Arguments

Monitoring Arguments

Recovery Arguments

Tuning Parameters

CPU Optimization

Memory Settings

Network Tuning

Storage I/O

Security Settings

Key Management

Network Security

Process Isolation

Configuration Examples

Mainnet Validator

RPC Node Configuration