Source code setup

The installation from source code is designed for anyone wishing to develop on the Lisk Core codebase. It also comes with an extensive test-suite which is described in the README.md. An installation performed from the source code enables a developer to work on the latest codebase of Lisk Core, which may not have been tagged for a release yet.

Pre-Install

To complete the installation certain prerequisites need to be fulfilled. If you have already performed these, then please proceed to the Installation section.

Requirements

Supported Platforms

  • Ubuntu 20.04 (LTS) x86_64

  • Ubuntu 22.04 (LTS) x86_64

  • MacOS x86_64

Node.js

  • 18

The following system requirements are recommended:

Memory

  • Machines with a minimum of 8 GB RAM for the Mainnet.

  • Machines with a minimum of 8 GB RAM for the Testnet.

Storage

  • Machines with a minimum of 40 GB HDD[1].

Toolchain components

These are used for compiling dependencies.

  • Ubuntu

  • MacOS

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y libtool automake autoconf curl build-essential python2-minimal

Ensure that both XCode and Homebrew are installed.

brew install autoconf automake libtool python2

Create a new user

To run and manage a Lisk Core node in the future, please create a separate lisk user as described below:

  • Ubuntu

  • MacOS

The lisk user itself does not need any sudo rights to run the Lisk Core.

 
sudo adduser lisk

The above command will create a new user.

It is not necessarily required to set up a lisk user, especially when you are running a local instance for development purposes.

However, if it is required then it is recommended to create the user using the MacOS GUI.

Git

Git is used for cloning and updating Lisk as displayed below:

  • Ubuntu

  • MacOS

sudo apt install git
brew install git

Node.js

Node.js serves as the underlying engine for code execution.

  • Option A - Node version manager

  • Option B - Node.js package

It is recommended to use a Node version manager such as NVM. NVM is a bash script that enables the management of multiple active Node.js versions.

  1. Install NVM by following the official instructions.

  2. Install the latest LTS version of Node.js using NVM with the following command shown below:

nvm install 18

If NVM or other package managers are not required, it is possible to install the Node package globally as shown in the following commands below:

Ubuntu

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_18.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

MacOS

For MacOS, please execute the following command below:

brew install node@18

Open ports

Please ensure, that the necessary ports are open to run Lisk Core as intended.

For example, in case ufw is used on Ubuntu to manage the firewall settings, the respective ports can be opened as follows:

7667 and 7887 are the default ports. If you configured custom ports in the node config file, adjust the examples to these specific ports.
Node P2P communication
ufw allow 7667
Node API
ufw allow 7887

PM2 (optional)

Install PM2 for managing the start and stop of the application process in the background as shown below:

npm install pm2 -g

Installation

This section details how to install Lisk Core from the source code. When completed, a functioning node on the Lisk network will exist.

Executing the following commands below will enable you to clone the repository, navigate into the lisk-core root folder, check out the latest release tag, and install the dependencies.

Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/LiskHQ/lisk-core.git
Navigate into the "lisk-core" root folder
cd lisk-core
Check out the latest release tag
git checkout v4.0.0
Please check for the latest release in Lisk Core releases.
Install dependencies
yarn install --frozen-lockfile
Build the binary
yarn build

Set up the lisk-core alias: Append the following line to your ~/.profile file and run source ~/.profile.

alias lisk-core=/home/lisk/lisk-core/bin/run
In the command above, please replace /home/lisk/lisk-core with the absolute path to your "lisk-core" directory. To find the exact path on your system, change to your "lisk-core" directory and run the pwd command.

To test that Lisk Core is built and configured correctly, execute the following command below to connect to the network:

lisk-core start --network devnet

From another terminal, execute the following command:

lisk-core system node-info

If the process is running correctly, no errors are thrown in the logs.

Post-installation (optional)

Use pm2 to run Lisk Core in the background

It is recommended to use a process manager such as PM2 to run Lisk Core in the background.

Enable IPC & WS in the config

To make use of all the Lisk Core commands, enable IPC in the config.

Example: Enable IPC & WS via config.json
"rpc": {
    // Enable RPC communication over 'ipc' and 'ws'
    "modes": ["ipc", "ws"]

    // In case `modes` include `ws` then, the following port is used
    "port": 7887,

    // Change to 0.0.0.0 to connect from a remote server
    "host": "127.0.0.1"
},

Alternatively, start Lisk Core with the flag --api-ipc to enable IPC:

Example: Enable IPC via flag
lisk-core start --api-ipc
Please note that specifying any of the --api-ipc, --api-ws, or --api-http flags in the lisk-core start command overrides the rpc.modes settings in the config.json.
1. These recommendations are derived from the log level settings, in the event that the user needs to increase storage to prevent limited memory access and potential memory-related problems with a node. Furthermore, as more transactions are processed and added to the blockchain, the size of the blockchain increases over time and this directly affects the HDD storage requirements for a blockchain node. Hence, adhering to the above listed requirements is highly recommended.