How to run a Ravencoin Full-Node on HiveOS, Windows/Mac & Linux and get rewards for it!

You may be asking yourself, what is a full node? A full-node is a part of the blockchain ecosystem. You do not need to be tech savvy to run a full-node. Particularly to Ravencoin, a full-node validates transactions and blocks, keeps a full copy of the blockchain and distributes it, makes the blockchain more secure through decentralization, strengthens the network and overall helps the project move forward!

I’ll be discussing how to setup a full node on HiveOS, Windows/Mac or Linux and to also get rewards for it.

Windows/Mac

• Download the RavenCore wallet 𓅃
• Run RavenCore. The blockchain will begin syncing by connecting to nearby peers (nodes). This may take a few hours, but you do not need it finished to be able to continue to the next step.
• Find the menu and click on Wallet, then to Options
• Select Network and check the Map port forwarding using UPnP and Allow incoming connections box to enable them.

• To verify that everything is working, you should have incoming connections under Help and then select Debug Window. Under Network you will see “Number of connections”, you should see the number of incoming connections after “In:”. You now have a full-node on the Ravencoin blockchain!

If you do not have incoming connections after 15 minutes, then you may need to open the port forwarding port 8767 in your router’s settings. Every router is different. You will need to log into your router via the web. This is normally done by inputting your router’s IP address, either known or found on a sticker on your physical router or modem into your browser. You will most likely be prompted with a login screen, which the username and password may be a default one given by your provider, or whoever set up the internet may know the login. What I did was lookup for example, “Xfinity, router admin login”. Most cases it will be something like user, admin. You may have to call your provider, but I promise it is super easy!

HiveOS

• Go into your HiveOS farm and select the worker.
• Go to either Hive Shell Start, Shellinabox or VNC. All of these will allow you to control your rig remotely with commands. I use Hive Shell so that I do not have to login, and it worked for me!

• Open Hive Shell from the loaded commands below your “BOOTED” time and open the link.
• Run the install script below. You can copy from this article and paste into Hive Shell and click Enter/Return to run the command.

wget -qO — https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Luckyblocks-dev/Raven_HiveOS_Full_Node/main/install_rvn_node.sh | bash

• It may take a minute to get everything installed. Leave your rig on for this.

👉 Luckyblocks has a full extensive guide on how to run on HiveOS including the precautions details and many more in-depth materials here including port forwarding again. Running a node on HiveOS is a game changer for Ravencoin. This is all thanks to Luckyblocks and his work, so I encourage you to read up on his guide and the work that went into it.

⚠️ On the precautions side, in summary, ensure that you have enough space on your hard drive. I would say around 50GB for the long term. As of today, the Ravencoin blockchain is at 30GB. Additionally, do not try doing this on a USB because of how much space it will take. Another note is that this may take additional bandwidth on wifi. In my opinion, it should not be noticed.

Linux

Linux is a whole different monster when it comes to my knowledge. If I were to write how to run the full-node on Linux/Ubuntu, it would make this article very long. Because of this, I will point to the direction about how to run a full-node on Linux/Ubuntu to Mitch’s article here.

Rewards by TheHumbleMiner ⛏️

The Ravencoin community is created partly thanks to independent developers across all areas of the project. One of these, being TheHumbleMiner and his Ravencoin rewards project. These rewards are not sponsored by the Ravencoin Blockchain and to be firm, Ravencoin does not offer rewards for node hosting. It is a selfless job. However, TheHumbleMiner wanted to reward people for securing the blockchain, so he launched Node Rewards. He does a 1x a month snapshot of the active nodes and each node with a registered “Asset aware” wallet like MangoFarmAssets and distributes his own token named $PKBIT. An asset aware address means the address can accept more than just the coin itself and accepts assets, such as NFTs.

• Open Raven Core / Node Config
• Go to Wallet drop-down to Options
• Select “Open config file” (it opens a text editor of your choice)
• Add the following or add a new line of the text if other details are already there.

"uacomment=YourAssetAwareAddress"

• Save and reopen Raven Core.

Where are we now as of October 5, 2022?

Currently as of this morning there are 647 nodes on the network. My goal, and the goal of a lot of my Ravencoin colleagues, is to get the Ravencoin full-node count to 1000 and then to keep it sustainable at that number. I encourage you, if you are into the idea of Ravencoin, to get a full node running and to contribute to the count. Once you get your full node running you can see your dot appear on RavenNodes.com and be a part of the community. I hope you can be a part of the pre-1000!

How can you help?

Firstly, stating the obvious, run your own Ravencoin node and if you’re ambitious, run it on every platform that you can! You don’t have to just run one node. I currently run a node on the three mining rigs I have and my Windows PC along with my Macbook. The uptime on the Macbook is not ideal but it is there!
If you have friends in the Ravencoin community, send them this article and encourage them to run nodes! Every person in the Ravencoin community that runs a node, of course adds one more node or more to the network! That is the exciting part. Every person and node get us one step closer to 1000 nodes. After that, larger goals will be set in place.
Additionally, feel free to use this graphic that I made awhile back titled “How to run a full Ravencoin node” when sharing with your friends and people in the Ravencoin community!