qubic - node

Qubic Core Node Source Code - this repository contains the source code of a full qubic node.

MAIN (current version running qubic)

DEVELOP (current version we're working on)

Prerequisites

To run a qubic node, you need the following spec:

• Bare Metal Server/Computer with at least 8 Cores (high CPU frequency with AVX2 support). AVX-512 support is recommended - by the end of 2026 only AVX512 will be supported
• Recommended CPU: AMD Epyc 9274F or better
• At least 2TB of RAM
• 1Gb/s synchronous internet connection
• A NVME disk to store data (via NVMe M.2)
• UEFI Bios

You will need the current spectrum, universe, and contract files to be able to start Qubic. The latest files can be downloaded from https://storage.qubic.li/network or ask in our #computor-operator channel on the Qubic Discord server: https://discord.gg/qubic.

Prepare your Disk

1. Your Qubic Boot device should be formatted as FAT32 with the label QUBIC. If you name it Qubic, qubic will find the disk easier and know which device to use for storing data.

# sample command in linux
mkfs.fat -F 32 -n QUBIC /dev/sda

If you have a disk and want to use partitions, this is possible too. use gdisk.

gdisk /dev/sda

# remove all existing partition with d command
# add the qubic partition with n command
# it is recommended to use <1TB of partition size; the start sector and the end sector can be specified with size. eg: 200G.
# set the type of partition to ef00

echo -e "o\nY\nd\nn\n\n\n+200G\n\nt\n\nef00\nw\nY" | gdisk /dev/sda

2. We recommend to have the following structure on the disk.

/contract0000.XXX
/contract0001.XXX
/contractYYYY.XXX
/spectrum.XXX
/system
/universe.XXX
/efi/boot
/efi/boot/Bootx64.efi
/efi/boot/startup.nsh
/efi/boot/Qubic.efi

• contract0000.XXX => must be the current contract #0 file. XXX must be replaced with the current epoch. (e.g. contract0000.114)
• contract0001.XXX => must be the current contract #1 file. XXX must be replaced with the current epoch. (e.g. contract0001.114). Data from Qx.
• contractYYYY.XXX => must be the current contract #YYYY file. XXX must be replaced with the current epoch. (e.g. contract0002.114). State data from all contracts.
• universe.XXX => must be the current universe file. XXX must be replaced with the current epoch. (e.g universe.114)
• spectrum.XXX => must be the current spectrum file. XXX must be replaced with the current epoch. (e.g spectrum.114)
• system => to start from scratch, use an empty file. (e.g. touch system)
• Bootx64.efi => boot loader
• startup.nsh => UEFI start script
• Qubic.efi => the compiled qubic node code (efi executable)

The content of your startup.nsh could look like this:

timezone -s 00:00
ifconfig -s eth0 dhcp
fs0:
cd efi
cd boot
Qubic.efi

• timezone -s 00:00 sets the timezone to UTC
• ifconfig -s eth0 dhcp tells the efi to get an ip address from DHCP; if you want to set a fixed ip you can use ifconfig -s eth0 static <IP> <SUBNETMASK> <GATEWAY>
• fs0: changes to drive 0
• Qubic.efi starts qubic

If you have multiple hard drives, the fs0: must changed to meet your environment.

To make it easier, you can copy & paste our prepared initial disk from https://github.com/qubic/core/blob/main/doc/qubic-initial-disk.zip

If you have multiple network interfaces, you may disconnect these before starting qubic. Here you see how.

Prepare your Server

To run Qubic on your server you need the following:

• UEFI Bios
• Enabled Network Stack in Bios
• Your USB Stick/SSD should be the boot device
• We advice to not disable any CPU virtualization or multi threading

General Process of deploying a node

1. Find knownPublicPeers public peers (e.g. from: https://app.qubic.li/network/live)
2. Set the needed parameters inside src/private_settings.h
3. Compile Source to EFI (Release build)
4. Copy the binary to your server
5. Start your server with the EFI Application

How to run a Listening Node

To run a "listen-only" node, just add IP addresses of 3-4 known public peers to the code (including your own IP).

static const unsigned char knownPublicPeers[][4] = {
};

Compile with RELEASE.

How to run a Computor Node

1. Add your Computor Seed(s)

static unsigned char computorSeeds[][55 + 1] = {
    "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa",
};

2. Add your Operator Identity. The Operator Identity is used to identify the Operator. Many remote commands are only allowed when they are signed by the Operator seed. Use the CLI to send remote commands.

#define OPERATOR "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

3. Add static IPs of known public peers (can be obtained from https://app.qubic.li/network/live). Ideally, add at least 4. Include also the public IP of your server. This IP Address will be propagated to other Qubic nodes.

static const unsigned char knownPublicPeers[][4] = {
  {12,13,14,12}
};

The clock of the node needs to be in sync. We recommend to synchronize a Linux / Windows / MacOS machine with NTP permanently and run qubic-cli -synctime from that machine regularly, for example once a day with a cronjob.

License

The Anti-Military License. See LICENSE.md.

This project is licensed under the Anti-Military License. However, it includes some code licensed under the MIT License. The MIT licensed code is used with permission and retains its original MIT license.

The MIT licensed code is from the following sources:

• uint128_t

Installation and Configuration

Please refer to https://docs.qubic.org

Limited Support

We cannot support you in any case. You are welcome to provide updates, bug fixes, or other code changes by pull requests, see here.

More Documentation

• How to contribute
• Developing a smart contract
• Qubic protocol
• Custom mining
• Seamless epoch transition
• Proposals and voting