Quantus Network Node Installation Guide

This guide will help you install and run a Quantus Network node for mining.

🚀 Quick Start Mining: See our Mining Guide for a comprehensive setup tutorial with troubleshooting and optimization tips.

Prerequisites

Install rustup. This repository pins the compiler in rust-toolchain: stable 1.93.0, the clippy component, and the wasm32v1-none target. cargo installs and selects that toolchain when you build inside the repo. Leave your global default toolchain alone.

Host packages match CI:

• Ubuntu/Debian: clang, libclang-dev, protobuf-compiler
• macOS (Homebrew): protobuf, llvm, cmake, openssl. Point bindgen at Homebrew LLVM with export LIBCLANG_PATH="$(brew --prefix llvm)/lib".
• Windows: protoc and LLVM (choco install protoc llvm), with LIBCLANG_PATH set to C:\Program Files\LLVM\bin.

Formatting uses a different compiler. Nightly rustfmt is pinned in rustfmt-toolchain and installed by scripts/fmt.sh. Full steps are in docs/rust-setup.md.

Check the active toolchain from the repository root:

rustup show
# active toolchain: 1.93.0

Build

Use the following command to build the node:

cargo build --release

The compiled binary will be available at ./target/release/quantus-node.

Key Management

Generate a New Key

./target/release/quantus-node key quantus

This creates a new 24-word phrase, seed, and public and private keys.

Restore Key from Seed Phrase

./target/release/quantus-node key quantus --words

You will be prompted for the phrase (input is not echoed). Non-interactively, pipe it in: ./target/release/quantus-node key quantus --words < mnemonic.txt.

Words should be a 24-word list separated by spaces, like "autumn bear...". The words must be from the BIP39 wordlist.

Restore Key from Seed

./target/release/quantus-node key quantus --seed

You will be prompted for the seed (input is not echoed). Non-interactively, pipe it in: ./target/release/quantus-node key quantus --seed < seed.txt.

Seed must be a 128-character hexadecimal string (64 bytes).

Secrets are deliberately read from stdin rather than accepted as command-line arguments: argv is world-readable via /proc/<pid>/cmdline, recorded in shell history, and commonly captured by audit and orchestration logs.

Mining

For complete mining setup instructions, including wormhole address requirements and external miner configuration, see MINING.md.

Development

Local Development Node

Start a single-node development chain (state is not persisted):

./target/release/quantus-node --dev

To purge the development chain's state:

./target/release/quantus-node purge-chain --dev

To start with detailed logging:

RUST_BACKTRACE=1 ./target/release/quantus-node -ldebug --dev

Development Chain Features

• Maintains state in a tmp folder while the node is running
• Uses the Alice and Bob accounts as default validator authorities
• Governance is bootstrapped via the tech collective (no sudo pallet)
• Preconfigured with a genesis state (/node/src/chain_spec.rs) that includes several pre-funded development accounts

Persisting Chain State

To persist chain state between runs, specify a base path:

# Create a folder to use as the db base path
mkdir my-chain-state

# Use that folder to store the chain state
./target/release/quantus-node --dev --base-path ./my-chain-state/

# Check the folder structure created inside the base path after running the chain
ls ./my-chain-state
# chains
ls ./my-chain-state/chains/
# dev
ls ./my-chain-state/chains/dev
# db keystore network

Multi-Node Local Testnet

To run a local testnet with multiple validator nodes, use the provided script:

# From workspace root
./scripts/run_local_nodes.sh

This script handles building the node and launching two validator nodes and a listener node connected to each other. Refer to the script comments for configuration details.

If you want to see the multi-node consensus algorithm in action, see Simulate a network.

Linting

We use taplo for formatting TOML files and nightly rustfmt for Rust code. The rustfmt nightly is pinned in rustfmt-toolchain; scripts/fmt.sh installs it on first use and forwards its arguments to cargo fmt.

taplo format --config taplo.toml
scripts/fmt.sh --all -- --check

Database Storage Configuration

This chain has mandatory storage configuration settings that cannot be overridden by command-line parameters:

Blocks Pruning: KeepFinalized

State Pruning: ArchiveCanonical

What This Means

ArchiveCanonical State Pruning: The node will keep the state for all blocks that are part of the canonical chain. This ensures you can query historical state for any finalized block, while non-canonical blocks' states are pruned to save disk space.

KeepFinalized Blocks Pruning: The node will keep all finalized blocks and prune non-finalized blocks that become stale.

Command-Line Parameters

Note that any command-line parameters related to pruning (--state-pruning, --blocks-pruning) will be ignored as these settings are enforced at the code level for all node operators.

Database Backend

The runtime's storage weights are priced for ParityDb, and new nodes use it by default (--database auto: an existing RocksDB database under <base-path>/chains/<id>/db is reused, otherwise ParityDb is created under <base-path>/chains/<id>/paritydb).

Nodes still on RocksDB log a warning at startup. They keep working, but state access is several times slower than the weights assume, so DB-heavy blocks take longer to import. To migrate without a full resync:

./target/release/quantus-node export-blocks --chain <chain> --base-path <old-path> --binary blocks.bin
./target/release/quantus-node import-blocks --chain <chain> --base-path <new-path> --database paritydb --state-pruning archive-canonical --binary blocks.bin

--state-pruning archive-canonical is required: the pruning mode is fixed when the database is created, and a database imported with the backend's default constrained pruning cannot be reopened by the node (which enforces archive-canonical). Then start the node with --base-path <new-path>. Node keys and keystore files live outside the database directory and should be copied over from the old base path.

Disk Usage

This configuration provides a good balance between storage efficiency and data availability. You should expect your database to grow steadily over time as the blockchain progresses, though at a slower rate than a full archive node. If you're running a validator or service that needs access to historical chain state, this configuration will meet your needs while optimizing disk usage.

Connect with Polkadot-JS Apps Front-End

After you start the node locally, you can interact with it using the hosted version of the Polkadot/Substrate Portal front-end by connecting to the local node endpoint. A hosted version is also available on IPFS. You can also find the source code and instructions for hosting your own instance in the polkadot-js/apps repository.

Embedded Documentation

After you build the project, you can use the following command to explore its parameters and subcommands:

./target/release/quantus-node -h

You can generate and view the Rust Docs for this project with this command:

cargo doc --open

Architecture

Template Structure

A Substrate project such as this consists of a number of components that are spread across a few directories.

Node

A blockchain node is an application that allows users to participate in a blockchain network. Substrate-based blockchain nodes expose a number of capabilities:

• Networking: Substrate nodes use the libp2p networking stack to allow the nodes in the network to communicate with one another.
• Consensus: Blockchains must have a way to come to consensus on the state of the network. Substrate makes it possible to supply custom consensus engines and also ships with several consensus mechanisms that have been built on top of Web3 Foundation research.
• RPC Server: A remote procedure call (RPC) server is used to interact with Substrate nodes.

There are several files in the node directory. Take special note of the following:

• chain_spec.rs: A chain specification is a source code file that defines a Substrate chain's initial (genesis) state. Chain specifications are useful for development and testing, and critical when architecting the launch of a production chain. Take note of the development_config and testnet_genesis functions. These functions are used to define the genesis state for the local development chain configuration. These functions identify some well-known accounts and use them to configure the blockchain's initial state.
• service.rs: This file defines the node implementation, including the QPoW import queue and mining worker (sc_consensus_qpow).

Runtime

In Substrate, the terms "runtime" and "state transition function" are analogous. Both terms refer to the core logic of the blockchain that is responsible for validating blocks and executing the state changes they define. The Substrate project in this repository uses FRAME to construct a blockchain runtime. FRAME allows runtime developers to declare domain-specific logic in modules called "pallets". At the heart of FRAME is a helpful macro language that makes it easy to create pallets and flexibly compose them to create blockchains that can address a variety of needs.

Review the FRAME runtime implementation and note the following:

• This file configures several pallets to include in the runtime. Each pallet configuration is defined by a code block that begins with impl $PALLET_NAME::Config for Runtime.
• The pallets are composed into a single runtime by way of the construct_runtime! macro, which is part of the core FRAME pallet library.

Pallets

The runtime is composed from the FRAME pallets under pallets/. Quantus-specific pallets include qpow, mining-rewards, reversible-transfers, wormhole, and zk-tree. Governance uses the local ranked-collective and referenda forks.

A FRAME pallet is comprised of a number of blockchain primitives, including:

• Storage: FRAME defines a rich set of powerful storage abstractions that makes it easy to use Substrate's efficient key-value database to manage the evolving state of a blockchain.
• Dispatchables: FRAME pallets define special types of functions that can be invoked (dispatched) from outside of the runtime in order to update its state.
• Events: Substrate uses events to notify users of significant state changes.
• Errors: When a dispatchable fails, it returns an error.

Each pallet has its own Config trait which serves as a configuration interface to generically define the types and parameters it depends on.

Alternative Installations

Docker

Dockerfile is the image CI and releases publish. The release workflow unpacks quantus-node into dist/<arch>/ before the build; the image copies that binary and starts it with --chain planck_live_spec.

Dockerfile.local compiles the node from this tree for a local image.

Nix

env-setup/flake.nix provides a dev shell with rustup, clang, and protobuf. From env-setup/:

nix develop

Build from the repository root afterward so cargo selects rust-toolchain (1.93.0).

try-runtime

Compile the node with the try-runtime feature enabled to use the runtime wasm for try-runtime check:

cargo build --release --features try-runtime

try-runtime --runtime target/release/wbuild/quantus-runtime/quantus_runtime.wasm on-runtime-upgrade --disable-spec-version-check --blocktime 10000 live --uri <WS_URL>

Further documentation

Guide	What it covers
MINING.md	Mining setup, wormhole addresses, and the external miner
docs/rust-setup.md	Compiler pin, host packages, and rustfmt
docs/CHAINSPEC_CREATION.md	Producing a raw JSON chain spec
docs/RELEASE_PREFLIGHT.md	Checks to run before tagging a node or runtime release
docs/RUNTIME_UPDATE.md	Shipping a runtime to Heisenberg and Planck
docs/RUNTIME_UPGRADE_VIA_GOVERNANCE.md	Authorize-then-apply upgrade flow
docs/RUNTIME_SURFACE.md	Call surface and why sudo is gone
docs/TECH_COLLECTIVE_GOVERNANCE_TUNING.md	Tech-collective track parameters
docs/TECH_REFERENDA_FEATURES.md	Referenda features wired in the runtime
docs/wormhole-zk.md	Leaf, private-batch, and public-batch proofs
docs/zk-trie-architecture.md	Poseidon Merkle tree used by wormhole

Resources

DeepWiki

Got a technical question about the codebase? Feel free to ask it on our DeepWiki page: