1. Running a Radix Node

Overview

A Radix node connects to the peer-to-peer network, syncs ledger state, and (if registered as a validator) participates in Cerberus consensus. You can run a node to power your own API endpoints, support the network, or earn staking emissions as a validator.

Hardware Requirements

Installation

Radix provides two installation methods:

Option A: CLI-Guided Install (Recommended)

The babylonnode CLI tool walks you through configuration interactively:

wget -O babylonnode https://github.com/radixdlt/babylon-nodecli/releases/latest/download/babylonnode-ubuntu-22.04
chmod +x babylonnode
sudo mv babylonnode /usr/local/bin/
 
# Run guided setup
babyonnode docker install

Option B: Docker Manual Setup

For more control, use docker-compose directly with the official images from radixdlt/babylon-node.

Option C: Systemd

Run the node process directly on the host, managed by systemd. Better for servers shared with other services.

All methods are documented at docs.radixdlt.com/docs/node-setup.

Becoming a Validator

Once your node is synced, you can register it as a validator to participate in consensus and earn emissions.

1. Register — submit a validator registration transaction (costs 5-30 XRD in fees)
2. Configure — set your validator name, website URL, fee percentage, and delegation policy
3. Attract stake — the top 100 validators by total delegated stake are active each epoch
4. Maintain uptime — missed proposals reduce your emissions share

See the validator setup guide for detailed steps.

Monitoring

Use the standard Prometheus + Grafana stack for observability:

1. Install Node Exporter for system metrics (CPU, RAM, disk, network)
2. Configure Prometheus to scrape your node's metrics endpoint
3. Set up Grafana dashboards to visualize node health, sync status, and proposal statistics

The node also exposes a System API for diagnostics — connection status, health checks, and performance metrics. See Radix APIs for details.

Maintenance

• Protocol updates — update your node software when new protocol versions are released; validators must signal readiness
• Backups — the ledger can be rebuilt from the network, but backing up your validator key is critical
• Snapshots — daily ledger snapshots are available at snapshots.radix.live for faster initial sync

External Links

• Node introduction
• Node setup guide
• Validator setup
• Maintenance guide
• babylon-node GitHub