I've been setting up a binance-chain node. Unlike Polkadot or Cardano, I'm not going to run it from a container until it's working reliably.

The Binance docs show a couple of ways to install a node. I used the install.sh script and went with default values as much as possible.

Installation

My first attempts to sync a full node used the install.sh script, but the node wouldn't sync completely, it would get stuck. I setup a new VM and did a manual install ("Option Two") and so far the node has been syncing without any issues. You need to download the genesis file separately in this case. Also, be sure to download the node-binary repo using git lfs and not just git. It will look like it worked but bnbchaind wont have completely downloaded unless you use lfs

It took me a while to realise that the documentation assumes that you have an environment variable called BNCHOME. You can either create it using

export BNCHOME=/path/to/.bnbchaind/

(like you would for any environment variable) or replace the environment variable in the start node command with the file path:

nohup bnbchaind start --home BNCHOME &

Note: I'm not sure if the bnbchaind needs the environment variable to be set or not. It doesn't give errors if it isn't set, but I seem to be having more success when BNCHOME is defined.

Syncing the node

• There are three ways to sync a node.
• Fast-sync isn't the fastest way to sync your node, hot-sync is.
• Using install.sh should put the correct default values in the $BNCHOME/config/config.toml file, but I needed to adjust ping_interval and pong_timeout to the recommended values.

Surprises

The documentation assumes you have familiarity with running tasks in the background of a terminal session, and that you're familiar with nohup. I wasn't - I'd even forgotten what the & symbol does¹ so I did some research and wrote some notes