Ergo node setup on Windows 10

This is a community member made guide and is not an offical Ergo source.

This guide will help you setup an Ergo Node.

How to set up an Ergo full node

Node will communicate with other computers and requires an internet connnection

Warning: Think carefully about node security. Do not let any untrusted source have access to the rest api of the node, and also do not share configuration files or any other sensitive information.

Step 1: Install java runtime environment > v.9.: link to Java SE LTS 11

Step 2: Get the latest Ergo node binary: link to github for Ergo node.

Step 3: Create the configuration files for the Ergo node and binary in a folder on your computer and start the node.

Using notepad I create the ergo.conf and put it and the ergo binary in E:/ergonode in this example. You can store the wallet information in a custom directory but here I store it inside ergnode/wallet/keystore. I also create a start_mainnet.bat that I run to start the node in windows powershell.

ergo {
directory = “your directory”
node {
mining = true
}
wallet.secretStorage.secretDir = “your wallet directory”
}

In this step you need to make a directory (in this case E:/ergonode) for the configuration file, set mining to true or false (since we are going to mine I set it to true), and also make a directory for the wallet of the running node that will get Ergo from mining. Finally I create a start_mainnet.bat passing the parameter mainnet (you could replace it with testnet if you wanted to run testnet) and using the configuration file ergo.conf that we have made and run this in windows powershell (should be installed on your computer by default if not see this guide)

Congratulations you have now a running node! Yet we have a few more steps to make!

Step 4: Get an API key (blake2b) through the nodes REST API wtih Swagger UI on a browser and update your configuration file

In the section where it says cancel it first says “try it out” press this. Then in the section under examples replace the default with an API key. DO NOT use a simple API key like “Hello”!!! as this is just an example. Now in the bottom section under code 200 you get the API key hash.

IMPORTANT You must use a different and strong secret phrase!

For mainnet the default port for the rest api is 9053 and for testnet it is 9052. This link should get you to the swagger ui for your nodes rest API on mainnet. I used Chrome but it should work with other browsers as well.

Now you simply update the ergo.conf with the api key with the following text:

Relplace apiKeyHash with your own and stronger secret word based hash that you made in the previous step. If you used Hello then the apiKeyHash should be the one shown in the image.

After you set this up rememer to restart your node so that it will load with the new API key hash.

You must restart the node to update the API key before the next step

Step 5: Initialize the wallet

On mainnet you will have a panel on http://127.0.0.1:9053/panel and on testnet it will be on port 9052/panel. When you click this link you should see something like this:

Press Set API key to pass your API secure phrase to gain access to the interface.

After passing the secure phrase in this case “Hello” (capital word sensitive) you gain access to initializing your wallet.

After pressing Initialize wallet you can initialize a wallet or restore a wallet:

I choose password Alsohello and as the Mnemonic password is optional I did not fill it out. After pressing send you will get your 15 secret words belonging to the wallet:

There is currently a bug with google chrome where after initialization the 15 secret word picture closes down by itself when google asks if you want to store the password. You can avoid this by disabling password storing temporary. For testing purposes you can also just screenshot the 15 wallet words but never do this on mainnet when you are mining as these 15 words are the words to your miners wallet and should be stored safely !

The 15 words for your wallet. NEVER share this online for an actual wallet that you will use yourself.

You can then also check your wallets address by using the panel and going to wallet then clicking more next to Addresses:

And that is all you need to do to setup a node! If you found this useful you can donate to my tip Ergo wallet 9hVLU73iQ7339kvjckvr3aymA89Xeb4WGwbvk6BhQ6Kwg4mQPD2 (Only Erg!)