How to Stake Your Validator

This guide offers a step-by-step walkthrough on how to stake your Avail validator. It covers essential steps such as bonding your funds, managing session keys, and initiating the validation process.

Step 1: Prepare for Staking

Before you can become an active validator, you need to bond your funds to your node. This involves creating two separate Avail accounts: a stash account for holding your funds and a controller account for managing staking actions.

Create Avail Accounts

1. Navigate to the Avail network explorer at https://explorer.availproject.org/ (opens in a new tab) and choose the correct network.
2. Create a stash account.

Bond Your Funds

1. Navigate to the Staking tab in the Explorer.
2. Click on Stash to initiate the bonding process.

3. Fill in the bonding preferences. Then click Bond and Sign and Submit.

Step 2: Manage Session Keys

After your node is fully synced, you'll need to rotate and submit your session keys.

Rotating Session Keys

Run the following command on your node machine:

Ensure the node is running with the default HTTP RPC port configured.

Using Binaries:

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"id":1, "jsonrpc":"2.0", "method": "author_rotateKeys", "params":[]}' http://localhost:9944

The result is the concatenation of the four public keys. Save the hex-encoded result for the next step and restart your node.

Using Docker:

docker ps

You should an output similar to:

CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                   COMMAND            CREATED         STATUS         PORTS                                                                                                            NAMES
da097bbeba75   availj/avail:v1.8.0.4   "/entrypoint.sh"   3 seconds ago   Up 3 seconds   0.0.0.0:9615->9615/tcp, :::9615->9615/tcp, 0.0.0.0:9944->9944/tcp, 0.0.0.0:30333->30333/tcp, :::9944->9944/tcp   musing_cartwright

We need the CONTAINER ID from the output above:

docker exec -i da097bbeba75 curl -sH "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"id":1, "jsonrpc":"2.0", "method": "author_rotateKeys", "params":[]}' http://localhost:9944

Submit Session Keys

You must inform the network of your Session keys by signing and submitting the setKeys extrinsic. This action associates your validator with your Controller account.

1. Navigate back to the Staking (opens in a new tab) tab.
2. Click on Set Session Key and enter the hex-encoded result.
3. Click Set Session Key and enter your password when prompted.

After submitting the extrinsic, you'll observe that Set Session Key changes to Validate. Make sure your node is fully synchronized before proceeding further.

Step 3: Register as a Validator

1. Click Validate on the Staking tab.

2. Set your validator commission percentage.
3. Enter your password and click Validate.

Step 4: Start Validation

Your validator is now prepared to begin the validation process. If you wish to discontinue, you can click the stop icon. Please note that the Avail interface doesn't automatically verify if your node is synchronized; you'll need to confirm this manually. If your node has sufficient stake, the Avail blockchain will likely select it in the next epoch or two.

Verify Validator Status

To verify that your node is ready for possible selection at the end of the next era, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Staking (opens in a new tab) tab and select Waiting to see if your account appears.
2. If your node has enough stake, it will be elected in the next era or two.

   A new set of validators is chosen every era, based on the amount staked.

Monitor Validator in Action

Once your validator node has accrued enough stake, it will be elected for validation. Below is an example image of an elected validator node actively producing blocks.

In addition, please check out the guide on validator monitoring available here.

Next Steps

Congratulations on successfully setting up your Avail Validator node! You should be seeing something like this:

As you move forward, here are some essential actions to consider:

1. Backup Your Validator: Ensure you have a secure backup of your validator settings and keys. Refer to the Backup Guide for detailed steps.

2. Start Monitoring: If you haven't already, set up monitoring tools to keep track of your validator's performance. Check out the Monitoring Guide for recommendations.

3. Join the Community: Connect with other validators and the Avail team on the official Discord Channel (opens in a new tab). It's a great place to share experiences, ask questions, and get updates.