Step 1: Prerequisite
Hardware provisioning, network requirements, and OS preparation.
Step 1: Prerequisites
Solana is a high-performance blockchain that acts more like a high-frequency trading server than a typical crypto node. It requires specific hardware to keep up with the 400ms block times and massive transaction throughput.
⚠️ Institutional Warning:
Do not attempt to run a Mainnet node on general-purpose cloud instances (AWS T3, DigitalOcean Droplets, etc.). You strictly require Bare Metal servers with high-frequency CPUs and NVMe drives.
1. Hardware Specifications
The requirements differ slightly depending on whether you are running a voting Validator or a non-voting RPC Node.
Component
Validator Spec
RPC Node Spec
Why it matters?
CPU
16 Cores / 32 Threads
(3.0GHz+ Base Clock)
24 Cores / 48 Threads
(High frequency)
SigVerify: The CPU must verify thousands of Ed25519 signatures per second. AVX2 support is mandatory.
RAM
256 GB DDR4/5 ECC
512 GB - 1 TB ECC
Accounts Index: The entire database of account addresses is effectively indexed in RAM for sub-second lookup.
Disk 1 (OS)
500GB NVMe
1TB NVMe
Stores OS logs and binaries.
Disk 2 (Accounts)
1TB NVMe (PCIe Gen4)
2TB NVMe (PCIe Gen4)
High IOPS: This drive sees constant, heavy random read/writes. Segregation is critical.
Disk 3 (Ledger)
2TB NVMe (PCIe Gen4)
4TB+ NVMe
History: Stores the raw blockchain data (RocksDB). Grows continuously.
GPU
Optional (Rarely used)
Optional
CUDA offloading is supported but CPU is currently the bottleneck for most setups.
🔥 CPU Recommendation:
We strongly recommend AMD EPYC "F" Series (Frequency Optimized) or AMD Threadripper Pro processors. High clock speed (>3.5GHz) is more valuable than core count.
2. Operating System
Solana officially supports Linux. We recommend:
Distro: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
Kernel: The default Ubuntu kernel is generally sufficient, though low-latency kernels can offer slight improvements during high network congestion.
3. Network Configuration
Solana is one of the most bandwidth-intensive blockchains in existence.
Speed: 1 Gbps Symmetric (Download and Upload) is the absolute minimum. 10 Gbps is recommended for institutional stability.
Usage: Expect 30TB - 100TB of data transfer per month. Ensure your hosting plan is "Unmetered."
Required Ports (Firewall):
You must open the following ports to the public internet (0.0.0.0/0):
Port Range
Protocol
Function
8000 - 10000
TCP/UDP
Gossip & TVPU: The core P2P communication layer.
8899
TCP
RPC: (Optional) Only open this if you are serving API requests.
8900
TCP
PubSub: (Optional) Websocket notifications for RPCs.
4. User Setup
For security, never run the Solana validator as root.
Bash
# 1. Create a dedicated user
sudo adduser solana
# 2. Grant sudo access (Required for system tuning in Step 2)
sudo usermod -aG sudo solana
# 3. Switch to the new user
su - solanaLast updated