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General intro

This guide helps you set up a Band node - a machine that syncs the entire blockchain, allowing you to interact with the network or become a validator in the future.


Install Required Packages

These tools are essential for downloading, compiling, and running your node. They’re standard packages used in almost every node setup. 
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install curl git wget htop tmux build-essential jq make lz4 gcc unzip -y

Install Go

Go (or Golang) is the programming language Berachain is built with. We need it to build the node binary bandd from source code. 
cd $HOME
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/go
wget https://go.dev/dl/go1.23.6.linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.23.6.linux-amd64.tar.gz
echo "export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin:$HOME/go/bin" >> $HOME/.bash_profile
source ~/.bash_profile
[ ! -d ~/go/bin ] && mkdir -p ~/go/bin
go version
which go
rm -rf go1.23.6.linux-amd64.tar.gz

Download and build binary

Option 1: Build from source 
cd $HOME
rm -rf chain
git clone https://github.com/bandprotocol/chain
cd chain
git checkout v2.5.4
make install
bandd version
which bandd
Option 2: Download Prebuilt Binary 
wget -O bandd https://snapshots.tienthuattoan.com/mainnet/band/bandd && mv bandd $HOME/go/bin
bandd version
which bandd

Initialize the node

Set node configuration 
bandd config chain-id laozi-mainnet
Initialize the node 
bandd init you-node-name --chain-id laozi-mainnet

Download Genesis & Addrbook Files

genesis.json defines the starting state of the chain. addrbook.json helps your node discover peers. 
curl -Ls https://snapshots.tienthuattoan.com/mainnet/band/genesis.json > $HOME/.band/config/genesis.json
curl -Ls https://snapshots.tienthuattoan.com/mainnet/band/addrbook.json > $HOME/.band/config/addrbook.json

Add seed

Seed nodes help your node find and connect to the network. It’s like a bootstrap contact list.

sed -i -e "s|^seeds *=.*|seeds = \"09cf1a2ed0be728448bed15861d7f0eb18f2eb64@band-rpc.tienthuattoan.com:34656\"|" $HOME/.band/config/config.toml

Set minimum gas price

This tells your node to accept transactions with at least 0.0025uband gas price. Required for block creation. 
sed -i -e "s|^minimum-gas-prices *=.*|minimum-gas-prices = \"0.0025uband\"|" $HOME/.band/config/app.toml

Pruning & Indexer Settings

Pruning saves disk space by deleting older data. Disabling indexer also reduces storage load. 

sed -i \
  -e 's|^pruning *=.*|pruning = "custom"|' \
  -e 's|^pruning-keep-recent *=.*|pruning-keep-recent = "100"|' \
  -e 's|^pruning-keep-every *=.*|pruning-keep-every = "0"|' \
  -e 's|^pruning-interval *=.*|pruning-interval = "10"|' \
  $HOME/.band/config/app.toml

sed -i 's/indexer = "kv"/indexer = "null"/g' $HOME/.band/config/config.toml

Download Snapshot

Instead of syncing the chain from scratch (which can take days), a snapshot lets your node start from a recent blockchain state and catch up quickly. 
wget -O band_latest.tar.lz4 https://snapshots.tienthuattoan.com/mainnet/band/band_latest.tar.lz4 && lz4 -c -d band_latest.tar.lz4 | tar -x -C $HOME/.band

Create service

This lets your node run in the background like a service and auto-restart if it crashes. 
sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/bandd.service > /dev/null << EOF
[Unit]
Description=Band node service
After=network-online.target
[Service]
User=$USER
ExecStart=$(which bandd) start
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5
LimitNOFILE=65535
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
Start the service and check the logs. This shows real-time logs to help you monitor your node’s sync progress and status. 
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable bandd
sudo systemctl restart bandd
sudo journalctl -u bandd -f

Check If Your Node Is Synced

Run the following command to watch your node's sync status in real time: 
watch -n 1 "curl -s localhost:26657/status | jq"

You're fully synced when "catching_up": false, your node is fully synced with the network and ready to use.

{
  "latest_block_height": "1234567",
  "latest_block_time": "2025-04-06T14:23:00Z",
  "catching_up": false
}