Cardano Node Installation process

After we have done all the prerequisites we are finally ready to do the installation process of Cardano Node!

Let's start by downloading the Cardano Node source code from git (GitHub)

mkdir -p ~/git && cd ~/git
git clone https://github.com/input-output-hk/cardano-node.git

git clone in action

You should have now a new folder - cardano-node with the source code of the cardano node, let's go to that directory and choose which version we would like to install (compile)

cd cardano-node
git fetch --all --recurse-submodules --tags
git checkout $(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/input-output-hk/cardano-node/releases/latest| jq .tag_name -r)

you should see the following output, check if the desired version is selected:

let's add the libsodium libraries to Cardano node project as well as force to use our installed GHC version:

echo "package cardano-crypto-praos" >> cabal.project.local
echo "  flags: -external-libsodium-vrf" >> cabal.project.local
echo "with-compiler: ghc-8.10.7" >> cabal.project.local

Now we are ready to start the installation (compilation) process. This will take a while... if you are installing this on the VPS server, then you can go and grab coffee/beer/wine/water... as it will take a while.

We will run this process in the background, so if your connection is interrupted, then it will still continue.

cabal build all &

as the last step in our installation process is to copy newly compiled bin (executive) files to an early created folder: .local/bin

if you had a previous version of Cardano node running, then before you copy the new binary files, make sure that you have stopped your current Cardano-node processes, otherwise, you will not be able to overwrite the new file.

mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
cp -p "$(./scripts/bin-path.sh cardano-node)" ~/.local/bin/
cp -p "$(./scripts/bin-path.sh cardano-cli)" ~/.local/bin/
echo PATH="$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin/" >> $HOME/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Let's check if we have installed the binary files in the correct location and the latest version

which cardano-node && which cardano-cli
cardano-node --version
cardano-cli --version

you should see something like this:

Great! We have installed the Cardano node on our server!

Congratulations on installing Cardano Node!