Maintaining a validator

How to update and maintain a validator on the Kii network

This will guide you through basic operations on how to maintain a validator.

What is a validator?

Validators are the ones responsible for committing blocks. Due to this responsibility, validators must run their own nodes and will be slashed if they become unavailable or sign blocks at the same height. Validators will also receive rewards for each block signed from fees.

Creating a validator

1. Key creation

To create a validator, you first must have a key available for transactions. A new key can be created with:

kiichaind keys add $VALIDATOR_KEY_NAME

You will get an output such as:

- name: asd
  type: local
  address: kii1507zhg2k7al477zqarzru7n4566lvcp9xnsxll
  evm_address: ""
  pubkey: '{"@type":"/cosmos.crypto.secp256k1.PubKey","key":"Ak5kTpx4OIzXYWAOPjEVNFnn/9O+6BUgSbYCYpnUpRU5"}'
  mnemonic: ""

**Important** write this mnemonic phrase in a safe place.
It is the only way to recover your account if you ever forget your password.

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1. Transfer funds

Ensure your account has sufficient funds for fees and self-delegation.

1. Create the validator

A validator will be created based on your consensus public key. You can check your current public key using:

kiichaind tendermint show-validator

To create a validator you can use the following command:

# Basic chain information
CHAIN_ID=kiichain3

# Define the validator information
MONIKER=<my-moniker>
AMOUNT=1000000000ukii # 1000 kii as self delegation
COMMISSION_MAX_CHANGE_RATE=0.1
COMMISSION_MAX_RATE=0.1
COMMISSION_RATE=0.1
MIN_SELF_DELEGATION_AMOUNT=1000000000

kiichaind tx staking create-validator \
  --amount=$AMOUNT \
  --pubkey=$(kiichaind tendermint show-validator) \
  --moniker=$MONIKER \
  --chain-id=$CHAIN_ID \
  --commission-rate=$COMMISSION_RATE \
  --commission-max-rate=$COMMISSION_MAX_RATE \
  --commission-max-change-rate=$COMMISSION_MAX_CHANGE_RATE \
  --min-self-delegation=$MIN_SELF_DELEGATION_AMOUNT \
  --gas="auto" \
  --gas-adjustment 1.3 \
  --gas-prices="0.01ukii" \
  --from=$VALIDATOR_KEY_NAME

The transaction must be done on the machine running the node

• An additional flag --node can be passed to point to an available RPC node

Further instructions on how to run a validator can be found at Running a Validator.

Edit validator description

At any moment, you can update your validator public description. This description is public and is what will be shown on block explorers.

To update your delegator information you can use:

kiichaind tx staking edit-validator
  --moniker="Any moniker" \
  --website="https://kii.network" \
  --identity=6A0D65E29A4CBC8E \
  --details="Delegate on my awesome kii validator!" \
  --chain-id=<chain_id> \
  --gas="auto" \
  --gas-adjustment 1.3 \
  --gas-prices="0.01ukii" \
  --from=<key_name> \
  --commission-rate="0.10"

Where:

• --from must be the operator of the validator

• --identity can be used as to verify identity with systems like Keybase or UPort

• --commission-ratemust follow these rules:

  • Must be between 0 and the validator's commission-max-rate

  • Must not exceed the validator's commission-max-change-rate which is maximum % point change rate per day.

Neither commission-max-rate and commission-max-change-rate can be changed after validator creation.

Unjail Validator

Your validator may get jailed for downtime. To unjail your validator you must use the following transaction:

kiichaind tx slashing unjail \
 --from=<key_name> \
 --chain-id=<chain_id>
 --gas="auto" \
 --gas-prices="0.0025ukii"

Halting Your Validator

You may want to halt your validator for maintenance or a coordinated upgrade. You can gracefully halt your validator by setting it halt-heightto the height you want to pause your validator. The node will shutdown with a zero exit code at that given height after committing the block.