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Validator Node Maintenance

Updating a Validator Node

As a decentralized network, every update to NEAR Protocol needs some coordination between end users, platforms, developers and validators. nearup provides scripts to launch NEAR Protocol TestNet and BetaNet nodes. Unless it is executed with the switch --binary-path, nearup will automatically update the local binaries if NEAR's boot nodes fork the network and change the genesis checksum.

For security-critical applications and for validators, nearup can run a locally compiled binary of nearcore, but such updates have to be done manually. Since validators are responsible for creating new blocks, coordination in this process is necessary to avoid any network stall.

NEAR Validator Channels

NEAR Protocol will communicate with validators using these channels:

1. Runtime Alerts: call-to-actions for technical teams if the network is stalling and there's the need to coordinate a manual node restart. Such messages begin with [CODE_RED_BETANET] or [CODE_RED_TESTNET], and will be posted in the read-only Validator Announcement channel on Discord. The same message may be repeated in other channels, to have higher outreach.
2. Technical troubleshooting in the Validator Channel on Discord.
3. New releases, technical support and bug tracking in the Github repos of Stake Wars and nearcore.

We may issue a [CODE_YELLOW_BETANET] or [CODE_YELLOW_TESTNET] if the network is suffering minor issues, or a new software release introduces incompatibilities and requires additional testing.

NEAR's team will be mostly active on Github, and with limited participation on Discord and Telegram.

Planned Updates

NEAR merges node updates from nearcore releases as follows:

• BetaNet every Monday at 00:00 UTC. The release tag is mapped with x.y.z-beta
• TestNet every Monday at 00:00 UTC. The release tag is mapped with x.y.z-rc
• MainNet is not yet subject to planned releases

Once MainNet: Restricted is live, planned updates to TestNet and MainNet will come via coordination with validators.

heads up

BetaNet provides cutting-edge testing grounds for validators, with weekly updates and frequent hard-forks. BetaNet is using the beta branch of nearcore, which is merged every Wednesday at 00:00 UTC and deployed on NEAR boot nodes shortly after. BetaNet is also the network used for Stake Wars.

Emergency Updates

NEAR Protocol team will use the tag [CODE_RED_BETANET] or [CODE_RED_TESTNET] in the Validator Announcement channel on Discord, followed by email instructions for coordination. Some updates may follow a confidential process, as explained on nearcore/SECURITY.md docs. Follow the Stake Wars if you want to participate in fire-drills and test your playbook for emergency updates.

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