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Run a Koinos node: Quick Start

This page starts a basic Koinos mainnet node with the default configuration from the official koinos/koinos Docker Compose orchestrator.

It starts the required services: amqp, chain, mempool, block_store, and p2p. It does not enable block production or the optional API and index services.

Before starting, install Docker Engine and the Compose plugin using the official Ubuntu instructions.

1. Download the current orchestrator

Run these commands as the dedicated operator account. Replace koinos in the ownership command if that account has a different name.

The official repository uses master as its default branch:

sudo git clone --branch master --single-branch \
  https://github.com/koinos/koinos.git /opt/koinos
sudo chown -R koinos:koinos /opt/koinos
cd /opt/koinos
git checkout master
git pull --ff-only origin master

2. Activate the default configuration

Copy the supplied examples without changing their default values:

cd /opt/koinos
test ! -e .env
test ! -e config
cp env.example .env
cp -R config-example config

Do not run this new-node shortcut over an existing .env or config/. Follow Update and rollback instead.

3. Start the node

Required services do not need a Compose profile:

cd /opt/koinos
docker compose up -d
docker compose ps
docker compose logs --tail 50 chain p2p block_store

The first synchronization can take time. The logs should begin showing block requests and synchronization progress.

The all profile is not a basic node

docker compose --profile all up -d also starts block_producer plus every API and index service. Use api only when you intentionally need all API services without block production, or follow Block production before enabling the producer.

Stop the node

cd /opt/koinos
docker compose stop
docker compose ps

The default BASEDIR is ~/.koinos. For a production installation with a dedicated data path, private health API, configuration validation, synchronization checks, and operational hardening, continue with Advanced setup and verification.