Advanced

This page contains information that is useful to know but that should not stop somebody from running a node.

Creating Your Own Private Network

The stellar-core GitHub repository holds a testnet.md file which contains a short tutorial demonstrating how to configure and run a short-lived, isolated test network.

Runtime Information: Start and Stop

Stellar-core can be started directly from the command line, or through a supervision system such as init, upstart, or systemd.

Stellar-core can be gracefully exited at any time by delivering SIGINT or pressing CTRL-C. It can be safely, forcibly terminated with SIGTERM or SIGKILL. The latter may leave a stale lock file in the BUCKET_DIR_PATH, and you may need to remove this file before stellar-core will restart. Broadly speaking, all components are designed to recover from abrupt termination.

Stellar-core can also be packaged in a container system such as Docker, so long as BUCKET_DIR_PATH and the database are stored on persistent volumes. For an example, see stellar/quickstart.

In-depth Architecture

The stellar-core GitHub repository also contains the architecture.md file, which describes how stellar-core is structured internally, how it is intended to be deployed, and the collection of servers and services needed to get the full functionality and performance.