Node Configuration & Preferences
Node Identity
Section titled “Node Identity”Every node has a permanent identity on the network. Your Active Node Hours, badges, leaderboard position and earnings history all attach to it.
That identity comes from the machine itself, not from the node software. When your node enrolls, it reads a single value from the operating system:
| Platform | Value |
|---|---|
| macOS | The platform UUID |
| Linux | /etc/machine-id |
| Windows | MachineGuid |
The value is hashed before it leaves your machine. The control plane never receives the raw identifier.
Because the identity comes from the operating system, it survives the changes operators ask about most often:
| Change | Node identity |
|---|---|
| Reinstalling or upgrading the node software | Unchanged |
| Removing the data directory and reinstalling | Unchanged |
| Swapping a network card, disk, RAM or GPU | Unchanged |
| Moving a virtual machine to a new host | Unchanged |
| Reinstalling the operating system | New identity |
| Recreating a container or virtual machine node | New identity — see Docker, below |
A node that returns with a new identity is a new node. It starts with no accumulated Active Node Hours and no history. Your account, balance and payouts are not affected — only that node’s record begins again.
Do not create nodes by cloning a virtual machine or disk image. A clone copies the machine identity, so every clone presents the same identity to the network. Install onto a fresh system instead.
Active Node Hours
Section titled “Active Node Hours”Active Node Hours measure the time your node has been connected and available to serve work. They accrue per node — hours on two machines do not add together, and your best node is the one that counts.
- Hours accrue between your node’s regular check-ins, which happen every 30 seconds.
- A single missed check-in still counts, so an ordinary blip costs you nothing.
- A node that is offline for an extended period is not credited for the time it was away, and partial hours are never rounded up.
- There is no deadline. The hours do not have to be consecutive, and your total is never reset.
Active Node Hours determine qualification in the Referral Program. Your current total is shown in the portal.
Node Name and Location
Section titled “Node Name and Location”Assigning a friendly name
Section titled “Assigning a friendly name”By default, your node name reflects the host name of your computer, virtual machine, or container. You may change the friendly name of your machine in the portal. This is particularly useful if you have more than one node.
To change the name of your node, navigate to Edge Nodes, select the pencil icon next to the automatically assigned name of your node, rename it, then press Enter.
Setting geolocation
Section titled “Setting geolocation”Geolocation is set automatically using information about your public IP address.
Resource Allocation
Section titled “Resource Allocation”CPU, RAM, and bandwidth
Section titled “CPU, RAM, and bandwidth”Storage allocation for caching
Storage allocation is selected during installation of the node software and ranges from 1 to 50 GB of storage. The default is 10 GB. Future version of the node software will allow you to allocate an arbitrary amount of storage.
RAM
RAM is used dynamically. At idle, the application uses < 5MB of RAM.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is used dynamically based on the speed and latency of your internet connection. Heartbeat checks occur every 30 seconds and use only a few kilobytes of bandwidth.
Network Settings
Section titled “Network Settings”Public IP detection
The Control Plane extracts a node’s external IP from HTTP request headers. No manual configuration is required.
Static vs dynamic IP handling
The control plane extracts a node’s external IP from HTTP request headers on every heartbeat (30s interval) — nodes never self-report their external IP. On each heartbeat:
- LastIP is updated; if it changed, a GeoIP re-lookup fires async
- If no PublicEndpoint is configured and the IP is public, AutoEndpoint is (re)set to http://IP:PORT
Endpoint priority for peer suggestions: PublicEndpoint > AutoEndpoint > Endpoint
If an ISP changes a node’s IP: it self-heals on the next heartbeat. There’s a window of up to ~30s where other nodes may have a stale peer endpoint, but no manual intervention is needed.
Automatic Restart
Section titled “Automatic Restart”During installation, the command line application will prompt you to install the application as a system service. This is to ensure that it starts and runs when your machine reboots.