Single-Board Nodes

It's easy and affordable to build and deploy a node that you can maintain at home.

One of the design benefits to Ubiq's protocol is an 88 second target block time. Compared to Ethereum which targets 14 seconds, the Ubiq chain state grows at a slower pace. Being less resource intensive allows for users to operate nodes on low power hardware like the Raspberry Pi and other small form-factor computers while requiring less drive space.

These steps assume an ethernet connection / headless setup / accessed via SSH / SSD drive for storage.

The following single-board computers are known to work as Ubiq nodes. There are likely many more variants that would suffice, and this list will be expanded as any additional options become known.

Each board links to it's recommended compatible OS.

Download the OS

• Raspberry Pi - 3B / 3B+ / 4B

• Asus - Tinkerboard

• Hardkernel - Odroid XU4

• Hardkernel - Odroid C2

• Libre Computers - Le Potato

• Pine64 - RockPro64

Flash OS to microSD card (or SSD*)

• NOTE! * You can only boot from an SSD if you are using a Pi 3B+ or 4B. When using a Pi 4B you must be sure the EEPROM settings are up to date, and the primary boot media in raspi-config Advanced Settings is set to USB Boot.

• Use Etcher to flash the OS to your microSD card (or SSD, depending).

• For Raspberry Pi, SSH is disabled by default. Enable by placing an empty file named ssh in boot partition of the boot media.

• For Armbian boards, SSH is enabled by default.

• If you must use WiFi instead of a wired ethernet connection you can set up the connection inside your OS config utility after first boot. (Raspberry Pi - sudo raspi-config / Armbian - armbian-config)

First boot / Log In

• For micro SD boot : Connect the SSD drive being used for storage to the system before starting up.

• For SSD boot : Be sure there is no microSD card installed before starting up.

• Logging in via SSH -

  • Raspberry Pi - log in with ssh user@youripaddress ( Defaults - user : pi / passwd : raspberry )

  • Armbian - log in with ssh user@youripaddress ( Defaults - user : root / passwd : 1234

  • Note! Raspberry Pi users should use their OS config utility ( raspi-config ) to change the pi user default password

  • Note! Armbian users will be prompted to create a non-root user when booting a new system. Name that new user node.

  • Note! The ubiq-config tool will prompt you to set your timezone when you attempt to spin up a node, you do not need to do it beforehand.

Download / Install the ubiq-config utility buy running the following commands;

Download the script that makes up the utility ↓

 wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/maaatttt/ubiq/master/ubiq-config.sh

Alter permissions to make the script executable ↓

sudo chmod 755 ubiq-config.sh

Move the utility to the /usr/bin directory ↓

sudo mv ubiq-config.sh /usr/bin/ubiq-config

With that complete, any time you input ubiq-config into your terminal it will invoke an text-based user interface for interacting with your node.