Cosmosvisor Quick Start
cosmovisor
is a small process manager for Cosmos SDK application binaries that monitors the governance module via stdout for incoming chain upgrade proposals. If it sees a proposal that gets approved, cosmovisor
can automatically download the new binary, stop the current binary, switch from the old binary to the new one, and finally restart the node with the new binary.
Note: If new versions of the application are not set up to run in-place store migrations, migrations will need to be run manually before restarting cosmovisor
with the new binary. For this reason, we recommend applications adopt in-place store migrations.
Installation
To install cosmovisor
, run the following command:
go get github.com/reapchain/cosmos-sdk/cosmovisor/cmd/cosmovisor
Command Line Arguments And Environment Variables
All arguments passed to cosmovisor
will be passed to the application binary (as a subprocess). cosmovisor
will return /dev/stdout
and /dev/stderr
of the subprocess as its own. For this reason, cosmovisor
cannot accept any command-line arguments other than those available to the application binary, nor will it print anything to output other than what is printed by the application binary.
cosmovisor
reads its configuration from environment variables:
DAEMON_HOME
is the location where the cosmovisor/
directory is kept that contains the genesis binary, the upgrade binaries, and any additional auxiliary files associated with each binary (e.g. $HOME/.gaiad
, $HOME/.regend
, $HOME/.simd
, etc.).
DAEMON_NAME
is the name of the binary itself (e.g. gaiad
, regend
, simd
, etc.).
DAEMON_ALLOW_DOWNLOAD_BINARIES
(optional), if set to true
, will enable auto-downloading of new binaries (for security reasons, this is intended for full nodes rather than validators). By default, cosmovisor
will not auto-download new binaries.
DAEMON_RESTART_AFTER_UPGRADE
(optional), if set to true
, will restart the subprocess with the same command-line arguments and flags (but with the new binary) after a successful upgrade. By default, cosmovisor
stops running after an upgrade and requires the system administrator to manually restart it. Note that cosmovisor
will not auto-restart the subprocess if there was an error.
Folder Layout
$DAEMON_HOME/cosmovisor
is expected to belong completely to cosmovisor
and the subprocesses that are controlled by it. The folder content is organized as follows:
.
├── current -> genesis or upgrades/<name>
├── genesis
│ └── bin
│ └── $DAEMON_NAME
└── upgrades
└── <name>
└── bin
└── $DAEMON_NAME
The cosmovisor/
directory incudes a subdirectory for each version of the application (i.e. genesis
or upgrades/<name>
). Within each subdirectory is the application binary (i.e. bin/$DAEMON_NAME
) and any additional auxiliary files associated with each binary. current
is a symbolic link to the currently active directory (i.e. genesis
or upgrades/<name>
). The name
variable in upgrades/<name>
is the URI-encoded name of the upgrade as specified in the upgrade module plan.
Please note that $DAEMON_HOME/cosmovisor
only stores the application binaries. The cosmovisor
binary itself can be stored in any typical location (e.g. /usr/local/bin
). The application will continue to store its data in the default data directory (e.g. $HOME/.gaiad
) or the data directory specified with the --home
flag. $DAEMON_HOME
is independent of the data directory and can be set to any location. If you set $DAEMON_HOME
to the same directory as the data directory, you will end up with a configuation like the following:
.gaiad
├── config
├── data
└── cosmovisor
Usage
The system administrator is responsible for:
- installing the
cosmovisor
binary
- configuring the host's init system (e.g.
systemd
, launchd
, etc.)
- appropriately setting the environmental variables
- manually installing the
genesis
folder
- manually installing the
upgrades/<name>
folders
cosmovisor
will set the current
link to point to genesis
at first start (i.e. when no current
link exists) and then handle switching binaries at the correct points in time so that the system administrator can prepare days in advance and relax at upgrade time.
In order to support downloadable binaries, a tarball for each upgrade binary will need to be packaged up and made available through a canonical URL. Additionally, a tarball that includes the genesis binary and all available upgrade binaries can be packaged up and made available so that all the necessary binaries required to sync a fullnode from start can be easily downloaded.
The DAEMON
specific code and operations (e.g. tendermint config, the application db, syncing blocks, etc.) all work as expected. The application binaries' directives such as command-line flags and environment variables also work as expected.
Auto-Download
Generally, cosmovisor
requires that the system administrator place all relevant binaries on disk before the upgrade happens. However, for people who don't need such control and want an easier setup (maybe they are syncing a non-validating fullnode and want to do little maintenance), there is another option.
If DAEMON_ALLOW_DOWNLOAD_BINARIES
is set to true
, and no local binary can be found when an upgrade is triggered, cosmovisor
will attempt to download and install the binary itself. The plan stored in the upgrade module has an info field for arbitrary JSON. This info is expected to be outputed on the halt log message. There are two valid formats to specify a download in such a message:
- Store an os/architecture -> binary URI map in the upgrade plan info field as JSON under the
"binaries"
key. For example:
{
"binaries": {
"linux/amd64":"https://example.com/gaia.zip?checksum=sha256:aec070645fe53ee3b3763059376134f058cc337247c978add178b6ccdfb0019f"
}
}
- Store a link to a file that contains all information in the above format (e.g. if you want to specify lots of binaries, changelog info, etc. without filling up the blockchain). For example:
https://example.com/testnet-1001-info.json?checksum=sha256:deaaa99fda9407c4dbe1d04bd49bab0cc3c1dd76fa392cd55a9425be074af01e
When cosmovisor
is triggered to download the new binary, cosmovisor
will parse the "binaries"
field, download the new binary with go-getter, and unpack the new binary in the upgrades/<name>
folder so that it can be run as if it was installed manually.
Note that for this mechanism to provide strong security guarantees, all URLs should include a SHA 256/512 checksum. This ensures that no false binary is run, even if someone hacks the server or hijacks the DNS. go-getter
will always ensure the downloaded file matches the checksum if it is provided. go-getter
will also handle unpacking archives into directories (in this case the download link should point to a zip
file of all data in the bin
directory).
To properly create a sha256 checksum on linux, you can use the sha256sum
utility. For example:
sha256sum ./testdata/repo/zip_directory/autod.zip
The result will look something like the following: 29139e1381b8177aec909fab9a75d11381cab5adf7d3af0c05ff1c9c117743a7
.
You can also use sha512sum
if you would prefer to use longer hashes, or md5sum
if you would prefer to use broken hashes. Whichever you choose, make sure to set the hash algorithm properly in the checksum argument to the URL.
Example: SimApp Upgrade
The following instructions provide a demonstration of cosmovisor
using the simulation application (simapp
) shipped with the Cosmos SDK's source code. The following commands are to be run from within the cosmos-sdk
repository.
First, check out the latest v0.42
release:
git checkout v0.42.7
Compile the simd
binary:
make build
Reset ~/.simapp
(never do this in a production environment):
./build/simd unsafe-reset-all
Configure the simd
binary for testing:
./build/simd config chain-id test
./build/simd config keyring-backend test
./build/simd config broadcast-mode block
Initialize the node and overwrite any previous genesis file (never do this in a production environment):
./build/simd init test --chain-id test --overwrite
Set the minimum gas price to 0stake
in ~/.simapp/config/app.toml
:
minimum-gas-prices = "0stake"
Create a new key for the validator, then add a genesis account and transaction:
./build/simd keys add validator
./build/simd add-genesis-account validator 1000000000stake --keyring-backend test
./build/simd gentx validator 1000000stake --chain-id test
./build/simd collect-gentxs
Set the required environment variables:
export DAEMON_NAME=simd
export DAEMON_HOME=$HOME/.simapp
Set the optional environment variable to trigger an automatic restart:
export DAEMON_RESTART_AFTER_UPGRADE=true
Create the folder for the genesis binary and copy the simd
binary:
mkdir -p $DAEMON_HOME/cosmovisor/genesis/bin
cp ./build/simd $DAEMON_HOME/cosmovisor/genesis/bin
For the sake of this demonstration, amend voting_period
in genesis.json
to a reduced time of 20 seconds (20s
):
cat <<< $(jq '.app_state.gov.voting_params.voting_period = "20s"' $HOME/.simapp/config/genesis.json) > $HOME/.simapp/config/genesis.json
Next, we will hardcode a modification in simapp
to simulate a code change. In simapp/app.go
, find the line containing the UpgradeKeeper
initialization. It should look like the following:
app.UpgradeKeeper = upgradekeeper.NewKeeper(skipUpgradeHeights, keys[upgradetypes.StoreKey], appCodec, homePath)
After that line, add the following:
app.UpgradeKeeper.SetUpgradeHandler("test1", func(ctx sdk.Context, plan upgradetypes.Plan) {
// Add some coins to a random account
addr, err := sdk.AccAddressFromBech32("cosmos18cgkqduwuh253twzmhedesw3l7v3fm37sppt58")
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
err = app.BankKeeper.AddCoins(ctx, addr, sdk.Coins{sdk.Coin{Denom: "stake", Amount: sdk.NewInt(345600000)}})
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
})
Now recompile the simd
binary with the added upgrade handler:
make build
Create the folder for the upgrade binary and copy the simd
binary:
mkdir -p $DAEMON_HOME/cosmovisor/upgrades/test1/bin
cp ./build/simd $DAEMON_HOME/cosmovisor/upgrades/test1/bin
Start cosmosvisor
:
cosmovisor start
Open a new terminal window and submit an upgrade proposal along with a deposit and a vote (these commands must be run within 20 seconds of each other):
./build/simd tx gov submit-proposal software-upgrade test1 --title upgrade --description upgrade --upgrade-height 20 --from validator --yes
./build/simd tx gov deposit 1 10000000stake --from validator --yes
./build/simd tx gov vote 1 yes --from validator --yes
The upgrade will occur automatically at height 20.