Node Operations and Maintenance

What is the difference between a full node and a light node on the Toto Chain?

Full Node:
- Stores the last 256 blocks of the blockchain.
- Participates in block validation and relaying transactions.
- Requires significant storage and bandwidth.
Light Node:
- Stores only the latest state of the blockchain.
- Relies on full nodes for transaction validation.
- Optimized for low-resource environments, making it ideal for users who need lightweight access to the network.
Archive Node (For Comparison):
- Stores all historical data of the blockchain.
- Requires the most storage and is mainly used for research or historical queries.

Bandwidth:
- The chain produces 10 KB per block.
- With a 3-second block time, this results in ~288 MB per day.
- Over a month, this amounts to ~8.6 GB of bandwidth usage.
Storage:
- A full node stores only the last 256 blocks, meaning storage is relatively low.
- However, archive nodes (which store all blocks) require hundreds of gigabytes, with the RocksDB database growing significantly over time.

Yes, there are penalties for node downtime:

Removal from the validator list if a node fails to produce blocks consistently.
Blacklisting for a set period if a node remains inactive.
Longer block times due to offline nodes, affecting network performance.
Plans for a reputation system that will impact future governance participation based on uptime and reliability.

The Toto Chain provides the following tools:

Monitoring & Diagnostics:
- Grafana (for performance monitoring).
- Prometheus (for metric collection).
- Substrate Telemetry (for real-time blockchain status).
Technical Support & Documentation:
- A ReadMe guide exists for node setup.
- Substrate and Polkadot tutorials are recommended for additional context.
- The team is working on improving node setup and validator configuration guides.

Last updated 9 months ago