Step 4. Create an Identity

Before starting

Failure to complete these steps will prevent your storage node from working.

Step 1. Understand Prerequisites

Step 2. Setup Port Forwarding

Step 3. Configure QUIC

Introduction

Every node is required to have a unique identifier on the network.

1. Download the Identity Binary

Open a terminal window as a usual user (not administrator or root) and paste the command for your OS:

curl -L https://github.com/storj/storj/releases/latest/download/identity_linux_amd64.zip -o identity_linux_amd64.zip
unzip -o identity_linux_amd64.zip
chmod +x identity
sudo mv identity /usr/local/bin/identity

curl -L https://github.com/storj/storj/releases/latest/download/identity_linux_amd64.zip -o identity_linux_amd64.zip
unzip -o identity_linux_amd64.zip
chmod +x identity
sudo mv identity /usr/local/bin/identity

ARM-based OS

Raspberry PI:

curl -L https://github.com/storj/storj/releases/latest/download/identity_linux_arm.zip -o identity_linux_arm.zip
unzip -o identity_linux_arm.zip
chmod +x identity
sudo mv identity /usr/local/bin/identity

curl -L https://github.com/storj/storj/releases/latest/download/identity_linux_arm.zip -o identity_linux_arm.zip
unzip -o identity_linux_arm.zip
chmod +x identity
sudo mv identity /usr/local/bin/identity

Devices Capable of the AARCH64 Instruction Set:

curl -L https://github.com/storj/storj/releases/latest/download/identity_linux_arm64.zip -o identity_linux_arm64.zip
unzip -o identity_linux_arm64.zip
chmod +x identity
sudo mv identity /usr/local/bin/identity

curl -L https://github.com/storj/storj/releases/latest/download/identity_linux_arm64.zip -o identity_linux_arm64.zip
unzip -o identity_linux_arm64.zip
chmod +x identity
sudo mv identity /usr/local/bin/identity

2. Create an identity

This can take several hours or days, depending on your machines processing power and luck.

Plan to run your Node on a NAS, Raspberry Pi or similar? Create your identity on a more powerful machine and transfer it over.

identity create storagenode

identity create storagenode

If you are unable to execute the command, be sure that you set your file permission to executable: chmod +x identity

This process will continue until it reaches a difficulty of at least 36. On completion, it will look something like this:

3. Backup the identity

Backup before you continue, it should be quick! 🙏

This allows you to restore your Node in case of an unfortunate hardware or OS incident.

Use an external device and backup your identity folder:

Your identity folder is located in:~/.local/share/storj/identity/storagenode

On Raspberry Pi, your identity folder is located in: /home/pi/.local/share/storj/identity/storagenode

Optional: Move the identity to the subfolder in the storage location

It's not required, but could prevent the storagenode from start, if the mounted disk is inaccessible.

Unfortunately this trick will not help, if the disk would disappear while the storagenode running.