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Loading from a snapshot

Full node

The very first run of a full node, as described in the getting started takes few hours until it is fully in sync with the other nodes in the network, or said differently, until it downloaded a copy of the entire blockchain.

In order to speed up this initial sync process, snapshots are available in the dedicated Alephium Archives repository. An automated process upload snapshots for both testnet and mainnet networks.

Downloading a snapshot​

When preparing the full node for its first run, just before launching it, you can download the latest snapshot and extract (it's a tar file) it at the right location. The snippet below even does this inline, i.e. without doubling the required disk space to download and to extract the snapshot:

ALEPHIUM_HOME=~/.alephium
ALEPHIUM_NETWORK=mainnet
curl -L "$(curl -s https://archives.alephium.org/archives/$ALEPHIUM_NETWORK/full-node-data/_latest.txt)" | tar xf - -C "$ALEPHIUM_HOME/"

A specific file _latest.txt is updated for your convenience, always pointing to the latest snapshot available.

Using a ready-made script​

While the command given above works, it does not cover all the edge failure cases that can happen and can lead the full node database in an inconsistent state. Luckily a ready-to-use script will help you with this task.

ALEPHIUM_HOME=/tmp
ALEPHIUM_NETWORK=mainnet
curl -L https://github.com/touilleio/alephium-standalone/raw/main/snapshot-loader.sh | env ALEPHIUM_HOME=${ALEPHIUM_HOME} ALEPHIUM_NETWORK=${ALEPHIUM_NETWORK} sh

Launching a standalone container​

And finally if you want to try this setup quickly, an OCI image, simply extending the official alephium/alephium image, is doing all the steps describe above automagically: touilleio/alephium-standalone. Its source code provides all the required details around its usage.

A quick reference command to run the standalone container is given below for convenience:

ALEPHIUM_HOME=/tmp
ALEPHIUM_NETWORK=mainnet
docker run -p 39973:39973 -p 127.0.0.1:12973:12973 \
  -v ${ALEPHIUM_HOME}:/alephium-home/.alephium \
  -e ALEPHIUM_NETWORK=${ALEPHIUM_NETWORK} touilleio/alephium-standalone:latest

Explorer database

Alephium Archives repository is also populated with explorer database snapshots. The snapshot can be loaded in the postgresql database of the explorer backend at the first run, using the command below:

ALEPHIUM_NETWORK=mainnet
curl -L $(curl -L -s https://archives.alephium.org/archives/${ALEPHIUM_NETWORK}/explorer-db/_latest.txt) | gunzip -c | psql -U $pg_user -d $database