Ping validator

By running pinger the validator shares leader data transmission times with the network.

Why Pinger?

Once a RPC receives a transaction message to be included in a block, it must be forwarded to the leader. Being fast to transmit data to the leader is important for the network and consensus speed.

It's important to keep track of your validators ping times to make sure your meet the leader schedule requirements of performance.

Pinger dashboard

Ping times are measuring the time it takes for you validator to communicate with the current leader. Since the leader switches every 4 slots (1.6s) the variance of your ping times, usually between 500-3000ms, is big depending on the distance to the ever switching current leader.

Install node.js

Choose latest version, your OS and nvm. Run commands in terminal.

Install and run pinger

Following steps will install pinger and have it run automatically.

Get code

git clone https://github.com/jacklevin74/pinger/

cd pinger

Install child_express

npm install express child_process

Set keypair to id.json*

solana config set -k ~/.config/solana/id.json

*or any keypair that has funds. You are sending a transaction with every ping.

Create pinger program

Create a file called pinger:

nano pinger

Paste instruction to continuously run pinger:

while true ; do node server.js; done

If you have firewall on, open port

Enable UFW if not already enabled:

sudo ufw enable

Allow Port 3334

sudo ufw allow 3334/tcp

Run pinger

nohup sh pinger &

See output:

tail -f nohup.out

You can now close the terminal window. Your validator will continuously measure and share your leader ping times.

Kill pinger

Get PID:

ps uax | grep pinger

kill (PID)

Get ping metrics

apt install jq

curl http://localhost:3334/ping_times | jq

Also check your ping times on x1val.online:

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Last updated 1 month ago