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Justin Starry 82c6992d6f Import Tour de SOL docs (#8516 )

* Import Tour de SOL docs

* Fix checks

* Fix docs/build.sh

2020-02-28 09:03:14 +08:00

Requirements to run a validator

Hardware

CPU Recommendations
- We recommend a CPU with the highest number of cores as possible. AMD Threadripper or Intel Server (Xeon) CPUs are fine.
- We recommend AMD Threadripper as you get a larger number of cores for parallelization compared to Intel.
- Threadripper also has a cost-per-core advantage and a greater number of PCIe lanes compared to the equivalent Intel part. PoH (Proof of History) is based on sha256 and Threadripper also supports sha256 hardware instructions.
SSD size and I/O style (SATA vs NVMe/M.2)  for a validator
- Minimum example - Samsung 860 Evo 2TB
- Mid-range example - Samsung 860 Evo 4TB
- High-end example - Samsung 860 Evo 4TB
GPUs
- Validator nodes will be required to run with GPUs starting at Stage 1 of Tour de SOL. Without GPUs, a validator will not be able to catch up to the ledger once the network is launched. GPUs are NOT required for validators during Stage 0/Dry Runs of Tour de SOL.
- What kind of GPU?
  - We recommend Nvidia 2080Ti or 1080Ti series consumer GPU or Tesla series server GPUs.
  - We do not currently support OpenCL and therefore do not support AMD GPUs. We have a bounty out for someone to port us to OpenCL. Interested? Check out our GitHub.
Power Consumption
- Approximate power consumption for a validator node running an AMD Threadripper 2950W and 2x 2080Ti GPUs is 800-1000W.

We build and run on Ubuntu 18.04. Some users have had trouble when running on Ubuntu 16.04
See Connecting Your Validator for the current Solana software release.