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Validator
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Support external chains
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Overview

Overview

As a validator for the Axelar network, your Axelar node will vote on the status of external blockchains such as Ethereum, Cosmos, etc. Specifically:

  1. Select which external chains your Axelar node will support. Set up and configure your own nodes for the chains you selected.
  2. Provide RPC endpoints for these nodes to your Axelar validator node and register as a maintainer for these chains on the Axelar network.

External chains you can support on Axelar

Add external chain info to your validator's configuration

In the axelarate-community git repo edit the file configuration/config.toml: set the rpc_addr and start-with-bridge entries corresponding to the external chain you wish to connect.

Your config.toml file should already contain a snippet like the following:

##### EVM bridges options #####
# Each EVM chain needs the following
# 1. `[[axelar_bridge_evm]]` # header
# 2. `name`                  # chain name (eg. "Ethereum")
# 3. 'rpc_addr'              # EVM RPC endpoint URL; chain maintainers set their own endpoint
# 4. `start-with-bridge`     # `true` to support this chain
#
# see https://docs.axelar.dev/validator/external-chains

[[axelar_bridge_evm]]
name = "Ethereum"
rpc_addr = ""
start-with-bridge = false

[[axelar_bridge_evm]]
name = "Avalanche"
rpc_addr = ""
start-with-bridge = false

[[axelar_bridge_evm]]
name = "Fantom"
rpc_addr = ""
start-with-bridge = false

[[axelar_bridge_evm]]
name = "Moonbeam"
rpc_addr = ""
start-with-bridge = false

[[axelar_bridge_evm]]
name = "Polygon"
rpc_addr = ""
start-with-bridge = false

Example: Ethereum

Edit the Ethereum entry::

[[axelar_bridge_evm]]
name = "Ethereum"
rpc_addr = "my_ethereum_host"
start-with-bridge = true

Substitute your Ethereum RPC address for my_ethereum_host. Be sure to set start-with-bridge to true.

Restart your companion processes

⚠️

Caution: Do not stop the axelar-core process. If you stop axelar-core then you risk downtime for Tendermint consensus, which can result in penalties.

⚠️

Caution: If vald, tofnd are stopped for too long then your validator might fail to produce a heartbeat transaction when needed. The risk of this event can be reduced to near-zero if you promptly restart these processes shortly after a recent round of heartbeat transactions.

💡

Tip: Heartbeat events are emitted every 50 blocks. Your validator typically responds to heartbeat events within 1-2 blocks. It should be safe to restart vald, tofnd at block heights that are 5-10 mod 50.

Stop your companion processes vald, tofnd.

kill -9 $(pgrep tofnd)
kill -9 $(pgrep -f "axelard vald-start")

Immediately resume your companion processes vald, tofnd:

KEYRING_PASSWORD=my-secret-password TOFND_PASSWORD=my-tofnd-password ./scripts/validator-tools-host.sh -n mainnet

Check your connections to new chains in vald

Check your vald logs to see that your validator node has successfully connected to the new EVM chains you added. [How to view logs.]

You should see something like:

2021-11-25T01:25:54Z INF Successfully connected to EVM bridge for chain Ethereum module=vald
2021-11-25T01:25:54Z INF Successfully connected to EVM bridge for chain Avalanche module=vald
2021-11-25T01:25:54Z INF Successfully connected to EVM bridge for chain Fantom module=vald
2021-11-25T01:25:54Z INF Successfully connected to EVM bridge for chain Moonbeam module=vald
2021-11-25T01:25:54Z INF Successfully connected to EVM bridge for chain Polygon module=vald

Register as a maintainer of external chains

For each external blockchain you selected earlier you must inform the Axelar network of your intent to maintain that chain. This is accomplished via the register-chain-maintainer command.

Example: multiple EVM chains in one command:

echo my-secret-password | ~/.axelar/bin/axelard tx nexus register-chain-maintainer avalanche ethereum fantom moonbeam polygon --from broadcaster --chain-id axelar-dojo-1 --home ~/.axelar/.vald --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5
ℹ️

Validator voting for maintained chains

If you have added an RPC endpoint to your configuration for chain C then your validator will always post vote messages for chain C on the Axelar network, regardless of whether you are registered as a maintainer for chain C. (Why? Because the vald process that posts vote messages is stateless; it doesn't know whether your validator is registered as a maintainer for chain C.)

The Axelar consensus protocol simply ignores all votes for chain C events from those validators who are not registered as a maintainer for C.

⚠️

Caution: If for some reason you need to deregister as chain maintainer for a chain C then you should also disable the RPC endpoint for C (set start-with-bridge = false in your config.toml file) and then restart vald. Otherwise, your validator will continue to post vote messages for chain C on the Axelar network, leading to the following consequences:

  • Your broadcaster account will lose funds because the Axelar network does not refund transaction fees for vote messages unless you are a registered maintainer for chain C.
  • You will see spurious error messages in your vald logs.
  • Axelar dashboards might display your votes for chain C even though you are not a registered maintainer for C.
Manual setup
Avalanche