Setup a Devnet

This page demonstrates how to setup a Devnet of cloud-based validators using Avalanche-CLI, and deploy a VM into it.

Devnets (Developer Networks) are isolated Avalanche networks deployed on the cloud. Similar to local networks in terms of configuration and usage but installed on remote nodes.

Think of DevNets as being an intermediate step in the developer testing process after local network and before Fuji network.

ALPHA WARNING: This command is currently in experimental mode. Proceed at your own risk.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, you will need to create an AWS account and have an updated AWS credentials file in home directory with [default] profile or set up your GCP account according to here.

Note: the tutorial uses AWS hosts, but Devnets can also be created and operated in other supported cloud providers, such as GCP.

Setting up a Devnet

Setting up a Devnet consists of:

Creating a cluster of cloud servers
Deploying an Avalanche L1 into the cluster
Adding the cloud servers as validator nodes in the Avalanche L1

To execute all steps above in one command, run:

avalanche node devnet wiz <clusterName>

Command line flags can be used instead of interacting with the prompts. The complete command line flags for devnet wiz command can be found here.

Let's go through several examples with the full command (with flags) provided.

Create a Devnet and Deploy Subnet-EVM Based Avalanche L1 into the Devnet

For example, to spin up a Devnet with 5 validator nodes and 1 API node in 5 regions each (us-west-2,us-east-1,ap-south-1,ap-northeast-1,eu-west-1) in AWS with each node having spec of c7g.8xlarge AWS EC2 instance type and io2 volume type, with Avalanche L1 <blockchainName> deployed into the Devnet, we will run :

avalanche node devnet wiz <clusterName> <blockchainName> --authorize-access
  --aws --num-apis 1,1,1,1,1 --num-validators 5,5,5,5,5 
  --region us-west-2,us-east-1,ap-south-1,ap-northeast-1,eu-west-1 --default-validator-params 
  --node-type c7g.8xlarge --aws-volume-type=io2
 
Creating the devnet
...
Waiting for node(s) in cluster <clusterName> to be healthy...
...
Nodes healthy after 33 seconds
 
Deploying the subnet
...
Setting the nodes as subnet trackers
...
Waiting for node(s) in cluster <clusterName>to be healthy...
Nodes healthy after 33 seconds
...
Waiting for node(s) in cluster <clusterName> to be syncing subnet <blockchainName>...
Nodes Syncing <blockchainName> after 5 seconds
 
Adding nodes as subnet validators
...
Waiting for node(s) in cluster <clusterName> to be validating subnet <blockchainName>...
Nodes Validating <blockchainName> after 23 seconds
 
Devnet <clusterName> has been created and is validating subnet <blockchainName>!

Create a Devnet and Deploy a Custom VM based Avalanche L1 into the Devnet

For this example, we will be using the custom VM MorpheusVM built with HyperSDK.

The following settings will be used:

<repoUrl> https://github.com/ava-labs/hypersdk/
<branch> vryx-poc
<buildScript> examples/morpheusvm/scripts/build.sh
<genesisPath> Genesis File
<chainConfigPath> Blockchain Config
<subnetConfigPath> Avalanche L1 Config
<avagoConfigPath> AvalancheGo Config

To spin up a Devnet with 5 validator nodes and 1 API node in 5 regions each (us-west-2,us-east-1,ap-south-1,ap-northeast-1,eu-west-1) in AWS with each node having spec of c7g.8xlarge AWS EC2 instance type and io2 volume type, with the Custom VM based Avalanche L1 <blockchainName> deployed into the Devnet, we will run :

avalanche node devnet wiz <clusterName> <blockchainName> --custom-subnet \
  --subnet-genesis <genesisPath> --custom-vm-repo-url <repoUrl> \
  --custom-vm-branch <branch> --custom-vm-build-script <buildScript> \
  --chain-config <chainConfigPath> --subnet-config <subnetConfigPath> \
  --node-config <avagoConfigPath> --authorize-access --aws --num-apis 1,1,1,1,1 \
  --num-validators 5,5,5,5,5  --region us-west-2,us-east-1,ap-south-1,ap-northeast-1,eu-west-1 \
  --default-validator-params --node-type default
 
Creating the subnet
...
Creating the devnet
...
Waiting for node(s) in cluster <clusterName> to be healthy...
...
Nodes healthy after 33 seconds
 
Deploying the subnet
...
Setting the nodes as subnet trackers
...
Waiting for node(s) in cluster <clusterName>to be healthy...
Nodes healthy after 33 seconds
...
Waiting for node(s) in cluster <clusterName> to be syncing subnet <blockchainName>...
Nodes Syncing <blockchainName> after 5 seconds
 
Adding nodes as subnet validators
...
Waiting for node(s) in cluster <clusterName> to be validating subnet <blockchainName>...
Nodes Validating <blockchainName> after 23 seconds
 
Devnet <clusterName> has been created and is validating subnet <blockchainName>!

Prerequisites

Setting up a Devnet

Create a Devnet and Deploy Subnet-EVM Based Avalanche L1 into the Devnet

Create a Devnet and Deploy a Custom VM based Avalanche L1 into the Devnet

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