Hippius Validator Ansible Deployment

This Ansible project provides a professional-grade deployment for multiple blockchain nodes including IPFS, Subtensor, and Hippius validator nodes.

Structure

ansible/
├── inventory/           # Environment-specific inventories
│   ├── production/      # Production environment
│   └── staging/        # Staging environment
├── roles/              # Role-based tasks
│   ├── common/         # System updates and firewall
│   ├── docker/         # Docker installation
│   ├── ipfs/          # IPFS node setup
│   ├── subtensor/     # Subtensor node setup
│   └── hippius/       # Hippius validator setup
├── group_vars/         # Variables for all groups
├── site.yml            # Main playbook
└── README.md           # This file

Requirements

• Ansible 2.9+
• Target hosts running Ubuntu 24.04
• SSH access to target hosts
• Docker and docker-compose installed on control machine

Components

IPFS Node

• Runs as dedicated IPFS user
• Configurable API and gateway ports
• Systemd service for automatic startup

Subtensor Node

• Runs mainnet-lite node via Docker
• Custom port mapping:
  • External RPC: 9945 → Internal: 9944
  • External P2P: 30334 → Internal: 30333
  • External WS: 9934 → Internal: 9933
• Configured with warp sync for faster synchronization

Hippius Validator

• Runs as root user
• Configured with off-chain worker support
• Default substrate ports (configurable)
• Systemd service for automatic startup
• Automatic ED25519 key management:
  • Uses provided key if specified in hippius_key
  • Generates a secure ED25519 key if none provided
  • Stores key in the network directory with proper permissions

Usage

1. Configure your inventory in inventory/[environment]/hosts.yml
2. Review and adjust variables in group_vars/all.yml:
   • IPFS configuration
   • Subtensor ports and resources
   • Hippius binary location and ports
3. Run the playbook:

# For production
ansible-playbook -i inventory/production/hosts.yml site.yml

to inject keys manually, run the following command:
ansible-playbook -i inventory/production/hosts.yml manual-keys.yml -e "hippius_hotkey_mnemonic='YOUR SEED WORDS HERE'"

Configuration

Important Variables

# IPFS Configuration
ipfs_version: "v0.26.0"
ipfs_api_address: "/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/5001"
ipfs_gateway_address: "/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/8080"

# Subtensor Configuration
subtensor_ports:
  rpc: 9945    # External port for RPC
  p2p: 30334   # External port for P2P
  ws: 9934     # External port for WebSocket

# Hippius Configuration
hippius_binary_url: "https://example.com/hippius-thebrain-latest.tar.gz"
hippius_key: ""  # Optional: Provide ED25519 key in hex format
hippius_ports:
  rpc: 9944
  p2p: 30333
  ws: 9933

Security Notes

• IPFS runs as a dedicated system user
• Subtensor runs in a Docker container with resource limits
• Hippius validator runs as root (as required)
• Firewall rules are automatically configured for all required ports

Maintenance

Service Management

# IPFS
systemctl status ipfs

# Subtensor
docker-compose -f /opt/subtensor/docker-compose.yml ps

# Hippius
systemctl status hippius

Troubleshooting

Check service logs:

# IPFS logs
journalctl -u ipfs -f

# Subtensor logs
docker-compose -f /opt/subtensor/docker-compose.yml logs -f

# Hippius logs
journalctl -u hippius -f