Polkadot - snap

Basically the polkadot service built as a snap.

Building the snap

Clone the repo, then build with snapcraft

sudo snap install snapcraft --classic
cd snap-polkadot
snapcraft pack --use-lxd --debug --verbosity=debug # Takes some time.

Upgrading Polkadot version

Simply change the version number here: https://github.com/dwellir-public/snap-polkadot/blob/main/snap/snapcraft.yaml#L58 and then of course rebuild.

Releasing

When a commit is made to the main branch a build will start in launchpad and if successful release to the edge channel. To promote further follow the instructions in this document

Promoting can be done either from this webpage or by running snapcraft release polkadot <revision> <channel>

Hardware requirements

See https://wiki.polkadot.network/docs/maintain-guides-how-to-validate-polkadot#standard-hardware

Install snap

sudo snap install <snap-file> --devmode or from snap store sudo snap install polkadot

Configuration

service-args

default=--base-path=$SNAP_COMMON/polkadot_base --name=

For available arguments see https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk The value set here will be passed to the Polkadot binary with a few exceptions listed below.

• --name defaults to the systems hostname the first time the snap is installed.
• --base-path is always set by the snap to $SNAP_COMMON/polkadot_base and is not allowed to be configured.

Example:

sudo snap set polkadot service-args="--name=my-westend-node --chain=westend"

endure

default=false

If true the Polkadot service will not be restarted after a snap refresh. Note that the Polkadot service will still be restarted as the result of changing service-args, etc.

Use this when restarts should be avoided e.g. when running a validator.

Start the service

sudo snap start polkadot

Check logs from polkadot

sudo snap logs polkadot -f

Stop the service

sudo snap stop polkadot

Alternatively - use systemd

sudo systemctl <stop|start> snap.polkadot.polkadot.service