Migrate from manual node

[vandre]

I previously did a manual node install (i.e. no package install) and would like to use nodekit.

Is this a supported scenario? Ideally I would like to avoid doing fast catch-up again or re-registering keys. My data folder is in ~/node/data

[Brianmitchtay]

I did a package install and have my node data in the standard /var/lib/algorand however I'm interested in the same. I may just dig into the code and try to sort it out but I'm not as capable of a dev as I wish I were :P

[SilentRhetoric]

@vandre @Brianmitchtay NodeKit can be installed on top of an existing node and it will find the install and data directory by checking default locations and env vars. If you have a default node install on Linux it should just work. Let us know!

[vandre]

@SilentRhetoric @Brianmitchtay Ok, so I took a look at install.sh and it looks like it simply launches ./nodekit --boostrap at the end of the script. What I ended up doing is simply killing the process (ctrl-c) and then manually invoking ./nodekit. It correctly detected my node install :)

I guess my ask would be: The install script should check if the ALGORAND_DATA variable exists. If true, then output a message 'ALGORAND_DATA found. Would you like to launch nodekit? in which case the user could choose to launch the TUI or exit back to shell

[tasosbit]

the install script should check if the ALGORAND_DATA variable exists. If true, then output a message 'ALGORAND_DATA found. Would you like to launch nodekit? in which case the user could choose to launch the TUI or exit back to shell

This is a good suggestion. We'll iterate on the nodekit installation experience.

The TUI part of Nodekit tries quite hard to find your node. The configuration order is:

• command line arguments e.g. ./nodekit -d <data dir>
• otherwise, nodekit config file.
• otherwise, ALGORAND_DATA environment variable.
• otherwise, default install location for OS, e.g. /var/lib/algorand on Linux.

But bear in mind that there are 2 levels of support. One is the nodekit TUI where it shows status/accounts and helps with keyregs, and the other is node management, i.e. start/stop/upgrade/uninstall etc

On linux, start/stop happens via systemctl start/stop algorand and upgrades happen via apt

If you start/stop your node a different way, the nodekit will not be able to do so with nodekit start. And if you have not installed via apt, then nodekit will not be able upgrade for you