get-aeternity installer

Convenience installer script to set up an Aeternity middleware (ae_mdw) + node using Docker Compose.

What it does:

• Optionally downloads two archives (single prompt in interactive mode) and extracts them into your data directory:
  • Node database archive (computed from NETWORK + DB_VARIANT, unless TARBALL_URL is provided)
  • MDW database archive (computed from NETWORK, unless MDW_TARBALL_URL is provided)
• Ensures docker-compose.yml and aeternity.yaml exist in INSTALL_DIR:
  • By default, downloads them from the official GitHub templates (env-overridable via COMPOSE_URL and AETERNITY_YAML_URL)
  • If the files already exist, they are left unchanged
  • If the remote download is not desired, local templates in templates/ are used as fallback
• Writes a .env with convenient defaults for paths and runtime options
• Mounts the extracted data and aeternity.yaml into the container at the expected paths
• Optionally starts the container via Docker Compose

Snapshots source

Some snapshots of databases are available at downloads.aeternity.io

Warning

• Significant amount of disk space is required (1TB SSD is recommended)
• If you want to sync the blockchain from 0, be aware that it might take days to finish
• Node is not configured for mining (additional setup is required for that)

Prerequisites

• Docker with Compose plugin (docker compose) or docker-compose
• curl or wget
• tar with zstd support or unzstd from the zstd package

Usage

Interactive (prompts):

./get-aeternity.sh

Flow in interactive mode:

• If NETWORK is not provided via env, you'll be asked to choose it first
• The script probes the (computed or overridden) snapshot URLs for their compressed sizes and shows:
  • Individual node + MDW archive sizes
  • Combined size and a recommended free space = 2.5x compressed total
• You'll be asked once whether to download both snapshots (node + MDW)
• If you answer No you can supply local existing .tar.zst archive paths for node and/or MDW instead of downloading
• If no tarball URLs are provided via env, they are computed from the chosen NETWORK (and DB_VARIANT for the node)

Non-interactive (via ENV):

NETWORK=mainnet \
# Optional overrides (uncomment as needed):
# INSTALL_DIR=$PWD/aeternity-node \
# DOWNLOAD_NODE_DB=false \
# DOWNLOAD_MDW_DB=false \
# DB_VARIANT=light \
# TARBALL_URL=https://example.com/custom-node.tar.zst \
# MDW_TARBALL_URL=https://example.com/custom-mdw.tar.zst \
# AETERNITY_YAML_URL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aeternity/get-aeternity/main/templates/aeternity.yaml \
# COMPOSE_URL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aeternity/get-aeternity/main/templates/docker-compose.yml \
./get-aeternity.sh --yes --no-start

Flags:

• -y|--yes|--non-interactive Run without prompts, using ENV/defaults
• --no-start Do not start the service after setup
• --dry-run Show what would be done without downloading, extracting, writing files, or starting services
• -h|--help Show help

Environment variables (optional unless noted):

• NETWORK Network to support: mainnet or testnet/uat (default: mainnet)
• DB_VARIANT Database variant: full or light (default: full; env-only, no prompt)
• DOWNLOAD_NODE_DB If false, skip node DB download/extract (default: true)
• DOWNLOAD_MDW_DB If false, skip MDW DB download/extract (default: true)
• INSTALL_DIR Local install directory (default: current working directory)
• TARBALL_URL Custom URL to the node .tar.zst archive (optional). If not provided, it's computed from NETWORK + DB_VARIANT.
• MDW_TARBALL_URL Custom URL to the MDW .tar.zst archive (optional). If not provided, it's computed from NETWORK.
• For both TARBALL_URL and MDW_TARBALL_URL, if you set them to a local file path (no http(s) / s3:// prefix), the script will not download and will directly extract that archive.
• AETERNITY_YAML_URL URL to aeternity.yaml (optional; if omitted defaults to the official GitHub template)
• COMPOSE_URL URL to docker-compose.yml (optional; if omitted defaults to the official GitHub template)
• .env file will include: HOST_DATA_ROOT, HOST_APP_ROOT, ELIXIR_ERL_OPTIONS, LOG_FILE_PATH

After install

To manage the service:

(cd INSTALL_DIR && docker compose ps)
(cd INSTALL_DIR && docker compose logs -f)
(cd INSTALL_DIR && docker compose down)

If you use docker-compose binary, replace docker compose with docker-compose.

Notes

• .env includes the env for the running container, while the other env vars are for the installer
• DB_VARIANT=light is not recommended as it might cause unexpected issues, mdw requires the full database
• The script writes files into INSTALL_DIR: docker-compose.yml, .env, and downloads/ (and uses templates/ as fallback for config files).
• Data and config are organized under:
  • INSTALL_DIR/data/<network>/mnesia and INSTALL_DIR/data/<network>/mdw.db (NODE and MDW snapshot contents extracted under data/<network>)
  • INSTALL_DIR/app/<network>/aeternity.yaml and INSTALL_DIR/app/<network>/log
• If your tar doesn't support zstd, ensure unzstd is installed (zstd package).
• If you restore from a snapshot it might take a while to sync to the latest block.
• When declining downloads in interactive mode, you can provide local snapshot paths for extraction.
• The script estimates required space (2.5x combined compressed size) but does not yet automatically check free disk space.
• --dry-run can be used to review actions and computed URLs (including size probe) without making any changes.