Run a node - Linux
Instructions for setting up a Resource Provider (node) on the public Lilypad testnet using Linux, including obtaining necessary funds, installing required software, and ensuring security measures.
These instructions are no longer actively maintained. We recommend using the Docker approach for the most up-to-date and supported setup.
Prerequisites
Linux (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS)
Nvidia GPU
Docker (Ubuntu install)
Nvidia Docker drivers
Network information and testnet tokens
The testnet has a base currency of ETH, as well as a utility token called LP. Both are used for running nodes. To add a node to the testnet, follow these steps:
Metamask
We recommend using MetaMask with custom settings to make things easier. Once you have it installed and setup, here are the settings you need to use:
For a step by step guide on adding the network and importing the LP testnet token, please refer to our Setting up MetaMask documentation.
Fund your wallet with ETH and LP
To obtain testnet LP, use the Lilypad faucet and enter your ETH address.
To obtain testnet ETH, use a third party Arbitrum Sepolia testnet faucet and enter your ETH address.
The faucet will give you both ETH (to pay for gas) and LP (to stake and pay for jobs).
Installation
To set up your environment for using Lilypad with GPU support, you need to install several key components. This guide will walk you through installing Docker, the Nvidia Container Toolkit, Bacalhau, and Lilypad. You'll also configure systemd to manage these services efficiently.
Install Docker
Docker is a platform that allows you to automate the deployment of applications inside lightweight, portable containers.
To install Docker Engine, follow the steps specific to your operating system from the official Docker documentation:
Linux - Docker Engine
Install Nvidia Container Toolkit
To ensure proper operation of your graphics cards and Lilypad, follow these steps to install the Nvidia Toolkit Base Installer: Nvidia Container Toolkit download page
curl -fsSL https://nvidia.github.io/libnvidia-container/gpgkey | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/nvidia-container-toolkit-keyring.gpg \
&& curl -s -L https://nvidia.github.io/libnvidia-container/stable/deb/nvidia-container-toolkit.list | \
sed 's#deb https://#deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/nvidia-container-toolkit-keyring.gpg] https://#g' | \
sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nvidia-container-toolkit.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y nvidia-container-toolkit
Configure the container runtime by using the nvidia-ctk
command:
sudo nvidia-ctk runtime configure --runtime=docker --set-as-default
The nvidia-ctk
command modifies the /etc/docker/daemon.json
file on the host. The file is updated so that Docker can use the NVIDIA Container Runtime.
Restart the Docker daemon:
sudo systemctl restart docker
Install Bacalhau
Bacalhau is a peer-to-peer network of nodes that enables decentralized communication between computers. The network consists of two types of nodes, which can communicate with each other.
To install Bacalhau, run the following in a new terminal window (run each command one by one):
cd /tmp
wget https://github.com/bacalhau-project/bacalhau/releases/download/v1.6.0/bacalhau_v1.6.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz
tar xfv bacalhau_v1.6.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz
sudo mv bacalhau /usr/bin/bacalhau
sudo chown -R $USER /app/data
To check your Bacalhau version use:
bacalhau version
The expected output is:
CLIENT SERVER LATEST
v1.6.0 v1.6.0 <latest Bacalhau version>
If the Bacalhau CLIENT
version is not v1.6.0, it will need to be replaced. Follow the steps here to uninstall and reinstall Bacalhau.
Install Lilypad
The installation process for the Lilypad CLI involves several automated steps to configure it for your specific system. Initially, the setup script identifies your computer's architecture and operating system to ensure compatibility. It will then download the latest production build of the Lilypad CLI directly from the official GitHub repository using curl
and wget
.
Once the CLI tool is downloaded, the script sets the necessary permissions to make the executable file runnable. It then moves the executable to a standard location in your system's path to allow it to be run from any terminal window.
Via official released binaries
# Detect your machine's architecture and set it as $OSARCH
OSARCH=$(uname -m | awk '{if ($0 ~ /arm64|aarch64/) print "arm64"; else if ($0 ~ /x86_64|amd64/) print "amd64"; else print "unsupported_arch"}') && export OSARCH
# Detect your operating system and set it as $OSNAME
OSNAME=$(uname -s | awk '{if ($1 == "Darwin") print "darwin"; else if ($1 == "Linux") print "linux"; else print "unsupported_os"}') && export OSNAME;
# Remove existing lilypad installation if it exists
sudo rm -f /usr/local/bin/lilypad
# Download the latest production build
curl https://api.github.com/repos/lilypad-tech/lilypad/releases/latest | grep "browser_download_url.*lilypad-$OSNAME-$OSARCH-gpu" | cut -d : -f 2,3 | tr -d \" | wget -i - -O lilypad
# Make Lilypad executable and install it
chmod +x lilypad
sudo mv lilypad /usr/local/bin/lilypad
To verify the installation, run lilypad
in the terminal to display the version and a list of available commands, indicating that Lilypad CLI is ready to use.
Write env file
You will need to create an environment directory for your node and add an environment file that contains your node's private key.
To do this, run the following in your terminal:
sudo mkdir -p /app/lilypad
sudo touch /app/lilypad/resource-provider-gpu.env
Next, add your node's private key into /app/lilypad/resource-provider-gpu.env
:
WEB3_PRIVATE_KEY=<YOUR_PRIVATE_KEY> (the private key from a NEW MetaMask wallet FOR THE COMPUTE NODE)
This is the key where you will get paid in LP tokens for jobs run on the network.
You must not reuse your compute node key as a client, even for testing: this will result in failed jobs and will negatively impact your compute node since the wallet address is how nodes are identified on the network.
Setup Arbitrum RPC
The Lilypad Network uses the Arbitrum Sepolia Testnet to settle compute transactions. When a transaction is ready to be saved on-chain, Lilypad cycles through a list of public Arbitrum Sepolia RPC endpoints using the endpoint that settles first to save the compute transaction.
Resource Providers have the option to setup their own Arbitrum RPC endpoint using Alchemy instead of using the default public RPC endpoints.
A personal RPC endpoint helps RPs to avoid reliability issues with the public RPC endpoints used by Lilypad ensuring rewards can be earned and jobs can be run consistently. RPs running a personal RPC endpoint contribute to the fault tolerance and decentralization of the Lilypad Network! Read more in the Alchemy Arbitrum docs.
Install systemd unit for Bacalhau
systemd is a system and service manager for Linux operating systems. systemd operates as a central point of control for various aspects of system management, offering features like parallelization of service startup, dependency-based service management, process supervision, and more.
To install systemd, open /etc/systemd/system/bacalhau.service
in your preferred editor:
sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/bacalhau.service
[Unit]
Description=Lilypad V2 Bacalhau
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target systemd-networkd-wait-online.service
[Service]
Environment="LOG_TYPE=json"
Environment="LOG_LEVEL=debug"
Environment="HOME=/app/lilypad"
Environment="BACALHAU_SERVE_IPFS_PATH=/app/data/ipfs"
Restart=always
RestartSec=5s
ExecStart=/usr/bin/bacalhau serve --orchestrator --compute
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Install systemd unit for GPU provider
Open /etc/systemd/system/lilypad-resource-provider.service
in your preferred editor.
[Unit]
Description=Lilypad V2 Resource Provider GPU
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target systemd-networkd-wait-online.service
[Service]
Environment="LOG_TYPE=json"
Environment="LOG_LEVEL=debug"
Environment="HOME=/app/lilypad"
Environment="OFFER_GPU=1"
EnvironmentFile=/app/lilypad/resource-provider-gpu.env
Restart=always
RestartSec=5s
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/lilypad resource-provider
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Reload systemd's units/daemons (you will need to do this again if you ever change the systemd unit files that we wrote, above)
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
Start Lilypad node
Start systemd units:
sudo systemctl enable bacalhau
sudo systemctl enable lilypad-resource-provider
sudo systemctl start bacalhau
sudo systemctl start lilypad-resource-provider
Now that your services have been installed and enabled, check the status of Bacalhau to ensure it is running correctly on your node:
sudo systemctl status bacalhau
View node status
To check if the node is running use the following command:
sudo systemctl status lilypad-resource-provider
This will give a live output from the Lilypad node. The logs will show the node running and accepting jobs on the network.

Run the following command to get more status info from your node:
sudo journalctl -u lilypad-resource-provider.service -f
To restart your resource provider run:
sudo systemctl restart lilypad-resource-provider
Support for Lilypad RPs
For complex issues, bug reports, or feature requests, open a discussion in the Lilypad-Tech Github organization discussion board.
Navigate to the discussion board, select "New Discussion", choose "rp-issues", and fill out the template.
Without a discussion opened, our team will not be able to support the problem.
For quick questions or minor issues, use the Lilypad Discord #i-need-help channel and provide the following info.
Description (including Lilypad version running on your node)
Hardware Info (including Linux/Windows version)
Related blockchain/ETH addresses of transaction hashes
Output Logs -
sudo systemctl status lilypad-resource-provider
Related links/urls
Screenshots
Update Lilypad version
When a new version of Lilypad is released, it is important for resource providers to update their installations to ensure compatibility and access to the latest features and improvements.
Please note that using sudo rm -rf
is very powerful and can be dangerous if not used carefully.
If the Lilypad RP is running, stop the system (if the node is not running, disregard this first step):
sudo systemctl stop bacalhau
sudo systemctl stop lilypad-resource-provider
Remove the Lilypad executable by running:
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/lilypad
Start your resource provider by running:
sudo systemctl start bacalhau
sudo systemctl start lilypad-resource-provider
Disconnecting a node
To disconnect your node from Lilypad you will need to do a few things to completely offboard.
Using sudo rm -rf
is very powerful and can be dangerous if not used carefully. It is highly recommended to navigate to the parent directory and remove files from there to avoid accidental deletion of important files.
First, stop the node:
sudo systemctl stop bacalhau
sudo systemctl stop lilypad-resource-provider
Next, you must remove the .service
files related to Lilypad and Bacalhau. These files are typically stored in /etc/systemd/system/
. To remove them, run the following command:
sudo rm -rf /etc/systemd/system/lilypad-resource-provider.service /etc/systemd/system/bacalhau.service
Next we notify the systemd manager to reload its configuration by running:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
Then, remove the environment file for the Lilypad resource provider. This file is usually stored in /app/lilypad/
. To remove it, run:
sudo rm -rf /app/lilypad/resource-provider-gpu.env
Finally, if you followed the installation instructions from the Lilypad documentation and moved the executable to /usr/local/bin/lilypad
, it can be removed from there. If the executable is stored in a different directory on your machine, navigate to that directory and remove it from there. To remove the executable, run:
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/lilypad
To remove Bacalhau, run:
sudo rm -rf /usr/bin/bacalhau
As every system is different, these instructions may vary. If you have any issues, please reach out to the team in the Lilypad Discord for help!
View Lilybit_ rewards
To view your Lilybit_ rewards, visit one of the following dashboards and paste your node's public address into the input:
Security
If you want to allowlist only certain modules (e.g. Stable Diffusion modules), to control exactly what code runs on specific nodes (which can be audited to ensure that they are secure and will have no negative impact on the nodes), set an environment variable OFFER_MODULES
in the GPU provider to a comma separated list of module names, e.g. sdxl:v0.9-lilypad1,stable-diffusion:v0.0.1.
Visit the Lilypad GitHub for a full list of available modules.
Run a node video guide
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