Upgrade to casper-node v1.5.5

Introduction and Timing

We are requesting that all Casper Testnet participants stage the upgrade of their nodes to a new version of casper_node immediately, using the instructions below. “Staging an upgrade” is a process in which you tell your node to download the upgrade files and prepare them, so that they can automatically be applied at the pre-defined activation point.

For this upgrade, to casper-node v1.5.5, the activation point is Era 11751, which will be approximately around:

In order to not have points deducted for your Testnet reward score, you have to make sure you have properly staged the upgrade well ahead of the activation point, so that your node will be upgraded on time.

Upgrade Staging Instructions

The process to upgrade your node is very straightforward. Log in to your node, and execute the following two commands, one by one:

sudo -u casper /etc/casper/node_util.py stage_protocols casper-test.conf

Verifying Successful Staging

After you have successfully executed the above commands, you can verify that your node is correctly staged with the upgrade by taking a look at your status end-point, as follows:

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8888/status | jq -r

This will print the status of your node to your terminal. Towards the end of the JSON output, you will find an object called next_upgrade, which if you successfully staged your upgrade, will have the following structure and values:

  "next_upgrade": {
    "activation_point": 11751,
    "protocol_version": "1.5.5"
  },

If you see another value here, for example null, then your upgrade staging was not executed successfully.

Please note that the Casper Testnet program is implemented by providing rewards through the Casper Association (CA), a not-for-profit, Switzerland-domiciled organization responsible for overseeing the Casper network and supporting its organic evolution and continued decentralization. MAKE Technology LLC is not affiliated with the Casper Association, and has no control over the program sponsorship or the incentivized reward program, and is hosting these guides and documents as a service to the Casper community only.