Battery Park

Zeitgeist Battery Park is still in an alpha "unreleased" phase. You

can follow this guide to connect to it but some things might not work yet. If you would like to report a bug please open an issue on our GitHub repository. Also note that the chain is liable to be reset at any time without warning.

Battery Park is the name of the Zeitgeist testnet. It is named after The Battery, a luscious park on the southern tip of Manhattan island with a view of the Statue of Liberty.

If you want to support and strengthen Battery Park by running your own network node, head over to the section Get Connected. If you want to interact with Battery Park, head over to the section Accessing the User Interface

Get Connected#

Running a Node#

There are two ways that you can run a node and connect to the Battery Park testnet. One way is to build the code from source (this could take up to 45 minutes or more depending on your hardware). The other way is to use Docker which doesn't need to build and can get you started right away.

Building From Source#

The source code is hosted in the zeitgeistpm/zeitgeist repository on the Zeitgeist GitHub.

You will need to clone the code locally, and make sure that you have the dependencies installed. You can use the scripts/init.sh script inside of the code repository to add the dependencies.

# clone the code locally
git clone https://github.com/zeitgeistpm/zeitgeist.git
# change directory
cd zeitgeist
# select correct version
git checkout fb127223ea8990bb27819dbbb9b15a46d7ffea73
# use the initializer script
./scripts/init.sh

After initializing you can then start building by using the cargo command:

cargo build --release

Once the build has finished you will have the zeitgeist binary available in the target/release folder. You can start a node for Battery Park from the root of the directory like so:

./target/release/zeitgeist --chain battery_park --bootnodes /ip4/139.162.171.58/tcp/30333/p2p/12D3KooWPvu5rpH2FNYnAmiQ8X8XqkMiuSFTjH2jwMCSjoam7RGQ

You should see your node begin to sync blocks.

Using Docker#

We publish the latest version to the Docker Hub that can be pulled and ran locally to connect to the network. In order to do this first make sure that you have Docker installed locally.

Downloading the docker image#
docker pull zeitgeistpm/zeitgeist-node:fb127223ea8990bb27819dbbb9b15a46d7ffea73
Running the image with a temporary node id#

You can run the docker image using the following command, but the node id is lost after you shut down the docker image:

docker run zeitgeistpm/zeitgeist-node:fb127223ea8990bb27819dbbb9b15a46d7ffea73 --chain battery_park

If you want to receive rewards through the Zeitgeist collator program for running a node, head over to Generating a key for a permanent node id on Linux

Generating a key for a permanent node id on Linux#

You need a permanent node id if you want to participate in the Zeitgeist collator program. Execute the following code, but make sure to read the comments and adjust the variable ZEITGEIST_KEY_PATH and ZEITGEIST_KEY_NAME:

# Configure where your key is stored (last character must not be "/")
ZEITGEIST_KEY_PATH="${HOME}/.zeitgeist"
# Configure the key name
ZEITGEIST_KEY_NAME="node_key"
mkdir -p ${ZEITGEIST_KEY_PATH}
# Attention: Old keys you stored in the same path might be overwritten here
xxd -l 32 -c 32 -p /dev/urandom > ${ZEITGEIST_KEY_PATH}/${ZEITGEIST_KEY_NAME}
chmod 600 ${ZEITGEIST_KEY_PATH}/${ZEITGEIST_KEY_NAME}

If you simply run the docker image directly, make sure to export the ZEITGEIST_KEY_PATH environment variable on login:

echo -e "\n# Zeitgeist node id secret file\nexport ZEITGEIST_KEY_PATH=${ZEITGEIST_KEY_PATH}\nexport ZEITGEIST_KEY_NAME=${ZEITGEIST_KEY_NAME}" >> ${HOME}/.profile

note: Opening a new terminal will require to source the profile file again, such that the environment variables are active again: source ${HOME}/.profile. You can log out of and into your system again to automate this procedure.

If you want to run a service that automatically runs the node, make sure to include the ZEITGEIST_KEY_PATH and the ZEITGEIST_KEY_NAME environment variables in the service file, again the last character of ZEITGEIST_KEY_PATH must not be "/":

Environment="ZEITGEIST_KEY_PATH=${HOME}/.zeitgeist"
Environment="ZEITGEIST_KEY_NAME=node_key"

Make sure to backup the secret file to a safe place to avoid loss of rewards due to a lost secret for the node id:

cp ${ZEITGEIST_KEY_PATH}/${ZEITGEIST_KEY_NAME} /your/safe/place
Generating a key for a permanent node id on Windows#

Windows instructions will follow soon.

Running the docker image with a permanent node id#

executing the following command launch the node using the node id file that we generated before to assure a constant node id:

docker run zeitgeistpm/zeitgeist-node:fb127223ea8990bb27819dbbb9b15a46d7ffea73 --chain battery_park --node-key "$(cat ${ZEITGEIST_KEY_PATH}/${ZEITGEIST_KEY_NAME})"

Accessing the User Interface#

You can access the Apps based (advanced) UI at: https://polkadot.js.org/apps/?rpc=wss://bp-rpc.zeitgeist.pm

Faucet#

We operate a faucet discord channel, that offers a faucet that can be used to receive the native Zeitgeist currency for the Battery Park testnet, ZBP (Zeitgeist Battery Park), which is required for numerous interactions with Battery Park. You can request 1 ZBP per 36 hours by using the !drip your_account_address command in the faucet discord channel. The account address should start with a "5".

There are numerous ways to generate an account, we suggest to use Polkadot{.js} extension though, because it is simple and straightforward to use. You can get it at:

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