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Join an Ephemeral Network (Betanet / Branch Environments)

This guide is for developers or testers who want to join a short-lived, branch-based Kubernetes environment (including betanet). These environments are ephemeral and may be offline at any time.

Pre-Requisites​

Prerequisite: Ensure the veranad binary is installed and up-to-date.
See Install or Update Veranad Binary.

Verify the installation:

veranad version

Remote CLI (no local node)​

If you only want to query or send transactions without running a node locally, point your CLI to the environment RPC endpoint:

CHAIN_ID="vna-devnet-feature-foo"
NODE_RPC="https://rpc.${CHAIN_ID}.devnet.verana.network"

veranad q bank balances <address> --node "$NODE_RPC"

How namespaces and endpoints are derived​

Ephemeral environments are created by GitHub Actions and use a namespace derived from the branch name:

  • Default namespace: vna-devnet-<VERANA_BRANCH> (slashes replaced with -)
  • If the branch is main, the default becomes vna-devnet-main
  • This namespace is also the chain ID and the S3 path prefix

RPC/API pattern

  • RPC: https://rpc.<NAMESPACE>.devnet.verana.network
  • API: https://api.<NAMESPACE>.devnet.verana.network

Example for branch feature/foo:

  • Namespace / chain ID: vna-devnet-feature-foo
  • RPC: https://rpc.vna-devnet-feature-foo.devnet.verana.network
  • API: https://api.vna-devnet-feature-foo.devnet.verana.network

Betanet example (simplified, stable name):

  • Namespace / chain ID: vna-betanet-1
  • RPC: https://rpc.vna-betanet-1.devnet.verana.network
  • API: https://api.vna-betanet-1.devnet.verana.network
  • This is used when a specific branch is deployed but the environment is forced to a stable betanet name to avoid exposing branch-specific namespace complexity.

Steps to Join an Ephemeral Environment​

# Set the namespace/chain-id you want to join
CHAIN_ID="vna-devnet-feature-foo"

# Initialize the node
veranad init "local-ephemeral-node" --chain-id "$CHAIN_ID"

# Minimum gas price
sed -i 's/minimum-gas-prices = ""/minimum-gas-prices = "0.0025uvna"/' ~/.verana/config/app.toml

# Download and validate genesis
curl -o ~/.verana/config/genesis.json \
  "https://utc-public-bucket.s3.bhs.io.cloud.ovh.net/${CHAIN_ID}/config/genesis.json"
veranad validate-genesis

# Fetch persistent peers
PEERS=$(curl -s "https://utc-public-bucket.s3.bhs.io.cloud.ovh.net/${CHAIN_ID}/persistent_peers/persistent_peers.json" \
  | jq -r '.persistent_peers')

sed -i.bak "s|^persistent_peers *=.*|persistent_peers = \"$PEERS\"|" ~/.verana/config/config.toml
sed -i.bak "s|^seeds *=.*|seeds = \"$PEERS\"|" ~/.verana/config/config.toml

# Optional: enable API locally
sed -i 's/^enable = false/enable = true/' ~/.verana/config/app.toml
sed -i 's/^swagger = false/swagger = true/' ~/.verana/config/app.toml
sed -i 's/^address = "tcp:\/\/localhost:1317"/address = "tcp:\/\/0.0.0.0:1317"/' ~/.verana/config/app.toml

# Start the node
veranad start

Running as a Service (optional)​

# --- Step 12: Setup Verana as a systemd Service ---
echo "Setting up veranad as a systemd service..."
sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/veranad.service > /dev/null <<EOF
[Unit]
Description=Verana Daemon
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=$USER
ExecStart=$(which veranad) start
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
LimitNOFILE=65535

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable veranad
sudo systemctl start veranad

# --- Step 13: Post-Installation Instructions ---
echo "Installation complete."
echo "Use the following commands to monitor the node:"
echo "  veranad status"
echo "  veranad status 2>&1 | jq .SyncInfo"
echo "  veranad status 2>&1 | jq .NodeInfo"
echo "  journalctl -u veranad -f"
echo "  journalctl -u veranad -f | grep ERROR"
echo "  htop / iotop for system monitoring"

Notes​

  • These environments are ephemeral and may be offline at any time.
  • Do not use this guide for public testnet or mainnet. Use the dedicated Join Testnet guide instead.