Skip to main content
This document describes the upgrade procedure of a gaiad full-node to a new version.

​
Cosmovisor

The Cosmos SDK provides a convenient process manager that wraps around the gaiad binary and can automatically swap in new binaries upon a successful governance upgrade proposal. Cosmovisor is entirely optional but recommended. More information can be found in cosmos.network docs and cosmos-sdk/cosmovisor/readme.

​
Setup

To get started with Cosmovisor first download it 
go install github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/cosmovisor/cmd/cosmovisor
Set up the environment variables 
echo "# Setup Cosmovisor" >> ~/.profile
echo "export DAEMON_NAME=gaiad" >> ~/.profile
echo "export DAEMON_HOME=$HOME/.gaia" >> ~/.profile
source ~/.profile
Create the appropriate directories 
mkdir -p ~/.gaia/cosmovisor/upgrades
mkdir -p ~/.gaia/cosmovisor/genesis/bin/
cp $(which gaiad) ~/.gaia/cosmovisor/genesis/bin/

# verify the setup. 
# It should return the same version as gaiad
cosmovisor version
Now gaiad can start by running 
cosmovisor start

​
Preparing an Upgrade

Cosmovisor will continually poll the $DAEMON_HOME/data/upgrade-info.json for new upgrade instructions. When an upgrade is ready, node operators can download the new binary and place it under $DAEMON_HOME/cosmovisor/upgrades/<name>/bin where <name> is the URI-encoded name of the upgrade as specified in the upgrade module plan. It is possible to have Cosmovisor automatically download the new binary. To do this set the following environment variable. 
export DAEMON_ALLOW_DOWNLOAD_BINARIES=true

​
Manual Software Upgrade

First, stop your instance of gaiad. Next, upgrade the software: 
cd gaia
git fetch --all && git checkout <new_version>
make install
NOTE: If you have issues at this step, please check that you have the latest stable version of GO installed.
See the testnet repo for details on which version is needed for which public testnet, and the Gaia release page for details on each release. Your full node has been cleanly upgraded! If there are no breaking changes then you can simply restart the node by running: 
gaiad start

​
Upgrade Genesis File

If the new version you are upgrading to has breaking changes, you will have to restart your chain. If it is not breaking, you can skip to Restart
To upgrade the genesis file, you can either fetch it from a trusted source or export it locally.

​
Fetching from a Trusted Source

If you are joining the mainnet, fetch the genesis from the mainnet repo. If you are joining a public testnet, fetch the genesis from the appropriate testnet in the testnet repo. Otherwise, fetch it from your trusted source. Save the new genesis as new_genesis.json. Then replace the old genesis.json with new_genesis.json 
cd $HOME/.gaia/config
cp -f genesis.json new_genesis.json
mv new_genesis.json genesis.json
Then, go to the reset data section.

​
Exporting State to a New Genesis Locally

If you were running a node in the previous version of the network and want to build your new genesis locally from a state of this previous network, use the following command: 
cd $HOME/.gaia/config
gaiad export --for-zero-height --height=<export-height> > new_genesis.json
The command above take a state at a certain height <export-height> and turns it into a new genesis file that can be used to start a new network. Then, replace the old genesis.json with new_genesis.json. 
cp -f genesis.json new_genesis.json
mv new_genesis.json genesis.json
At this point, you might want to run a script to update the exported genesis into a genesis that is compatible with your new version. For example, the attributes of the Account type changed, a script should query encoded account from the account store, unmarshal them, update their type, re-marshal and re-store them. You can find an example of such script here.

​
Reset Data

If the version new_version you are upgrading to is not breaking from the previous one, you should not reset the data. If it is not breaking, you can skip to Restart
If you are running a validator node on the mainnet, always be careful when doing gaiad unsafe-reset-all. You should never use this command if you are not switching chain-id.
::: danger IMPORTANT Make sure that every node has a unique priv_validator.json. Do not copy the priv_validator.json from an old node to multiple new nodes. Running two nodes with the same priv_validator.json will cause you to get slashed due to double signing! First, remove the outdated files and reset the data. If you are running a validator node, make sure you understand what you are doing before resetting. 
gaiad unsafe-reset-all
Your node is now in a pristine state while keeping the original priv_validator.json and config.toml. If you had any sentry nodes or full nodes setup before, your node will still try to connect to them, but may fail if they haven’t also been upgraded.

​
Restart

If there are no breaking changes then you can simply restart the node by running: 
gaiad start