Solo User Guide

Solo is built on Node.js, so you’ll need version 20.18.0 or higher. We recommend using Node Version Manager (nvm) for easy version management:

# Install nvm (macOS/Linux)
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.39.0/install.sh | bash

# Install nvm (Windows - use nvm-windows)# Download from: https://github.com/coreybutler/nvm-windows# Install Node.js
nvm install 20.18.0
nvm use 20.18.0

# Verify installation
node --version

Docker is essential for running the containerized Hedera network components:

• macOS/Windows: Download Docker Desktop from docker.com
• Linux: Follow the installation guide for your distribution at docs.docker.com

After installation, ensure Docker is running:

docker --version
docker ps

Open your terminal and install Solo globally using npm:

npm install -g @hashgraph/solo

# Verify the installation
solo --version

You should see output showing the latest version which should match our NPM package version: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@hashgraph/solo

The team is presently working on a number of fixes and automation that will relegate the need for this, but currently as deployed Solo can be finnicky with artifacts from prior installs. A quick command to prep your station for a new install is a good idea.

for cluster in $(kind get clusters);do;kind delete cluster -n $cluster;done
rm -Rf ~/.solo

You need to declare some environmental variables. Keep note that unless you intentionally include these in your zsh config when you close your terminal you may lose them.

*throughout the remainder of this walkthrough for simplicity sake I will assume in commands these are the values in your .env

export SOLO_CLUSTER_NAME=solo
export SOLO_NAMESPACE=solo
export SOLO_CLUSTER_SETUP_NAMESPACE=solo-cluster
export SOLO_DEPLOYMENT=solo-deployment

kind create cluster -n "${SOLO_CLUSTER_NAME}"

Example output:

Creating cluster "solo-e2e" ...
 ✓ Ensuring node image (kindest/node:v1.32.2) 🖼
 ✓ Preparing nodes 📦
 ✓ Writing configuration 📜
 ✓ Starting control-plane 🕹️
 ✓ Installing CNI 🔌
 ✓ Installing StorageClass 💾
Set kubectl context to "kind-solo-e2e"
You can now use your cluster with:

kubectl cluster-info --context kind-solo-e2e

Have a nice day! 👋

• You may use a remote Kubernetes cluster. In this case, ensure Kubernetes context is set up correctly.

kubectl config get-contexts
kubectl config use-context <context-name>

Reset the .solo directory before initializing Solo. This step is crucial to ensure a clean setup without any leftover artifacts from previous installations. See: *Cleaning up an old install

solo init

Example output:

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: init
**********************************************************************************
✔ Setup home directory and cache
✔ Check dependency: helm [OS: linux, Release: 5.15.0-131-generic, Arch: x64]
✔ Check dependencies
✔ Create local configuration
✔ Setup chart manager

***************************************************************************************
Note: solo stores various artifacts (config, logs, keys etc.) in its home directory: /home/runner/.solo
If a full reset is needed, delete the directory or relevant sub-directories before running 'solo init'.
***************************************************************************************
✔ Copy templates in '/home/runner/.solo/cache'

This command will create a deployment in the specified clusters, and generate the LocalConfig and RemoteConfig used by k8s.

The deployment will:

• Create a namespace (usually matching the deployment name)
• Set up ConfigMaps and secrets
• Deploy network infrastructure
• Create persistent volumes if needed

📝 notice that the --cluster-ref value is kind-solo, when you created the Kind cluster it created a cluster reference in the Kubernetes config with the name kind-solo. If you used a different name, replace kind-solo with your cluster name, but prefixing with kind-. If you are working with a remote cluster, you can use the name of your cluster reference which can be gathered with the command: kubectl config get-contexts. 📝 Note: Solo stores various artifacts (config, logs, keys etc.) in its home directory: ~/.solo. If you need a full reset, delete this directory before running solo init ag

# connect to the cluster you created in a previous command
solo cluster-ref connect --cluster-ref kind-${SOLO_CLUSTER_NAME} --context kind-${SOLO_CLUSTER_NAME}

#create the deployment
solo deployment create -n "${SOLO_NAMESPACE}" --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}"

Example output:

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: cluster-ref connect --cluster-ref kind-solo --context kind-solo
**********************************************************************************
✔ Initialize
✔ kind-solo
✔ Test connection to cluster: kind-solo
✔ Associate a context with a cluster reference: kind-solo

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: deployment create --namespace solo --deployment solo-deployment --realm 0 --shard 0
Kubernetes Namespace	: solo
**********************************************************************************
✔ Initialize
✔ Adding deployment: solo-deployment with namespace: solo to local config

*This command is the first command that will specify how many nodes you want to add to your deployment. For the sake of resource

# Add a cluster to the deployment you created
solo deployment add-cluster --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}" --cluster-ref kind-${SOLO_CLUSTER_NAME} --num-consensus-nodes 1
# If the command line command is unresponsive there's also a handy cluster add configurator you can run `solo deployment add-cluster` without any arguments to get a guided setup.

Example output:

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: deployment add-cluster --deployment solo-deployment --cluster-ref kind-solo --num-consensus-nodes 1
**********************************************************************************
✔ Initialize
✔ Verify args
✔ check ledger phase
✔ Test cluster connection: kind-solo, context: kind-solo
✔ Verify prerequisites
✔ add cluster-ref: kind-solo for deployment: solo-deployment in local config
✔ create remote config for deployment: solo-deployment in cluster: kind-solo

You need to generate keys for your nodes, or in this case single node.

solo node keys --gossip-keys --tls-keys --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}"

Example output:

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: node keys --gossip-keys --tls-keys --deployment solo-deployment
**********************************************************************************
✔ Initialize
✔ Backup old files
✔ Gossip key for node: node1
✔ Generate gossip keys
✔ Backup old files
✔ TLS key for node: node1
✔ Generate gRPC TLS Keys
✔ Finalize

PEM key files are generated in ~/.solo/cache/keys directory.

hedera-node1.crt    hedera-node3.crt    s-private-node1.pem s-public-node1.pem  unused-gossip-pem
hedera-node1.key    hedera-node3.key    s-private-node2.pem s-public-node2.pem  unused-tls
hedera-node2.crt    hedera-node4.crt    s-private-node3.pem s-public-node3.pem
hedera-node2.key    hedera-node4.key    s-private-node4.pem s-public-node4.pem

solo cluster-ref setup -s "${SOLO_CLUSTER_SETUP_NAMESPACE}"

Example output:

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: cluster-ref setup --cluster-setup-namespace solo-cluster
**********************************************************************************
✔ Initialize
✔ Prepare chart values
 - Installed solo-cluster-setup chart, version: 0.54.3
✔ Install 'solo-cluster-setup' chart

⚠️ Block Node is experimental in Solo. It requires a minimum of 16 GB of memory allocated to Docker. If you have less than 16 GB of memory, skip this step.

As mentioned in the warning, Block Node uses a lot of memory. In addition, it requires a version of Consensus Node to be at least v0.62.3. You will need to augment the solo network deploy & solo node setup command with the --release-tag v0.62.6 option to ensure that the Consensus Node is at the correct version. *note: v0.62.6 is the latest patch for v0.62

solo block node add --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}" --cluster-ref kind-"${SOLO_CLUSTER_NAME}" --release-tag v0.62.6

Example output:

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: block node add --deployment solo-deployment --cluster-ref kind-solo --release-tag v0.62.6
**********************************************************************************
✔ Acquire lock - lock acquired successfully, attempt: 1/10
✔ Initialize
✔ Prepare release name
✔ Prepare chart values
 - Installed block-node-0 chart, version: 0.11.0
✔ Deploy block node
✔ Check block node pod is running
✔ Check software
✔ Check block node pod is ready
✔ Check block node readiness - [1/100] success
✔ Add block node component in remote config

Deploying the network runs risks of timeouts as images are downloaded, and pods are starting. If you experience a failure double check the resources you’ve allocated in docker engine and give it another try.

solo network deploy --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}"

Example output:

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: network deploy --deployment solo-deployment --release-tag v0.62.6
**********************************************************************************
✔ Acquire lock - lock acquired successfully, attempt: 1/10
✔ Initialize
✔ Check if cluster setup chart is installed
✔ Copy Gossip keys to staging
✔ Copy gRPC TLS keys to staging
✔ Prepare staging directory
✔ Copy Gossip keys
✔ Node: node1, cluster: kind-solo
✔ Copy TLS keys
✔ Copy node keys to secrets
 - Installed solo-deployment chart, version: 0.54.3
✔ Install chart 'solo-deployment'
✔ Check Node: node1, Cluster: kind-solo
✔ Check node pods are running
✔ Check Envoy Proxy for: node1, cluster: kind-solo
✔ Check HAProxy for: node1, cluster: kind-solo
✔ Check proxy pods are running
✔ Check MinIO
✔ Check auxiliary pods are ready
✔ Add node and proxies to remote config
✔ Copy block-nodes.json

This step downloads the hedera platform code and sets up your node/nodes.

# node setup
solo node setup --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}" "${CONSENSUS_NODE_FLAG[@]}"

Example output:

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: node setup --deployment solo-deployment --release-tag v0.62.6
**********************************************************************************
✔ Load configuration
✔ Initialize
✔ Validating state for node node1 - valid state: requested
✔ Validate nodes states
✔ Check network pod: node1
✔ Identify network pods
✔ Update node: node1 [ platformVersion = v0.62.6, context = kind-solo ]
✔ Fetch platform software into network nodes
✔ Copy configuration files
✔ Set file permissions
✔ Node: node1
✔ Setup network nodes
✔ Change node state to configured in remote config

Now that everything is set up you need to start them.

# start your node/nodes
solo node start --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}"

Example output:

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: node start --deployment solo-deployment
**********************************************************************************
✔ Load configuration
✔ Initialize
✔ Validating state for node node1 - valid state: configured
✔ Validate nodes states
✔ Check network pod: node1
✔ Identify existing network nodes
✔ Start node: node1
✔ Starting nodes
✔ Check network pod: node1  - status ACTIVE, attempt: 18/300
✔ Check all nodes are ACTIVE
✔ Check proxy for node: node1
✔ Check node proxies are ACTIVE
✔ Change node state to started in remote config
✔ Adding stake for node: node1
✔ Add node stakes

This is the most memory intensive step from a resource perspective. If you have issues at this step try checking your local resource utilization and make sure there’s memory available for docker (close all unessential applications). Likewise, you can consider lowering your swap in docker settings to ease the swap demand, and try again.

# Deploy with explicit configuration
solo mirror-node deploy --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}" --cluster-ref kind-${SOLO_CLUSTER_NAME}

Example output:

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: mirror-node deploy --deployment solo-deployment --cluster-ref kind-solo --quiet-mode
**********************************************************************************
✔ Acquire lock - lock acquired successfully, attempt: 1/10
✔ Initialize
✔ Prepare address book
 - Installed mirror chart, version: v0.131.0
✔ Deploy mirror-node
✔ Enable mirror-node
✔ Check Postgres DB
✔ Check GRPC
✔ Check REST API
✔ Check Monitor
✔ Check Importer
✔ Check pods are ready
✔ Insert data in public.file_data
✔ Seed DB data
✔ Add mirror node to remote config

Watch the deployment progress:

# deploy explorer
solo explorer deploy --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}" --cluster-ref kind-${SOLO_CLUSTER_NAME}

Example output:

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: explorer deploy --deployment solo-deployment --cluster-ref kind-solo --quiet-mode
**********************************************************************************
✔ Acquire lock - lock acquired successfully, attempt: 1/10
✔ Initialize
✔ Load remote config
 - Installed hiero-explorer chart, version: 25.0.0
✔ Install explorer
✔ Check explorer pod is ready
✔ Add explorer to remote config

The JSON RPC relay allows you to interact with your Hedera network using standard JSON RPC calls. This is useful for integrating with existing tools and libraries.

#deploy a solo JSON RPC relay
solo relay deploy -i node1 --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}"

Example output:

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: relay deploy --node-aliases node1 --deployment solo-deployment
**********************************************************************************
✔ Acquire lock - lock acquired successfully, attempt: 1/10
✔ Initialize
✔ Check chart is installed
✔ Prepare chart values
 - Installed relay-node1 chart, version: v0.67.0
✔ Deploy JSON RPC Relay
✔ Check relay is running
✔ Check relay is ready
✔ Add relay component in remote config

Here is a command if you want to check the status of your Solo Kubernetes pods:

# Check pod status
kubectl get pods -n solo

At this time Solo doesn’t automatically set up port forwarding for you, so you’ll need to do that manually.

The port forwarding can be done using kubectl port-forward command. For example, to forward the consensus service port:

# Consensus Service for node1 (node ID = 0): localhost:50211
kubectl port-forward svc/haproxy-node1-svc -n "${SOLO_NAMESPACE}" 50211:50211 > /dev/null 2>&1 &
# Explorer UI: http://localhost:8080
kubectl port-forward svc/hiero-explorer -n "${SOLO_NAMESPACE}" 8080:80 > /dev/null 2>&1 &
# Mirror Node gRPC: localhost:5600
kubectl port-forward svc/mirror-grpc -n "${SOLO_NAMESPACE}" 5600:5600 > /dev/null 2>&1 &
# Mirror Node REST API: http://localhost:5551
kubectl port-forward svc/mirror-rest -n "${SOLO_NAMESPACE}" 5551:80 > /dev/null 2>&1 &
# Mirror Node REST Java API http://localhost:8084
kubectl port-forward service/mirror-restjava -n "${SOLO_NAMESPACE}" 8084:80 > /dev/null 2>&1 &
# JSON RPC Relay: localhost:7546
kubectl port-forward svc/relay-node1-hedera-json-rpc-relay -n "${SOLO_NAMESPACE}" 7546:7546 > /dev/null 2>&1 &

You can control individual nodes or the entire network:

# Stop all nodes
solo node stop --deployment solo-deployment

# Stop a specific node
solo node stop --node-id node-0 --deployment solo-deployment

# Restart nodes
solo node restart --deployment solo-deployment

# Start nodes again
solo node start --deployment solo-deployment

Access Solo and Consensus Node logs for troubleshooting:

# Download logs from all nodes

# Logs are saved to ~/.solo/logs/<namespace>/<pod-name>/# You can also use kubectl directly:
solo node logs --node-aliases node1 --deployment solo-deployment

To update nodes to a new Hedera version, you need up upgrade to one minor version higher at a time:

solo node upgrade --deployment solo-deployment --upgrade-version v0.62.6

If pods remain in Pending or CrashLoopBackOff state:

# Check pod events
kubectl describe pod -n solo network-node-0

# Common fixes:# - Increase Docker resources (memory/CPU)# - Check disk space# - Restart Docker and kind cluster

If you can’t connect to network endpoints:

# Check service endpoints
kubectl get svc -n solo

# Manually forward ports if needed
kubectl port-forward -n solo svc/network-node-0 50211:50211

If nodes aren’t forming consensus:

# Check node status
solo node states --deployment solo-deployment --node-aliases node1

# Look for gossip connectivity issues
kubectl logs -n solo network-node-0 | grep -i gossip

# Restart problematic nodes
solo node refresh --node-aliases node1 --deployment solo-deployment

When you need assistance:

1. Check the logs: Use solo node logs --deployment solo-deployment --node-aliases node1 and examine ~/.solo/logs/
2. Documentation: Visit https://solo.hiero.org/latest/docs/
3. GitHub Issues: Report bugs at https://github.com/hiero-ledger/solo/issues
4. Community Support: Join the Hedera Discord community: https://discord.gg/Ysruf53q

When you’re done with your test network:

*Fast clean up

for cluster in $(kind get clusters);do;kind delete cluster -n $cluster;done
rm -Rf ~/.solo

1. Destroy relay node

solo relay destroy -i node1 --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}"

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: relay destroy --node-aliases node1 --deployment solo-deployment
**********************************************************************************
✔ Acquire lock - lock acquired successfully, attempt: 1/10
✔ Initialize
✔ Destroy JSON RPC Relay
✔ Remove relay component from remote config

2. Destroy mirror node

solo mirror-node destroy --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}" --force

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: mirror-node destroy --deployment solo-deployment --quiet-mode
**********************************************************************************
✔ Acquire lock - lock acquired successfully, attempt: 1/10
✔ Initialize
✔ Destroy mirror-node
✔ Delete PVCs
✔ Uninstall mirror ingress controller
✔ Remove mirror node from remote config

3. Destroy explorer node

solo explorer destroy --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}" --force

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: explorer destroy --deployment solo-deployment --quiet-mode
**********************************************************************************
✔ Acquire lock - lock acquired successfully, attempt: 1/10
✔ Initialize
✔ Load remote config
✔ Destroy explorer
✔ Uninstall explorer ingress controller
✔ Remove explorer from remote config

*Destroy block node (Experimental)

solo block node destroy --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}"

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: block node destroy --deployment solo-deployment
**********************************************************************************
✔ Acquire lock - lock acquired successfully, attempt: 1/10
✔ Initialize
✔ Look-up block node
✔ Destroy block node
✔ Disable block node component in remote config

4. Destroy network

solo network destroy --deployment "${SOLO_DEPLOYMENT}" --force

******************************* Solo *********************************************
Version			: 0.39.0
Kubernetes Context	: kind-solo
Kubernetes Cluster	: kind-solo
Current Command		: network destroy --deployment solo-deployment --quiet-mode
**********************************************************************************
✔ Acquire lock - lock acquired successfully, attempt: 1/10
✔ Initialize
✔ Remove deployment from local configuration
✔ Deleting the RemoteConfig configmap in namespace solo

Congratulations! You now have a working Hedera test network. Here are some suggestions for what to explore next:

1. Deploy Smart Contracts: Test your Solidity contracts on the local network
2. Mirror Node Queries: Explore the REST API at http://localhost:5551
3. Multi-Node Testing: Add more nodes to test scalability
4. Network Upgrades: Practice upgrading the Hedera platform version
5. Integration Testing: Connect your applications to the local network

Remember, this is your personal Hedera playground. Experiment freely, break things, learn, and have fun building on Hedera!

Happy coding with Solo! 🚀