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Running BitDust supplier node

A supplier is a person who donates part of the storage of their own PC and shares resources with other users in the network.

At the moment suppliers are not rewarded for the contribution they make to the network. Storage contracts and payments with BitDust coins already exist in the software, but at the moment this does not affect the operation of the network in any way, and the function can be disabled in the program settings, see Blockchain and storage contracts.

Read more about BitDust installation or just follow the few steps below to install the software on your machine.

First, clone the BitDust sources locally:

    git clone https://github.com/bitdust-io/public.git bitdust

Create the BitDust virtual Python environment:

    cd bitdust
    python3 bitdust.py install

The last step to make the BitDust software ready to use is to create a short alias in your OS; then you can just type bitdust <some command> in the command line to get fast access to the program:

    sudo ln -s -f /home/<user>/.bitdust/bitdust /usr/local/bin/bitdust  # location depends on your system

Now you need to configure a few software settings to actually donate storage space to the network.

Disable the services you do not need if you run the supplier role. Switch off the "customer" service so your machine will not consume any storage, but only donate it:

    bitdust set services/customer/enabled false

Declare how much space you are willing to donate to the BitDust network:

    bitdust set services/supplier/donated-space 20GB

If you have not yet created an identity for your device in the BitDust network, you can do it with this command:

    bitdust id create <some nick name>

When you do it for the first time, we recommend creating another copy of your Private Key in a safe place to be able to recover your identity in BitDust in the future. You can make a backup copy with this command:

    bitdust key copy <nickname>.bitdust.key

Finally, start the BitDust software in daemon mode so it keeps running in the background and you can keep using your PC:

    bitdust daemon

You can always check the current state of your "donated storage" with this command:

    bitdust storage