Download nodectl

How to download nodectl for the first time.

⚠️ DEPRECATED: The nodectl utility is no longer supported. This guide is archived for reference only.

New and existing node operators should use the Node Pilot utility. Click here to view the Node Pilot Setup Guide

Before Be Begin

From now on, all instructions will be executed on your remote VPS, not on your local system.

Please make sure to set up and connect to your remote VPS before continuing.

Build Your Node🚉First Time Connection Guide

Download the nodectl binary

1

Navigate to to GitHub

From the web browser navigate to Constellation Network's Stardust Collective GitHub repository dedicated to the development nodectl.

https://github.com/StardustCollective/nodectl/releases

2

Find the newest latest release

It is not recommended to download a pre-release tagged release. These releases are developmental and may contain bugs that can interfere with your node's operations.

3

Choose the right download link

On the Releases page you’ll see direct wget commands for various distros.

For example, for Ubuntu 22.04 and Debian 12 or Ubuntu 24.04.

Please ensure you download the correct version for your Linux distribution. The background libraries required to compile and run nodectl differ between Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04. Downloading the wrong version will result in an inoperable nodectl utility and numerous error messages.

4

Copy & Paste the wget command

On the right-most side of the code block showing the download wget command you should see a clipboard copy icon

5

Paste into your Remote VPS

Paste the command into your remote VPS terminal session. This command is a combination of several commands linked together with the Linux's bash ; to indicate sequential commands that will be executed in order.

The commands executed will perform the following:

1. Attempt to disable nodectl's auto restart feature if nodectl may already be installed on the system to avoid conflicts when attempting to download the nodectl utility. This command will produce an expected error that we can safely ignore.

2. The next command will use wget to download the nodectl utility and place it in the appropriate directory for seamless execution.

3. Next, the permissions of the nodectl binary will be set to executable, allowing you to run the command.

4. Finally, the last command in the sequence will run the version check, allowing you to verify that nodectl was successfully downloaded, placed in the correct location, has the proper permissions, and is running the expected version.

6

Verify the installation

Once all the steps from Step 5 are completed, the version of your nodectl utility should be displayed on your screen.

ubuntu@13.13.13.13:~# sudo nodectl version
  VERSION     MAJOR     MINOR     PATCH    CONFIG
  vX.XX.X     X         X         X        vX.X.X

---

auto_restart disable - Error Explained

From Step 5.1 from ☝️

Since the auto_restart command is a background feature, if you're not downloading nodectl for the first time; but instead downloading a newer version manually, instead of using nodectl's built-in upgrade feature, the auto_restart process may still be running.

This can prevent you from overwriting the nodectl binary, as the Linux system will detect that the binary is in use.

To avoid this issue, you must disable the auto_restart feature before attempting to overwrite the binary. The command to do this is provided on the releases page. It is safe to run, even if the nodectl binary is not present. It will simply return a harmless error message.