Setting up a VIVO Masternode VPS (Cold Wallet) - March 2018

The following guide is designed to be easy to follow. It assumes your VPS is setup as a "root" user. If you have a different user to "root" you will need to modify the guide accordingly. I recommend you always follow the Cold Wallet Method. It is more secure, and means your coins stay in your (hopefully password protected) local wallet.

Before we start we need to send exactly 1000 VIVO coins to our VIVO Wallet on our local machine. Any more or any less than exactly 1000 will render you unable to set up your masternode.

Make sure you pay attention to the transfer fee from your exchange, factor this in and make sure you're sending exactly 1000 coins to the wallet!

Once you have sent the 1000 VIVO across to your wallet, we need to wait for 15 block confirmations. This can take upwards of 30 minutes. While we wait for that, we need to enable the Masternode Control tab inside the wallet.

Open the wallet and navigate the following line;

Settings > Options > Wallet

Then check the "Enable coin control features" & "Show Masternodes Tab"

Next we need to setup a VPS instance. I use Vultr, I find the website easy to navigate and they accept Bitcoin as a payment method.

***Use my affiliate link if you feel kind :) ***
*** https://www.vultr.com/?ref=7300806 ***

On Vultr, select the + symbol on the right hand side to deploy a new server instance.
Select your location (I chose one in my own country, it isn't really important where though)
Server type > Ubuntu > 14.04 x64
Server size > $10 2048MB Option (This means we don't need to set up a swapfile for memory. 2GB is needed for the wallet compile)
Firewall > Manage > Add TCP port 12845 (This is the port needed for the MN to communicate with the network)
Name the Firewall (I used "vivo", make it whatever you want)
Name the server (I used "vivo-masternode", name it something relevant)

Hit Deploy Now.

This will create your VPS, it can take a few minutes. You will receive an email once it is running 100%.

We need to get the masternode tx output from the wallet console now.

Open the wallet and go to the Tools tab > Debug console;

Type;

masternode outputs

It will give you a return in the following format;

{
  "7363faffea345d743f2b4851b018a7350ef0d3954506c1be5f41e3fe086cdf8c": "1"
}

You want to copy the whole thing and only keep the numbers between the " "

7363faffea345d743f2b4851b018a7350ef0d3954506c1be5f41e3fe086cdf8c 1

Paste this into a text file on your local machine.

Next we need to use the PuTTY program to connect to our Linux VPS.

Download it here; https://www.putty.org/
Install

Next we need to copy our VPS IP Address into the Host Name box. Hit Enter and if its your first connection it will ask you to accept a security certificate. Click yes and it will open a terminal for us to communicate with the VPS.

User should be root.

Copy and paste your Vultr VPS password (right click in the terminal to paste)

Copy the following code into the PuTTY terminal (right click in the terminal to paste)

apt-get update;apt-get upgrade -y;apt-get dist-upgrade -y;apt-get install software-properties-common -y;apt-get install libboost-all-dev -y;apt-get install libzmq3-dev libminiupnpc-dev libssl-dev libevent-dev -y;add-apt-repository ppa:bitcoin/bitcoin -y;apt-get update;apt-get install libdb4.8-dev libdb4.8++-dev -y;

mkdir vivo
cd vivo

wget https://github.com/vivocoin/vivo/releases/download/v0.12.1.7/vivo-0.12.1.7-ubuntu14.04.tar.xz

tar -xvf vivo-0.12.1.7-ubuntu14.04.tar.xz

Now we need to start the vivod client. Let it sync to the latest block.

./vivod -daemon

The following line will tell you what block the client is up to. It can take some time, be patient.
Check the current block number on a VIVO block explorer (Google this)

./vivo-cli getinfo

Once you are synced, move onto the next line.

Now we need to generate the private key for the masternode

./vivo-cli masternode genkey

Copy this output into our previous text file on your computer.

We now stop the VIVO client so we can configure the vivo.conf file.

nano ~/.vivocore/vivo.conf

Paste in your details with the following text (get rid of the "< >")

rpcuser=USER
rpcpassword=PASSWORD
bind=VPS_IP_Address:12845
masternode=1
masternodeprivkey=masternode_genkey_output 

Hold Control + X and then hit Enter.

We now restart the VIVO client. It can now access the details in the vivo.conf file we just configured.

./vivod -daemon

LOCAL

We need to locate the masternode.conf file on your computer next.
For Windows, Press Windows Key + R and type;

%appdata%\VivoCore

We need to paste the following line into the masternode.conf file;

MN1 VPS_IP:12845 Masternode_Private_Key 7363faffea345d743f2b4851b018a7350ef0d3954506c1be5f41e3fe086cdf8c 1

Replacing VPS_IP with your VPS IP Address.
Replacing Masternode_Private_key with your masternode private key generated on your VPS earlier.

It needs to be exactly ONE SPACE between each part. If you don't do this, it will not read the file correctly.

We're nearly there!

Save and close the masternode.conf file and restart your local wallet.

You should now see your MN1 in your Masternodes Tab.

Click Start Alias.

It should say "Masternode Start Successfully"

It will take up to 60 minutes for your MN to be broadcast on the network. Be patient.

We have to set up the Sentinel next.

Go back to your PuTTY now and type the following lines;

cd
cd .vivocore
apt-get update
apt-get install -y git python-virtualenv
git clone https://github.com/vivocoin/sentinel.git
cd sentinel
virtualenv venv
venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
nano sentinel.conf

Select nano as the editor.

We need to delete the # in front of the vivo_conf and change the line to read;

vivo_conf=/root/.vivocore/vivo.conf

Hit Control + X and then Enter

We now need to run the Sentinel

venv/bin/python bin/sentinel.py

Hit Control + X to get back to the sentinel directory.

We now need to create a crontab to wake Sentinel every 5 minutes;

crontab -e

Paste the following line in and at the end hit Enter twice at the end.

* * * * * cd /root/.vivocore/sentinel && ./venv/bin/python bin/sentinel.py 2>&1 >> sentinel-cron.log

Hit Control + X then Enter.

That should be it! Your VIVO Masternode should read enabled on your wallet after the 60 minute window.

First payouts take up to 48h. If everything is Enabled, it will come through.

Enjoy your new VIVO Masternode :)

If you had success with this guide, feel free to send me some VIVO as a thanks.

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sneakydigital 2018