NOTE: The Streamr Brubeck Testnet incentives have now ended. You can still use the instructions below to run a node in the Streamr Network and build applications, however, mining token rewards is not available at this time. In future, there will be further opportunities to earn rewards — keep an eye out for the latest news on the Streamr Discord server.
Install a new Streamr Broker node or update your existing one now.
Table of Contents
Timeline for Testnet 3
Friday, October 8th: The Streamr Broker node software becomes available for download in preparation for Testnet 3. The node can already be started, but mining rewards will only start when Testnet 3 is launched. Note that more updates may become available before the launch, so please keep an eye out just in case.
- Tuesday, October 12th: Testnet 3 goes live! Your node claims shares of rewards as long as it is successfully connected to peers in the network.
- Tuesday, October 19th: After 7 days, the mining reward period ends and Testnet 3 is over. The schedule of any additional Testnet will be announced. You can leave your node running, but note that there will likely be updated versions available before the next Testnet. In total, there will be as many Testnets as are needed to iron out any discovered problems.
Previously on Brubeck Testnets
Testnet 1 reward period ran for 48 hours. We were hoping to get a fair number of nodes participating but as it turned out, there were plenty more Broker nodes turning up than we had anticipated. In fact there were so many participants that we needed to cap the amount of nodes that could be connected (5000) at the same time, as well as add a limitation on how many nodes could be connected from the same IP address (3).
This was enough to stabilise the network and even though not all willing Broker nodes could be connected at the same time, Testnet 1 was a great success, being the biggest Streamr Network at that time.
Testnet 2 ran for a full week. This time we were able to scale up the network horizontally by, among other things, adding tracker hosts and tracker processes. We could observe more than 35000 nodes being able to claim reward codes at the same time. Ironically the limitations to the network size and any stability issues were again mostly due to some of the remaining centralized components used in the Testnets, not the Testnet itself.
What’s new in Testnet 3?
There’s a new release of the Streamr Broker Node. If you’re new to this, install a new node, or if you already ran a node in previous testnets, update your existing node. If you are updating, the existing node configuration will be migrated to work with your new Broker node software version automatically. As with previous Testnets, updating to the latest version is necessary to participate in Testnet 3.
During the two days of Testnet 1, approximately 10% of the rewards were mined. Roughly 90% of rewards were left for Testnet 2 and beyond, so plenty of reward codes remain to be mined.
In Testnet 3 there is a new Streamr Broker node that uses what we call a Brubeck client, which is more efficient and robust allowing us to significantly simplify the connectivity stack. We have also refactored some other parts to rationalise calls into those backend components we have not decentralized yet. There were dozens of issues logged into our tracking system during Testnet 2. We have been fixing these towards the Testnet 3 including the notorious ETIMEDOUT issue – investigations of which would merit a blog entry of its own.
The Network capacity for Testnet 1 was around 5000 nodes. Then we got to 35000+ nodes in Testnet 2. I wonder if we could break that record in Testnet 3? Could we figure out some of the Streamr Network limitations or are we still bound by centralized components?
We are happy and grateful for all our community participants who are running nodes and helping us to take these giant leaps towards decentralization – being able to roll out an unstoppable decentralized publish / subscribe network is now more important than ever and would not be possible without the help from the community!
Now what?
- Set up a Streamr Broker node (or update)
- Check out the Countdown to rewards
- Join the Streamr community on Discord.There are channels to help you out, such as #testnet-faq and #testnet-troubleshooting. Our developers and engineers and other various unicorns are keeping watch and will answer your questions there. Remember to read the instructions and check the FAQ before posting.
