Manual Installation
caution
While it is possible to run Bee without it, we recommend the use of Go Ethereum's Clef external signer. Instructions for installing and integrating this with Bee can be found here.
Quick Install (Stable)#
We provide a convenient installation script, which automatically detects your execution environment and installs the latest stable version of the Bee client on your computer.
If your system is not supported, you might want to try to build directly from source.
To install the binary using our quick install script, run either one of the following commands in your Terminal:
wget#
curl#
Run Bee#
Once you have installed Bee, you can test that it has been successfully installed by running.
Now your Bee node is installed, you can fund your node with BZZ and join us in the swarm! 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝
With Bee installed, simply type bee start in your Terminal.
This command will start Bee for the first time and prompt you to create your Bee wallet.
caution
It is strongly advised to use a service manager such as systemctl to run Bee in order to avoid various file permission problems that may occur in manual operation without careful file management. If you're running a supported distribution, using the packages provided will automatically setup these services for you.
Create Your Wallet#
When you first run Bee, you will be asked to input a user password. It is important to choose a strong unique password, as this will protect your valuable private key which is generated during startup.
This secret key is stored encrypted in your Bee data
directory (default
~/.bee). It represents your Swarm Address - your anonymous identity
in Swarm.
SWAP Bandwidth Incentives#
To participate in the swarm you must include configuration parameters specifying a valid XDAI RPC endpoint. You can run your own XDAI node, or use a RPC provider such as getblock.io.
When running your Bee node with SWAP enabled for the first time, your Bee node will deploy a 'chequebook' contract using the canonical factory contract which is deployed by Swarm. A factory is used to ensure every node is using legitimate and verifiable chequebook contracts. Once the chequebook is deployed, Bee will deposit a certain amount of BZZ in the chequebook contract so that it can pay other nodes in return for their services.
To find out your Ethereum address, we can simply run our Bee node and point it at the XDAI RPC endpoint.
The ensuing logs will include your Ethereum addresses - use this to fund your node.
Now, we can run our Bee node and we will start to see Bee creating and waiting for transactions to complete. Please be patient as this might take a while.
Now our chequebook is deployed and credited with an initial deposit of BZZ, ready to be used to reward our fellow busy Bee nodes for their services. As a full-node you too will be rewarded by your peers for services you provide to them.
Join the Swarm#
If all goes well, you will see your node automatically begin to connect to other Bee nodes all over the world.
Now your node will begin to request chunks of data that fall within your radius of responsibilty - data that you will then serve to other p2p clients running in the swarm. Your node will then begin to respond to requests for these chunks from other peers, for which you will soon be rewarded in BZZ.
Incentivisation
In Swarm, storing chunks of data, serving and forwarding them to other nodes earns you rewards! Follow this guide to learn how to regularly cashout cheques other nodes send you in return for your services, so that you can get your BZZ!
Your Bee client has now generated an elliptic curve keypair similar to an Ethereum wallet. These are stored in your data directory, in the keys folder.
Keep Your Keys and Password Safe!
Your keys and password are very important, backup these files and store them in a secure place that only you have access to. With great privacy comes great responsibility - while no-one will ever be able to guess your key - you will not be able to recover them if you lose them either, so be sure to look after them well and keep secure backups.
Getting help#
The CLI has documentation built-in. Running bee gives you an entry point to the documentation. Running bee start -h or bee start --help will tell you how you can configure your Bee node via the command line arguments.
You may also check out the configuration guide, or simply run your Bee terminal command with the --help flag, eg. bee start --help or bee --help.
Upgrading Bee#
To upgrade previous versions of Bee installed using the above method, simply re-run the installation command above.
Edge (Unstable)#
To get a sneak preview of the latest features added to Bee, you may also install the Edge version, which tracks the master branch of the Github respository