Environment setup

Prepare your Kubernetes cluster and install required tools for a Chainstack Self-Hosted deployment, including kubectl, Helm, and storage configuration.

This page walks you through preparing a Linux server for Chainstack Self-Hosted. By the end, you will have a running Kubernetes cluster and all required command-line tools installed.

For hardware and software specifications, see System requirements.

Install Kubernetes (k3s)

k3s is a lightweight Kubernetes distribution suitable for single-server deployments. Other distributions (k8s, EKS, GKE, AKS) are also supported, but k3s is what’s tested and documented.

# Install k3s
curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh -

# Configure kubectl to use k3s
export KUBECONFIG=/etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml

# Make the configuration persistent
echo 'KUBECONFIG=/etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml' >> /etc/environment

# Verify the cluster is running
kubectl cluster-info
kubectl get nodes

You should see output indicating the cluster is running and your node is in Ready state.

Install required tools

Helm

Helm is the package manager used to deploy Chainstack Self-Hosted.

# Install prerequisites
apt update
apt install curl gpg wget apt-transport-https --yes

# Add the Helm repository and install
curl -fsSL https://packages.buildkite.com/helm-linux/helm-debian/gpgkey | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/helm.gpg > /dev/null
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/helm.gpg] https://packages.buildkite.com/helm-linux/helm-debian/any/ any main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/helm-stable-debian.list
apt update
apt install helm --yes

# Verify
helm version

yq

The installer uses yq (mikefarah version) to process YAML configuration files.

# Download and install yq
wget https://github.com/mikefarah/yq/releases/latest/download/yq_linux_amd64 -O /usr/local/bin/yq
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/yq

# Verify (v4+ required)
yq --version

openssl

openssl is used during installation to generate certificates and RSA keys. It is pre-installed on most Linux distributions.

# Verify
openssl version

If openssl is not installed, install it with your package manager:

apt install openssl --yes

Configure storage

Default storage (single disk)

If your server uses a single disk, the default k3s local-path storage class works out of the box. No additional configuration is needed.

# Verify the storage class is available
kubectl get storageclass

Multi-disk storage with TopoLVM

If you have multiple disks available for blockchain node data, set up LVM and TopoLVM for dynamic storage provisioning.

Set up LVM

# Install LVM tools
apt install lvm2 --yes

# Find your disk devices
lsblk

# Create physical volumes (replace with your actual disk devices)
pvcreate /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd

# Create volume group
vgcreate myvg1 /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd

Device paths vary by provider. The paths /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, /dev/sdd are examples. On DigitalOcean, volumes appear under /dev/disk/by-id/. On AWS, they may be /dev/nvme1n1, /dev/nvme2n1, etc. Always verify your actual device paths with lsblk before creating physical volumes.

Install TopoLVM

# Add the TopoLVM Helm repository
helm repo add topolvm https://topolvm.github.io/topolvm
helm repo update

# Create namespace and install cert-manager (required by TopoLVM)
kubectl create namespace topolvm-system
CERT_MANAGER_VERSION=v1.17.4
kubectl apply -f https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/releases/download/${CERT_MANAGER_VERSION}/cert-manager.crds.yaml

# Install TopoLVM
helm install --namespace=topolvm-system topolvm topolvm/topolvm --set cert-manager.enabled=true

# Check storage classes
kubectl get storageclass

Set TopoLVM as the default storage class

# Remove default from local-path
kubectl patch storageclass local-path -p '{"metadata": {"annotations":{"storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class":"false"}}}'

# Set TopoLVM as default
kubectl patch storageclass topolvm-provisioner -p '{"metadata": {"annotations":{"storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class":"true"}}}'

# Verify
kubectl get storageclass

Verify your environment

Run these commands to confirm everything is in place before proceeding to Installation:

# Kubernetes cluster
kubectl cluster-info
kubectl get nodes

# Required tools
helm version
yq --version
openssl version

# Storage class
kubectl get storageclass

All commands should complete without errors. Your node should show Ready status, and at least one storage class should be listed.