Creating a Backup Server

Step 1: You created your witness node and now running it according to these directions:
Setting up a Witness Node
If you followed the instructions you will end up with something like this in config.txt
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witness-id = "1.6.41"
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private-key = ["PPY7ZBgUduxjAsk5zXLeZX8skTHAjqQAyu6NnoSDKHs2Utm5XsDLR","private-key"]
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and you will be signing blocks with that key.
Step 2: Compile another node on server2 following the same instructions as before, only this time, you generate a new witness key using the command suggest_brain_key.
For example, lets say the new public key was
" PPY5tPcG5AX6YFYsBR739JNxFzmDWUgrw6BZFBxfKRsTKAx4QiA76 "
Then your config.txt on server2 should have this:
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witness-id = "1.6.41"
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private-key = ["PPY5tPcG5AX6YFYsBR739JNxFzmDWUgrw6BZFBxfKRsTKAx4QiA76","private-key"]
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When you run the node on server2 you will see this message:
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[block_production_loo ] Not producing block because I don't have the private key for 
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PPY7ZBgUduxjAsk5zXLeZX8skTHAjqQAyu6NnoSDKHs2Utm5XsDLR

This is normal because we did not run the update_witness command yet.
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Now let's say you need to update server1 when the code on Github is updated
First you run the update_witness command in your CLI like this:
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update_witness joseph-witness "https://steemit.com/peerplays-witness/@joseph/peerplays-blockchain-witness-proposal" "PPY5tPcG5AX6YFYsBR739JNxFzmDWUgrw6BZFBxfKRsTKAx4QiA76" true
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soon after, your server1 will show this message:
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[block_production_loo ] Not producing block because I don't have the private key for 
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PPY5tPcG5AX6YFYsBR739JNxFzmDWUgrw6BZFBxfKRsTKAx4QiA76
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and info on your account for signing key will look like this
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    "signing_key": "PPY5tPcG5AX6YFYsBR739JNxFzmDWUgrw6BZFBxfKRsTKAx4QiA76",
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    "name": "joseph-witness",
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You just pulled a quick switch from server1 to server2 without missing any blocks. Now you can safely shut down server1 and update the code. once the code is updated and the node is restarted, you can switch back signing blocks to server1 using the update_witness command again with public-key for server1.

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update_witness joseph-witness "https://steemit.com/peerplays-witness/@joseph/peerplays-blockchain-witness-proposal" "PPY7ZBgUduxjAsk5zXLeZX8skTHAjqQAyu6NnoSDKHs2Utm5XsDLR" true
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It's always a good idea to maintain a backup witness server for block production, in case of downtime on one server or the need to update code without shutting down your production node. A back up server will also be useful in case of an attack on the network.

Beatrice

Next - Witnesses

Updating a Witness Node

Last modified 2yr ago

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