Avalanche Fuji Testnet Validator Installation Guide

About Fuji

Fuji is the Avalanche testnet. It runs the same avalanchego binary, the same three chains and the same staking mechanics as mainnet, which makes it the correct place to rehearse the whole validator lifecycle before committing real AVAX.

Differences that matter:

• minimum self-stake is 1 AVAX on Fuji against 2,000 AVAX on mainnet;
• test AVAX comes from the official faucet, and the faucet usually wants a mainnet-funded address as an anti-abuse check;
• the same uptime rule applies. Fuji measures your uptime from your peers, so a node that cannot accept inbound connections looks offline here exactly as it would on mainnet — which is precisely the failure worth rehearsing.

Everything else — hardware, install, configuration, monitoring — follows the Avalanche mainnet guide. This page states only the deltas.

Requirements

Fuji is lighter than mainnet, but not by as much as people expect:

Component	Minimum	Recommended
CPU	4 cores	8 cores
RAM	8 GB	16 GB
Disk	300 GB SSD	500 GB NVMe
Network	100 Mbps	1 Gbps, static IP

Install

Use the same official installer and choose the Fuji network when prompted:

wget -nd -m https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ava-labs/avalanche-docs/master/scripts/avalanchego-installer.sh
chmod 700 avalanchego-installer.sh
./avalanchego-installer.sh --fuji

If you configure the node by hand instead, the network is selected with:

--network-id=fuji

Data lives under ~/.avalanchego/ and the staking identity under ~/.avalanchego/staking/ exactly as on mainnet. Never reuse the same staking keys on Fuji and mainnet — they are the node's identity, and a duplicate identity on two running nodes is a problem you do not want to create for yourself while testing.

Open the P2P port

sudo ufw allow 22/tcp
sudo ufw allow 9651/tcp
sudo ufw enable

Verify inbound reachability from another machine:

nc -vz <your-public-ip> 9651

Verify bootstrap

for chain in P X C; do
  printf '%s: ' "$chain"
  curl -s -X POST --data "{\"jsonrpc\":\"2.0\",\"id\":1,\"method\":\"info.isBootstrapped\",\"params\":{\"chain\":\"$chain\"}}" \
    -H 'content-type:application/json' http://127.0.0.1:9650/ext/info | jq -r .result.isBootstrapped
done

Confirm the node really is on Fuji rather than mainnet:

curl -s -X POST --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"info.getNetworkName"}' \
  -H 'content-type:application/json' http://127.0.0.1:9650/ext/info | jq -r .result.networkName

Fund and register

1. Get test AVAX from the official Avalanche faucet.
2. Move it to your P-Chain address.
3. Read the NodeID, BLS public key and proof of possession:

curl -s -X POST --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"info.getNodeID"}' \
  -H 'content-type:application/json' http://127.0.0.1:9650/ext/info | jq .result

4. Add the validator on the P-Chain with your stake amount and a start and end time.

Verify from outside

Use the public Fuji API rather than your own node:

curl -s -X POST --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"platform.getCurrentValidators","params":{"nodeIDs":["NodeID-..."]}}' \
  -H 'content-type:application/json' https://api.avax-test.network/ext/bc/P | jq '.result.validators[0] | {connected, uptime}'

connected: false here means the same thing it means on mainnet: inbound 9651/tcp is not actually reachable. Fixing it on Fuji is free; fixing it on mainnet costs a staking period of rewards.

Monitoring

Same as mainnet: service state, all three chains bootstrapped, peer count, external connected and uptime, disk free, and the staking period end date.

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Created by POSTHUMAN validators

Website: https://posthuman.digital