DungeonChain (dungeon-1) node installation

DungeonChain cannot use the shared generated installation guide, for one concrete reason: its genesis is published as a compressed archive, not as a genesis.json. The generated guide pipes a URL straight into config/genesis.json, which would leave a gzip blob where the daemon expects JSON, and the node would fail to start with a parse error that says nothing about the real cause.

There is a second trap. The repository publishes two genesis archives, and only one of them is correct for a node being installed today.

Archive	Genesis time	app_version	Use it?
genesis.json.tar.gz	2024-10-17	1.0.0	No. The original ICS genesis, from before the chain left Interchain Security.
genesis-hardfork.tar.gz	2025-03-27	4.0.0	Yes. The post-hardfork genesis the live chain continues from.

dungeon-1 hard-forked out of ICS at height 7824000. A node started from the pre-hardfork genesis will not reach the current chain.

Verified 2026-09-17 against two independent public endpoints: the live network reports dungeond 9.0.0 on dungeon-1. Check the current release before you install — this guide records what was true when it was written, not a permanent pin.

1. Build the binary

set -Eeuo pipefail
DUNGEON_VERSION='v9.0.0'
DUNGEON_REPO='https://github.com/Crypto-Dungeon/dungeonchain'

cd "$(mktemp -d)"
git clone "$DUNGEON_REPO" dungeonchain
cd dungeonchain
git checkout "$DUNGEON_VERSION"
make install
dungeond version

dungeond version must print the version you checked out. The daemon's default home is $HOME/.dungeonchain — note the name does not match the network id.

2. Initialise

MONIKER='<your-moniker>'
dungeond init "$MONIKER" --chain-id dungeon-1

3. Install the genesis

This is the step the generated guide gets wrong. Download the hardfork archive and extract it; do not redirect it into genesis.json.

set -Eeuo pipefail
GENESIS_URL='https://github.com/Crypto-Dungeon/dungeonchain/raw/main/network/dungeon-1/genesis-hardfork.tar.gz'

curl -fsSL "$GENESIS_URL" -o /tmp/dungeon-genesis.tar.gz
tar -xzf /tmp/dungeon-genesis.tar.gz -C "$HOME/.dungeonchain/config"
rm -f /tmp/dungeon-genesis.tar.gz

The archive contains a single member, genesis.json, so it extracts straight into config/. Verify before going further:

jq -r '.chain_id, .app_version, .genesis_time' "$HOME/.dungeonchain/config/genesis.json"

Expect dungeon-1, 4.0.0 and 2025-03-27T19:30:00.555168606Z. If you see 1.0.0 and a 2024 timestamp you extracted the pre-hardfork archive; delete it and start this step again.

dungeond validate-genesis

4. Peers and sync

Take seeds and persistent peers from the network directory in the repository, network/dungeon-1/, and set them in config/config.toml. Public RPC and REST endpoints for cross-checking your node's height:

• https://api.dungeongames.io
• https://api.dungeon.chaintools.tech

A fresh node from genesis replays from the hardfork height. Use a published snapshot instead if one is available from a provider you already trust.

5. Service

sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/dungeond.service > /dev/null <<EOF
[Unit]
Description=dungeond daemon
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=$USER
ExecStart=$(which dungeond) start
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10
LimitNOFILE=65535

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable dungeond.service
sudo systemctl start dungeond.service
journalctl -u dungeond.service -f

The unit passes no --home, so the daemon uses $HOME/.dungeonchain — the same directory this guide wrote the genesis into. If you run the daemon as a different user than the one that initialised the node, pass --home explicitly in ExecStart rather than relying on the default.

6. Before you make it a validator

Back up config/priv_validator_key.json before the node ever signs, and never start the same consensus key on two hosts. The hardfork notes in the repository carry the same warning for a reason.