Mina Mainnet Node Installation — Debian Package and systemd

This is the package + systemd path. For the container path see the Install (Docker) guide; the two produce the same node and the choice is purely operational.

Mina is not a Cosmos SDK chain. There is no Cosmovisor, no priv_validator_key.json, no jailing and no slashing. The validator role is called a block producer, its identity is an ordinary MINA account, and the private key has to be online and unlocked for the node to produce anything. Host security is key security.

What is current

Read these from the release, not from memory — Mina's package version, chain ID and commit move together and a mismatch is the usual cause of "my node syncs but nothing happens".

Item	Mainnet value
Release	4.0.0-mainnet-mesa (stable, 2026-09-03)
Debian package	mina-mainnet=4.0.0-6850301
Chain ID	0718f61ab88f9d0fa643ff4dc3a3d5998dd6d51a6008b2b0339b0dbb26133886
Git SHA-1	685030107ff328e59936410a0e72ddaca59cb9d6
Config file	/var/lib/coda/config_68503010.json
Peer list	https://bootnodes.minaprotocol.com/networks/mainnet.txt

The Mesa upgrade changed consensus timing. Anything you read that says "3-minute slots" or "14-day epochs" predates it. Live values, read from a synced node on 2026-09-17:

Parameter	Value
Slot duration	90 s
Slots per epoch	7140
Epoch duration	~7.44 days
k (confirmation depth)	290 blocks
Post-fork genesis	2026-09-03 18:00:00 UTC

Verify for yourself against any node:

curl -s https://api.minascan.io/node/mainnet/v1/graphql \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query":"{ daemonStatus { chainId commitId consensusConfiguration { slotDuration slotsPerEpoch epochDuration k } } }"}' | jq

Requirements

Role	RAM	CPU	Disk
Block producer	32 GB	8 cores, BMI2 + ADX + AVX required	64 GB
SNARK coordinator	32 GB	8 cores	64 GB
SNARK worker	32 GB	4 cores / 8 threads per worker, BMI2 + ADX + AVX	64 GB
Archive node	32 GB	8 cores	64 GB + database growth

• x86-64 only. ARM and Raspberry Pi do not work, and no amount of configuration changes that.
• Supported: Debian 11/12, Ubuntu 20.04/22.04/24.04. Ubuntu 20.04 and Debian 11 are EOL and will be dropped in future releases — start new hosts on 24.04 or Debian 12.
• NTP must be running. Consensus is slot-timed; clock drift costs you blocks.
• The official minimum (8 cores / 16 GB) is a floor, not a target. Operators who produce reliably run 16 cores / 32 GB or better, because a block that is not built and gossiped inside the 90-second slot is simply lost.

Install

sudo rm -f /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mina*.list
echo "deb [trusted=yes] http://packages.o1test.net $(lsb_release -cs) stable" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mina.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --yes curl unzip jq
sudo apt-get install --yes --allow-downgrades mina-mainnet=4.0.0-6850301

Pin the exact version as shown. An unpinned mina-mainnet will follow the repository and can move your node across a fork boundary during an unattended apt upgrade.

Verify:

mina version

The output must include a Commit line matching the SHA-1 in the table above.

Create the block producer key

Full key handling — hot/cold split, Ledger, backups, the libp2p key — is in the Keys guide. The minimum to get a node running:

mkdir -p ~/keys && chmod 700 ~/keys
mina advanced generate-keypair --privkey-path ~/keys/my-wallet
chmod 600 ~/keys/my-wallet

You are prompted for a password. It is required at every start, it is never recoverable, and losing it loses the producer identity along with everything delegated to it. Store the key file and the password separately and offline.

Confirm the key is usable before you build anything on top of it:

mina advanced validate-keypair --privkey-path ~/keys/my-wallet

Configure the service

The package installs a user unit at /usr/lib/systemd/user/mina.service. It reads ~/.mina-env, and everything you want to pass to the daemon goes into EXTRA_FLAGS in that file.

cat > ~/.mina-env <<'EOF'
PEERS_LIST_URL=https://bootnodes.minaprotocol.com/networks/mainnet.txt
MINA_PRIVKEY_PASS="your-key-password"
LOG_LEVEL=Info
FILE_LOG_LEVEL=Debug
EXTRA_FLAGS="--block-producer-key /home/YOUR_USER/keys/my-wallet --metrics-port 6060"
EOF
chmod 600 ~/.mina-env

Three things about this file that cost people time:

• Override PEERS_LIST_URL. The package bakes in the legacy storage.googleapis.com/mina-seed-lists/mainnet_seeds.txt. It still resolves, but the maintained list is the bootnodes.minaprotocol.com one. The unit sets the default with Environment= and then reads ~/.mina-env, so your line wins.
• Passwords with shell metacharacters must be quoted. A $ in an unquoted password is the most common "my node crashes every few minutes" cause.
• --block-producer-key is deprecated in favour of the MINA_BP_PRIVKEY environment variable. Both work today; the flag is what most existing tooling still emits. Do not pass both --block-producer-key and --block-producer-pubkey.

Start it:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now mina
sudo loginctl enable-linger "$USER"

enable-linger is not optional. Without it the user manager — and your node — stops when you log out.

Open the firewall

sudo ufw allow 22/tcp
sudo ufw allow 8302/tcp
sudo ufw enable

8302/tcp is the only port that belongs on the public internet. Port 8301 (client RPC and SNARK coordinator) and port 3085 (GraphQL) must never be reachable from outside the host. Details, including the Hetzner "netscan detected" egress rules, are in the Security hardening guide.

Verify

mina client status

Bootstrap timeline on a fresh host:

Time after start	Expected
0 – 5 min	mina client status may refuse to connect while the daemon initialises
5 – 25 min	Sync status: Bootstrap, then Catchup
~30 min	Sync status: Synced

Check four fields, not one:

• Sync status: Synced
• Chain id equals the mainnet chain ID above — this is the only proof you joined the network you intended to join
• Block height equals Max observed block length
• a non-trivial peer count

During catchup the block height does not climb steadily; it stays flat and then jumps. That is normal and is not a stuck node. See Troubleshooting.

Confirm the daemon actually loaded your producer key:

mina client status | grep -i "block producer"
mina accounts list

Block producers running: 1 (B62q...) is the line that matters. A synced node with 0 producers is a spectator.

Follow the logs

journalctl --user -u mina -n 200 -f
tail -f ~/.mina-config/mina.log

Next steps

• Keys — hot/cold split, libp2p key, backups, Ledger
• Block producer — coinbase receiver, stake latency, proving production
• SNARK worker — the second, independent earning role
• Delegation program — uptime tracking and the payout obligation you take on
• Monitoring, Security hardening, Upgrades

Sources

• docs.minaprotocol.com — installing on Ubuntu and Debian
• docs.minaprotocol.com — connect to Mainnet or Devnet
• docs.minaprotocol.com — requirements
• Mina 4.0.0 Mesa mainnet release notes
• MinaProtocol/mina — scripts/mina.service