Is there a way to connect a Validator to a VFN and not the other way around?

[TesodeAll]

Discord user ID

tesode

Describe your question in detail.

We are trying it with the following configuration but it doesn't seem to work:

Validator:

full_node_networks:
  - network_id: "vfn"
    listen_address: "/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/6181"
    seeds:
      00000000000000000000000000000000d58bc7bb154b38039bc9096ce04e1237:
        addresses:
        - "/ip4/X.X.X.X/tcp/6181/noise-ik/f0274c2774519281a8332d0bb9d8101bd58bc7bb154b38039bc9096ce04e1237/handshake/0"
        role: "ValidatorFullNode"

VFN:

full_node_networks:
  - network_id: "vfn"
    listen_address: "/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/6181"
    identity:
      type: "from_config"
      key: "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
      peer_id: "00000000000000000000000000000000d58bc7bb154b38039bc9096ce04e1237"

What error, if any, are you getting?

No response

What have you tried or looked at? Or how can we reproduce the error?

No response

Which operating system are you using?

Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, Windows WSL, etc.)

Which SDK or tool are you using? (if any)

N/A

Describe your environment or tooling in detail

No response

[JoshLind]

Hi folks! Can you elaborate on what you're trying to do? IIRC, the VFN dials the Validator for the Validator-VFN connection. Are you wanting the Validator to dial the VFN instead? If so, I don't believe this is currently supported. Any reason why the current design is problematic?

[TesodeAll]

Are you wanting the Validator to dial the VFN instead?

hey! yes

[hazelcaus]

what's the format of the seeds/peer_id configuration? What is 00000000000000000000000000000000d58bc7bb154b38039bc9096ce04e1237/f0274c2774519281a8332d0bb9d8101bd58bc7bb154b38039bc9096ce04e1237??

is it your account public key or validator full node key? I'm trying to run this, but my validator and VFN don't seem to want to connect to each other. Even if you can demonstrate with placeholders, that would be helpful @TesodeAll.

questions. How do you construct:

• seed value
• seed key
• peer_id
• key (key: "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX")

thanks!

cc @JoshLind

[JoshLind]

This is somewhat of an advanced/uncommon flow, but if you're wanting to generate and use seed peers (outside of the normal flow), I'd recommend reading these docs:

1. https://aptos.dev/en/network/nodes/full-node/modify/fullnode-network-connections
2. https://aptos.dev/en/network/nodes/full-node/modify/network-identity-fullnode

Then, you can read the code directly to see how these values relate, e.g.:

1. Example seed peers for testnet: https://github.com/aptos-labs/aptos-core/blob/2d6ed231ca39fc07422dfe95aa76746b2210e36d/config/src/config/config_optimizer.rs#L40-L39
2. Seed peer parsing: https://github.com/aptos-labs/aptos-core/blob/2d6ed231ca39fc07422dfe95aa76746b2210e36d/config/src/config/config_optimizer.rs#L279

You essentially need 3 things: (i) account address of the peer; (ii) network public key of the peer; and (iii) network address of the peer.