Fast Full Node Syncing

This page describes using a bootstrap chain file to drastically speed up syncing of new full node wallets.

What is a bootstrap and why you need it for full node

Always close down your full node wallet completely before changing/editing any files or folders within your Zelcash data directory. Data can be corrupted if files are edited with wallet open, including lose of your local wallet.dat copy. BACK UP, BACK UP, BACK UP!

  • The bootstrap file contains most of the current blockchain data in a downloadable zip file. You can use this data with your full node to more quickly sync your full node.

  • This method is much faster because you do not need to download every block over the p2p node network, which can take many hours or days depending on internet speed.

  • A full reindex of the chain data is needed for ZelNodes as you need to have txindex=1 in your zelcash.conf file, which requires a complete re-download of the chain data

  • Copy/paste the bootstrap folder into your data directory AFTER ZelCore/Swing forces a reindex so you don't end up reindexing twice with the txindex=1parameter being added to the zelcash.conf file.

Bootstrap Process

Download the bootstrap zip file (txindex is enabled which is needed for ZelNodes).

Link: Download Bootstrap file (~ 2.1 GB, June 20, 2019)

Unzip the bootstrap. There will be two folders, blocks and chainstate.

Navigate to your \Zelcash data directory

Windows: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Zelcash MacOS: ~/Library/Application Support/zelcash Linux: ~/.zelcash/

Copy the two bootstrap folders and paste into your \Zelcash data directory. Overwrite the current blocks and chainstate folders if necessary.

Launch the full node wallet. You will see that the height and headers are already about 250,000 getting you much closer to current block height, saving many hours of syncing.

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