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Autonomys - Windows Docker Guide

· 3 min read
Alex Hake
Alex Hake
Lead Noob

Autonomys Windows Docker Guide​

This guide will cover how to get Autonomys running on Docker using WSL and Ubuntu. This makes running a Node and Farmer on Windows very efficient.

Most Windows Docker guides will have you install Docker Desktop. This can work well sometimes, but I prefer to install Ubuntu WSL and then run Docker directly on Ubuntu. This has a lot of benefits, including being able to easily pass in physical disks and mount them in Ubuntu with the ext4 filesystem. This is ideal for Autonomys and I highly recommend doing it this way even though it may be slightly more complicated. This guide will walk through every step, however some understanding of Autonomys is required.

If you have questions feel free to join the Autonomys discord or join my discord and I will help out the best I can:

Resources​

Official Autonomys Docs GPU Plotting Requirements

Forward Ports​

You must forward the ports that the Autonomys Node will use. This will significantly speed up piece cache syncing and plotting. To learn more about forwarding ports, check out this guide:

Prepare Farmer Disks​

In order to squeeze the most performance out of the Farm disks, preparation is extremely important. In this guide, disks will be passed through to Ubuntu WSL which will allow formatting them in ext4 which provides a significant boost to performance.

Install Docker WSL​

Docker needs to be installed on the Ubuntu WSL instance that was created in the previous step.

Install Portainer WSL​

Next, install Portainer to make working with Docker a bit easier

Deploy Node​

Now that the disks are prepped its time to launch the Node. There are two parts to Farming on the Autonomys network: Node & Farmer. The Node connects to the Blockchain and the Farmer connects to the Node. They work together to participate in the Autonomys network. Once launched, the Node will need to sync with the blockchain, and remain synced.

NVIDIA GPU Plotting​

If you plan to plot with an NVIDIA GPU make sure you have the latest drivers. Unforunately I do not have an AMD GPU so I do not have specifics on how to get that working with Docker.

You must also have the NVIDIA Docker Toolkit installed.

Deploy Farmer​

Now that the Node is running, it is time to launch the Farmer so you can begin plotting and farming your drives. This guide is specifically for non-cluster setups. What this means is that the Farmer is responsible for creating the piece cache, plotting, and farming.

Cluster​

Deploy NATS​

Before starting your Cluster you need to have NATS running. This can be run as a service using the following guide

Deploy Cluster​

Now that the NATS is running, it is time to launch the cluster so you can begin plotting and farming your drives. This guide is specifically for cluster setups. What this means is that the Farmer is split into four components: Controller, Cache, Plotter, Farmer.