Joining the SSC Mainnet as a Full Node

Steps to Join as a Full Node Post-Genesis

Please ensure you have correctly installed all the prerequisite applications as detailed in the Installation page or else some of these commands will fail.

1. Initialize the sscd instance on this machine by running sscd init <moniker> --chain-id ssc-1. The init command also generates certain configuration files in the home directory for SSC (default ~/.ssc). Example:

sscd init fullnode --chain-id ssc-1

1. Next, update persistent_peers information in ~/.ssc/config/config.toml using the persistent peers provided by the Saga team. You will update this in the P2P section of config.toml file.

sed -i "s|persistent_peers = \".*\"|persistent_peers = \"$(curl -s https://polkachu.com/api/v2/chains/saga/live_peers | jq -r '.live_peers | join(",")')\"|g" ~/.ssc/config/config.toml
sed -i 's/^max-recv-msg-size =.*/max-recv-msg-size = "100000000"/g' ~/.ssc/config/config.toml

1. Copy the genesis.json file provided by the Saga team to ~/.ssc/config/, overwriting any existing genesis file in that location.

# fetch the genesis
wget -O genesis.json 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sagaxyz/mainnet/main/genesis/genesis.json'

# copy it to your ssc home directory
mv genesis.json ~/.ssc/config

1. Create a systemd service for running sscd by executing the following command at the shell prompt.

1. You will need to use the sudo command and will need the appropriate level of access on the machine you are working on.

2. Ensure that the binary sscd is in the system PATH

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/sscd.service
[Unit]
Description=sscd daemon
After=network-online.target

[Service]
User=$USER
Group=$USER
AmbientCapabilities=CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE
ExecStart=$(which sscd) start --home $HOME/.ssc/
StandardOutput=append:/var/log/sscd/sscd.log
StandardError=append:/var/log/sscd/sscd_error.log
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
LimitNOFILE=4096

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

1. Download the latest sscd snapshot from Polkachu's Saga Mainnet Snapshot page

wget -O $(curl -s https://polkachu.com/api/v2/chain_snapshots/saga/mainnet|jq -r '.snapshot.name') $(curl -s https://polkachu.com/api/v2/chain_snapshots/saga/mainnet|jq -r '.snapshot.url')

We are assuming that you are running a full node, instead of a validator node. Running a full node after bootstrapping it from the latest snapshot does not require us to backup any files. However, should you need to backup any files from the ~/.ssc folder and/or sub-folders, please do it at this time before proceeding.

1. Now, we will reset all application settings to ensure we can use the snapshot we just downloaded.

# Reset node state
sscd comet unsafe-reset-all --home $HOME/.ssc --keep-addr-book

1. Now we will restore the the snapshot contents

lz4 -c -d $(curl -s https://polkachu.com/api/v2/chain_snapshots/saga/mainnet|jq -r '.snapshot.name')  | tar -x -C $HOME/.ssc

1. Now, start the sscd service

sudo service sscd start

1. Now, we can delete the snapshot file.

rm -f $(curl -s https://polkachu.com/api/v2/chain_snapshots/saga/mainnet|jq -r '.snapshot.name')

1. Finally, check if the sscd service is running.

sudo service sscd status

If the service is running, the output should be something like this:

● sscd.service - sscd daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/sscd.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2025-07-14 16:39:10 CDT; 14s ago
   Main PID: 1950099 (sscd)
      Tasks: 15 (limit: 38422)
     Memory: 559.9M
        CPU: 21.731s
     CGroup: /system.slice/sscd.service
             └─1950099 /home/sagauser/go/bin/sscd start --home /home/sagauser/.ssc/

Your full node will sync with the SSC network by replaying some of the transactions and blocks committed since the snapshot was taken, and will be ready for us one it is fully in sync with the SSC network.