I have always loved learning new things however I have found that as I got older, my learning curve is not what it was in the past. Especially now that I am retired, my learning curve has slowed down drastically.
But even still, I love to learn new things. That is why I have decided to get out of my comfort zone and learn the components of running a remote server and setting up a HE Lite Node.
source: Hive Engine website screenshot
Economics
I have run the numbers several times. What does a server cost? How much BEE can you expect to receive from running a HE node?
I have come to the conclusion that if you want to run a node in a depressed crypto market you will be very lucky to breakeven much less make a profit.
For a newbie that does not know anything about running a server much less any of the software or programing language that are needed to accomplish that. There is no way that for me it will produce a profit any time in the near future.
Opportunity
I have chosen to think about this as an opportunity to wake up my mind and not let it become idle.
There are currently 41 active Hive Engine Witnesses and 64 inactive witnesses (if I counted correctly).
I can not tell if the inactive witnesses are new and working to become active or if they were active and decided for some reason not to run their node any longer.
Due to this, there appears to be a need in the Hive community for additional members to run a node.
I say, why not me.
Start of Journey
To start the journey, I have read most of the Hive post regarding setting up a node. There are two links on the site https://primersion.com/he-links that contain lots of information.
- One written by
@rishi556
@rishi556/how-to-set-up-a-hive-engine-witness-step-by-step-guide
- and the other written by
@bala41288
@bala41288/step-by-step-guide-to-setup-hive-engine-witness-from-scratch
I found both of these to be extremely useful once I get to the actual point of loading the programs on the server.
Preparation
However in both of the posts, they start out with a set of assumptions. Basically that you already know how to connect to and run a server, set up security for said server and basic trouble shooting.
I hate to admit, I do not know any of these thus back to my comment at the beginning of my post about learning curve.
Where am I in my Journey
Since I am at the very, very beginning of my journey, I need to learn and get comfortable with the basics before I can start with setting up the server.
I started with the Privex Server form on which there were two items that I did not understand how the information would be used going forward.
- Server Hostname
Note: I did learn from reading several post that it is best to select Ubunto 20.04 as the Operating System as there were some that had issues when selecting other versions. Please correct me if this is not the case.
- SSH Keys
After he answered my questions, I started watching YouTube videos about SSH Keys, their importance and how to create them. I learned that I also need to have software loaded on my computer that will connect my PC to the virtual server. Something called "Putty"
Next Step
I guess tomorrow I will start to learn about the "Putty" software. My brain is hurting from all the new information that it is trying to process that I have never been exposed to before.
It will probably be a slow journey but one that I am excited to take because I always love to learn new things.
If you have suggestions of posts for me to read or videos to watch or software to use, please let me know. I would like the journey to be smooth but I know I will experience bumps along the way.
Take care.
EVER FORWARD!!!