Command-Line Reference

When starting up your own Tangle node, there are some required and optional flags that can be used.

This page outlines the most common flags used, for an exhaustive documentation of all available flags and options please refer to the official Substrate documentation here (opens in a new tab), as well as, a list of out of the box command line tools that ships with all Substrate based nodes including the Tangle node here (opens in a new tab).

After installing the tangle binary (or pull from Docker), you can view the Tangle command line interface (CLI). For a complete list of the available flags, you can spin up your Tangle node with --help added to the end of the command. The command will vary depending on how you choose to spin up your node, and if you're using Docker or Systemd.

docker run --platform linux/amd64 --network="host" -v "/var/lib/data" --entrypoint ./tangle-standalone \
ghcr.io/webb-tools/tangle/tangle-standalone:main \
--help

If you have compiled the tangle-parachain binary its important to note that the command-line arguments provided first will be passed to the parachain node, while the arguments provided after -- will be passed to the relay chain node.

tangle-parachain <parachain-args> -- <relay-chain-args>

USAGE:

tangle-parachain [OPTIONS] [-- <RELAY_CHAIN_ARGS>...]
tangle-parachain <SUBCOMMAND>

Common Flags

The below lists the most commonly used flags for your convienance.

--alice

Shortcut for --name Alice --validator with session keys for Alice added to keystore. Commonly used for development or local test networks.

tangle-standalone --alice

--blocks-pruning <COUNT>

Specify the blocks pruning mode, a number of blocks to keep or 'archive'.

Default is to keep all finalized blocks. otherwise, all blocks can be kept (i.e 'archive'), or for all canonical blocks (i.e 'archive-canonical'), or for the last N blocks (i.e a number).

NOTE: only finalized blocks are subject for removal!

tangle-standalone --blocks-pruning 120

--bob

Shortcut for --name Bob --validator with session keys for Bob added to keystore. Commonly used for development or local test networks.

tangle-standalone --bob

--bootnodes

Specify a list of bootnodes.

tangle-standalone --bootnodes /ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/30333/p2p/12D3KooWAWueKNxuNwMbAtss3nDTQhMg4gG3XQBnWdQdu2DuEsZS

--chain <CHAIN_SPEC>

Specify the chain specification.

It can be one of the predefined ones (dev, local, or staging) or it can be a path to a file with the chainspec (such as one exported by the build-spec subcommand).

tangle-standalone --chain standalone-local

--charlie

Shortcut for --name Charlie --validator with session keys for Charlie added to keystore. Commonly used for development or local test networks.

tangle-standalone --charlie

--collator

Run node as collator. (Not applicable at this time.)

Note that this is the same as running with --validator.

tangle-standalone --collator

-d, --base-path <PATH>

Specify custom base path.

tangle-standalone --base-path /data

--db-cache <MiB>

Limit the memory the database cache can use

tangle-standalone --db-cache 128

--detailed-log-output

Enable detailed log output.

This includes displaying the log target, log level and thread name.

This is automatically enabled when something is logged with any higher level than info.

tangle-standalone --detailed-log-output

--dev

Specify the development chain.

This flag sets --chain=dev, --force-authoring, --rpc-cors=all, --alice, and --tmp flags, unless explicitly overridden.

tangle-standalone --dev

--execution <STRATEGY>

The execution strategy that should be used by all execution contexts

[possible values: native, wasm, both, native-else-wasm]

native - only execute with the native build wasm - only execute with the Wasm build both - execute with both native and Wasm builds nativeelsewasm - execute with the native build if possible and if it fails, then execute with Wasm

tangle-standalone --execution wasm

--force-authoring

Enable authoring even when offline

tangle-parachain --force-authoring

--keystore-path <PATH>

Specify custom keystore path

tangle-standalone --keystore-path /tmp/chain/data/

--keystore-uri <KEYSTORE_URI>

Specify custom URIs to connect to for keystore-services

tangle-standalone --keystore-uri foo://example.com:8042/over/

--name <NAME>

The human-readable name for this node.

The node name will be reported to the telemetry server, if enabled.

tangle-standalone --name zeus

--node-key <KEY>

The secret key to use for libp2p networking.

The value is a string that is parsed according to the choice of --node-key-type as follows:

ed25519: The value is parsed as a hex-encoded Ed25519 32 byte secret key, i.e. 64 hex characters.

The value of this option takes precedence over --node-key-file.

WARNING: Secrets provided as command-line arguments are easily exposed. Use of this option should be limited to development and testing. To use an externally managed secret key, use --node-key-file instead.

tangle-standalone --node-key b6806626f5e4490c27a4ccffed4fed513539b6a455b14b32f58878cf7c5c4e68

--node-key-file <FILE>

The file from which to read the node's secret key to use for libp2p networking.

The contents of the file are parsed according to the choice of --node-key-type as follows:

ed25519: The file must contain an unencoded 32 byte or hex encoded Ed25519 secret key.

If the file does not exist, it is created with a newly generated secret key of the chosen type.

tangle-standalone --node-key-file ./node-keys-file/

--port <PORT>

Specify p2p protocol TCP port

tangle-standalone --port 9944

--prometheus-external

Expose Prometheus exporter on all interfaces.

Default is local.

tangle-standalone --prometheus-external

--prometheus-port <PORT>

Specify Prometheus exporter TCP Port

tangle-standalone --prometheus-port 9090

--rpc-cors <ORIGINS>

Specify browser Origins allowed to access the HTTP & WS RPC servers.

A comma-separated list of origins (protocol://domain or special null value). Value of all will disable origin validation. Default is to allow localhost and https://polkadot.js.org (opens in a new tab) origins. When running in --dev mode the default is to allow all origins.

tangle-standalone --rpc-cors "*"

--rpc-external

Listen to all RPC interfaces.

Default is local. Note: not all RPC methods are safe to be exposed publicly. Use an RPC proxy server to filter out dangerous methods. More details: https://docs.substrate.io/main-docs/build/custom-rpc/#public-rpcs (opens in a new tab). Use --unsafe-rpc-external to suppress the warning if you understand the risks.

tangle-standalone --rpc-external

--rpc-port <PORT>

Specify HTTP RPC server TCP port

tangle-standalone --rpc-port 9933

--state-pruning <PRUNING_MODE>

Specify the state pruning mode, a number of blocks to keep or 'archive'.

Default is to keep only the last 256 blocks, otherwise, the state can be kept for all of the blocks (i.e 'archive'), or for all of the canonical blocks (i.e 'archive-canonical').

tangle-standalone --state-pruning 128

--telemetry-url <URL VERBOSITY>

The URL of the telemetry server to connect to.

This flag can be passed multiple times as a means to specify multiple telemetry endpoints. Verbosity levels range from 0-9, with 0 denoting the least verbosity. Expected format is 'URL VERBOSITY'.

tangle-standalone --telemetry-url 'wss://foo/bar 0'

--validator

Enable validator mode.

The node will be started with the authority role and actively participate in any consensus task that it can (e.g. depending on availability of local keys).

tangle-standalone --validator

--wasm-execution <METHOD>

Method for executing Wasm runtime code

[default: compiled] [possible values: interpreted-i-know-what-i-do, compiled]

compiled - this is the default and uses the Wasmtime compiled runtime interpreted-i-know-what-i-do - uses the wasmi interpreter

tangle-standalone --wasm-execution compiled

--ws-external

Listen to all Websocket interfaces.

Default is local. Note: not all RPC methods are safe to be exposed publicly. Use an RPC proxy server to filter out dangerous methods. More details: https://docs.substrate.io/main-docs/build/custom-rpc/#public-rpcs (opens in a new tab). Use --unsafe-ws-external to suppress the warning if you understand the risks.

tangle-standalone --ws-external

--ws-port <PORT>

Specify WebSockets RPC server TCP port

tangle-standalone --ws-port 9944

Subcommands

The following subcommands are available:

USAGE:

tangle-standalone <SUBCOMMAND>