Digitalia Archive Node — User Manual¶

Purpose¶

This manual is for Archive Node operators and technical users who run historical blockchain queries and need practical daily operating procedures.

1. What Makes Archive Node Different¶

Compared to a standard full node, an archive node retains historical state needed for deep block-height queries.

Use Archive Node when you need:

historical balances at old blocks
historical storage slot reads
long-range analytics and auditing

2. First-Time Startup Checks¶

Start the archive node with persistent volumes.
Confirm liveness endpoint responds.
Check dvm_syncing until result is false.
Confirm block height increases over time.

Basic checks:

curl -sf http://localhost:8545/health/live

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8545 \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"dvm_syncing","params":[],"id":1}'

3. Daily Operator Workflow¶

Start-of-day:

confirm node process/container is healthy
confirm peer count is non-zero
confirm block height is advancing
run one historical query smoke test

During operations:

monitor sync lag and disk growth
monitor RPC latency for user-facing endpoints
capture failed query examples for escalation

End-of-day:

verify no critical alerts unresolved
confirm backups/snapshots status if scheduled

4. Common RPC Queries¶

4.1 Peer count¶

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8545 \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"net_peerCount","params":[],"id":1}'

4.2 Current block¶

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8545 \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"dvm_blockNumber","params":[],"id":1}'

4.3 Historical balance¶

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8545 \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"dvm_getBalance","params":["0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000001","0x1"],"id":1}'

5. Troubleshooting¶

5.1 Sync takes too long¶

verify peer count and connectivity
verify storage throughput and available space
compare current block to network head over interval

5.2 Historical queries return errors¶

ensure node is archive mode
ensure block identifier is valid
inspect logs for state/trie corruption signals

5.3 RPC unavailable¶

verify process/container status
verify port exposure and firewall policies
restart node and re-run health checks

5.4 Disk usage rapidly growing¶

validate expected growth profile
increase volume before reaching 80% threshold
review query workload and data retention policy

6. Security Practices¶

expose RPC only to approved consumers
avoid sharing admin-level node endpoints publicly
keep software and image tags up to date
separate operational credentials from app-level credentials

7. Escalation Data Checklist¶

When escalating an issue, provide:

image tag/version
deployment mode (Docker/Kubernetes)
outputs for dvm_syncing, net_peerCount, dvm_blockNumber
one failing query sample with timestamp
relevant log excerpt

8. Documentation Map¶

docs/ARCHIVE_NODE_USER_MANUAL.md (this file)
docs/ARCHIVE_NODE_ADMINISTRATOR_GUIDE.md
JFOS_ARCHIVE_NODE_PRODUCTION_OPS_RUNBOOK.md
docs/FULL_NODE_USER_MANUAL.md