Melnode quick start

In this section, you will learn how to use melnode, Mel's reference node implementation.

Setup and Installation

Hardware requirements

Minimum

• 1-core CPU

• 4 GB of RAM

• at least 200 GB of free storage (SSD not necessary)

• 10 Mbps download Internet service

Recommended

• 4+ core CPU

• 16 GB of RAM

• 200+ GB of free storage on a fast device (SSD, RAID array, etc)

• 50+ Mbps up/download Internet service

Install Rust and Cargo

For security reasons, until we have reliable, reproducible build infrastructure, we stick to releasing source code and do not distribute any official binary packages.

Fortunately, Rust's package manager, Cargo, is very easy to use, likely easier than whichever package manager you are already accustomed to.

Follow the instructions from the official Cargo Book to get started. Make sure that the cargo command is available and of the latest version:

cargo version
cargo 1.76.0 (c84b36747 2024-01-18)

Compile and install melnode

Simply run the following command:

cargo install --locked melnode

Don't forget the --locked parameter! That ensures that all dependencies are locked to the specific version we specify, which can sometimes be important for correct functionality.

This should kick off a fairly long build process, but eventually you should see something like this, indicating that melnode has been installed successfully:

   Compiling Mel-bootstrap v0.6.1
   Compiling imbl v1.0.1
   Compiling lz4_flex v0.8.2
   Compiling arc-swap v1.5.1
   Compiling clone-macro v0.1.0
   Compiling jemallocator v0.3.2
   Compiling jemallocator-global v0.3.2
   Compiling rusqlite v0.26.3
   Compiling boringdb v0.4.1
   Compiling melnode v0.14.0
    Finished release [optimized] target(s) in 1m 29