Skip to main content

​
Running a Node

​
Prerequisites

Before starting the daemon, you must have:
  1. Initialized your node — blindference-node init completed
  2. Attested with the ICL — blindference-node attest --mock (or interactive flow)
Without attestation, the daemon will exit with: 
Error: No attestation found. Run `blindference-node attest` first.

​
Start the Daemon

# Interactive — prompts for keystore password
blindference-node run

# Non-interactive — uses environment variable
export BLF_KEY_PASSWORD=secure_password
blindference-node run
The daemon starts three concurrent loops:
LoopFrequencyPurpose
ICL HeartbeatEvery 60sProves liveness to ICL (free REST call)
On-Chain HeartbeatEvery 10 daysProves liveness to NodeRegistry (gas tx)
Attestation WatchdogEvery 10minAuto-re-attests if certificate expires within 6h
Assignment PollerEvery 5sPolls ICL for pending inference jobs

​
Daemon Lifecycle

​
Job Execution Flow

When an assignment is received, the worker executes:

​
Monitoring the Daemon

​
Console Output

The daemon logs to stdout with structured log lines: 
[2026-05-18T10:25:00] [INFO   ] [0xdDef3Cf5] Daemon starting ...
[2026-05-18T10:25:00] [INFO   ] [0xdDef3Cf5]   Address : 0xdDef3Cf5A4d0A6404Bc084D74de3E2c0d6147dA5
[2026-05-18T10:25:00] [INFO   ] [0xdDef3Cf5]   Tier    : 0
[2026-05-18T10:25:00] [INFO   ] [0xdDef3Cf5]   Models  : qwen2.5-7b
[2026-05-18T10:25:00] [INFO   ] [0xdDef3Cf5]   Cert    : expires in 604663s
[2026-05-18T10:25:00] [INFO   ] [0xdDef3Cf5] Heartbeat sent to ICL
[2026-05-18T10:25:00] [INFO   ] [0xdDef3Cf5] No assignments for last 60s
[2026-05-18T10:35:00] [INFO   ] [0xdDef3Cf5] Received 1 assignment(s)
[2026-05-18T10:35:00] [INFO   ] [0xdDef3Cf5] Spawning leader job 0xabc123...
[2026-05-18T10:35:00] [INFO   ] [0xdDef3Cf5] Job 0xabc123: starting as leader
[2026-05-18T10:35:00] [INFO   ] [0xdDef3Cf5] Job 0xabc123: claimed

​
Log Levels

LevelUse
DEBUGFull request/response bodies, CoFHE operations, model prompts
INFOHeartbeats, job starts/completions, attestation events
WARNINGClaim failures, heartbeat failures, CoFHE errors (non-fatal)
ERRORJob aborts, attestation failures, IPFS failures
Set log level via environment: 
BLF_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG blindference-node run

​
Stopping the Daemon

Press Ctrl+C (SIGINT) or send SIGTERM: 
kill -SIGTERM <pid>
The daemon handles shutdown gracefully:
  1. Stops accepting new assignments
  2. Waits for running jobs to complete (or timeout)
  3. Sends final heartbeat
  4. Exits

​
Running Multiple Nodes

You can run multiple nodes on the same machine (for testing) by using different config directories: 
# Node 1
export BLF_CONFIG_PATH=/tmp/node1/config.json
blindference-node init
blindference-node run

# Node 2 (in another terminal)
export BLF_CONFIG_PATH=/tmp/node2/config.json
blindference-node init
blindference-node run
Each node needs a unique wallet and should use a unique ICL operator key.

​
Background Operation

​
Using systemd (Linux)

Create /etc/systemd/system/blindference-node.service: 
[Unit]
Description=Blindference Node Daemon
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=blindference
Environment=BLF_KEY_PASSWORD=secure_password
Environment=BLF_LOG_LEVEL=INFO
WorkingDirectory=/home/blindference
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/blindference-node run
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

sudo systemctl enable blindference-node
sudo systemctl start blindference-node
sudo systemctl status blindference-node

​
Using Docker

docker run -d \
  --name blindference-node \
  -e BLF_KEY_PASSWORD=secure_password \
  -e BLF_ICL_ENDPOINT=https://icl.blindference.xyz \
  -v /host/config:/root/.blindference \
  blindference-node

​
Using nohup / screen / tmux

# Simple background
nohup blindference-node run > node.log 2>&1 &

# Or with screen
screen -S blindference
blindference-node run
# Detach: Ctrl+A, D
# Reattach: screen -r blindference