I know it's been forever since I last posted - so much to do and so little time. My business pays the bills and it continues to absorb all of my time. But I am still very active in the background of Hive Blockchain - keeping all my servers updated to latest versions and doing my own little bit to keep the blockchain running.
First up my Hive full api node is fully updated to v1.28.8 - now running on Haf Api Stack not only do you get https://api.c0ff33a.co.uk as an access point for you apps and dapps but in addition my server runs the full range of companion services. So if you visit https://api.c0ff33a.uk/explorer you can view all sorts of fun stats about the Hive Blockchain. You can also access your Hive Wallet through it at https://api.c0ff33a.uk/wallet . Finally you can access the front end of Hive Blockchain at https://api.c0ff33a.uk/blog which effectively means my own API Node is an entire access point in it's own right, this is a perfect example of decentralisation - more access points mean if any front end should go down for unknown reasons - you have even more choices to still access you blog, create posts or interact with your Hive Wallet.
Running a full api node server is not however cheap, to ensure enough storage space and avoid using compression I went for 8tb of NVME storage, the ram is a bit overkill at 128gb but you know - more is better. Basically I went for a server that would provide decent response times and handle any loads very well, which it does.
My Hive Witness Nodes
Most of you will be aware I run two Hive witnesses c0ff33a and whiterosecoffee, they are backed up with four servers running Hived instances - each server has it's own set of signing keys for the relevant account so I can safely manually switch signing keys from a main to a back up during maintenance downtime (ie upgrading to a new version that needs a replay). The benefit of multiple keys is there is no way to accidentally have two servers signing blocks at the same time (double signing) which is incredibly bad for the blockchain - and will make you extremely unpopular with everyone from the top twenty witnesses, developers and your Witness voters who may well decide to take their vote elsewhere for committing such a crime.
So running multiple servers has the benefit of not needing to disable your witness while you upgrade either the server itself or Hived when it needs a replay - but it has it's risks and having separately generated signing keys makes sure you don't accidentally end up with more then one server signing at the same time. Of course running more servers also has the benefit of providing even more back up to the Blockchain - on top of these four servers I have processing the blockchain all the time, I have of course https://api.c0ff33a.uk running which has Hived processing the blockchain all the time - and I also have yet another Hived instance running on my Hive Engine full node server - which is there for my Hive Engine Witnesses to pull blocks from. Six instances providing back up to the Hive Blockchain - and that is six different servers actually running all this, I will let you decide yourselves how much of an investment that is.
I do have some good news on my Witness rank, after spending the longest time hovering around the mid 50's in Witness ranks, thanks to a big voter taking the time to look at the support I do give to the Hive Blockchain (specifically I think the full node I have run for many years now) I have jumped in rank to position 38. That of course is a big help, because higher rank provides more Witness rewards because you process blocks more frequently - which you receive staked Hive as a reward for. So a big thank you to all my Witness voters, both existing long term voters and new voters - every position I climb contributes a little bit more to all the costs of running all the servers I have to support the Hive Blockchain. At the moment it does not even cover the full Api Node cost let alone everything else - but we are of course all optimists here - one day soon will be the time for Hive to shine.
My Hive Engine Witness Nodes
I also support the Hive Engine side chain by running Witnesses to support it as well, if you use https://hive-engine.com my Witnesses help support that, and it also adds functionality for everything from communities and tokens to built on Hive games.
At present my main Hive Engine Witness c0ff33a is at rank 2, it is a full Hive Engine node accessible at https://heapi.c0ff33a.uk which you can select from most Hive Engine front end settings instead of the default. You can view all Hive Engine Witnesses at https://primersion.com/he-witnesses or at https://tribaldex.com/witnesses voting is a bit more complicated - your vote only counts if you hold Workerbee https://hive-engine.com/trade/WORKERBEE - well technically you can vote a Hive Engine witness whatever - but they will only gain rank if you are holding Workerbee.
As well as my primary Hive Engine Full Node Witness - I have three back up light nodes running, and one full node back up. So five nodes in total - and at the moment there are only 31 active Hive Engine nodes - so I am actually contributing quite a large chunk of the infrastructure. Fortunately Hive Engine light nodes require very little in server resources, so I am able to make use of my existing servers for them (every little helps). Hive Engine Witnesses receive BEE rewards (I know it's confusing WorkerBee is the Governance token, but reward token is BEE). For anyone interested in maybe running a Hive Engine Witness look at https://github.com/hive-engine/hivesmartcontracts and for guides and walkthrough https://primersion.com/he-links anyone in the top 20 receives the same reward, so actually getting into maximum rewards is not that far away for anyone starting out - plus you are contributing to keeping the side chain running.
Bringing all my servers together with TailScale
This is a little bit of a side note really, but obviously I am running a large number of servers including multiple back up Hive Witnesses. For my Hive Engine Witnesses they need to pull blocks from a capable Hived instance - this can be achieved by using public Hive API nodes from a list such as https://beacon.peakd.com/ but the problem is you have no control on uptime and obviously the speed they respond depends on how much they are being used to request information by other users. While I have many Hived instances myself, making them publicly accessible to pull information is not advised if they hold Witness keys - it's a security thing. To get around this I have started using https://tailscale.com which in it's basic form is free - and it brings all your servers and computers into their own VPN. This has been very helpful because it makes servers that can not normally be accessed externally from the internet - due either to firewall or CGNAT on personal connections because I physically own some of my servers. Instead of having to remote log into a work computer to then ssh into a server there - I can use it's own unique non public tailscale IP to access it. And I can access the Hived nodes to pull blocks from using the internal IP only accessible from my internal connected mesh of servers.
And that is me done for now, drop a comment if you found anything interesting, need to know any more about my Witness activities or just want to let me know how your day has been!
