Automating Software Updates with Cosmovisor

Overview

Cosmovisor is a sophisticated process manager designed to facilitate an effortless alternative to the conventional initiad start command. It is tailored for use both manually and as a system service, providing seamless automatic updates for blockchains that utilize the Cosmos SDK.

Step1: Install Cosmovisor

go install cosmossdk.io/tools/cosmovisor/cmd/cosmovisor@latest

Step 2: Set up Cosmovisor

export DAEMON_HOME=~/.initia
export DAEMON_NAME=initiad

cosmovisor init `<path-to-executable>`
cp `<shared-library-path>` $DAEMON_HOME/cosmovisor/current/bin/

# only if there is planned upgrade
export UPGRADE_NAME=<upgrade-name>
export UPGRADE_VERSION=<upgrade-version>

mkdir -p $DAEMON_HOME/cosmovisor/upgrades/$UPGRADE_NAME/bin
cp `<path-to-upgrade-executable>` \
   `<path-to-upgrade-shared-library>` \
   $DAEMON_HOME/cosmovisor/upgrades/$UPGRADE_NAME/bin

Step 3: Set up System Service File

[Unit]
Description=initiad

[Service]
Type=simple
User=ubuntu
ExecStart=/home/ubuntu/go/bin/cosmovisor run start --home /home/ubuntu/.initia
WorkingDirectory=/home/ubuntu/.initia
Restart=on-abort
StandardOutput=syslog
StandardError=syslog
SyslogIdentifier=initiad
LimitNOFILE=4096
Environment="DAEMON_NAME=initiad"
Environment="DAEMON_HOME=/home/ubuntu/.initia" 
Environment="DAEMON_ALLOW_DOWNLOAD_BINARIES=false"
Environment="DAEMON_RESTART_AFTER_UPGRADE=true"
Environment="LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/ubuntu/.initia/cosmovisor/current/bin"

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Step 4: Restart initiad

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart initiad