Overview
This section covers the details of how to provision your node for staking with Rocket Pool once you've installed and configured the Smartnode. It's a long one because there's a lot of information around staking to cover, so please read through each guide before creating your first minipool!
Prerequisites
Before provisioning your node for staking, please make sure you've done the following:
- Set up a node machine (or virtual machine) and secured it (via the Securing your Node guide)
- Have the Smartnode installed and configured on it
Guides
Starting Rocket Pool will show you how to start the Smartnode services for each mode and how to check on the sync progress of your Execution and Consensus clients.
Creating a New Wallet walks through the process of creating a brand new wallet with the Smartnode if this is your first time setting up a node.
Importing / Recovering an Existing Wallet is an alternative to creating a new wallet. Use this guide if you already have a node wallet that you want to recover onto your node (or if you're migrating from a service like Allnodes to your own hardware).
Preparing your Node for Operation covers some important first steps you'll want to take once you have a wallet loaded onto your node, well before you fund it with any ETH or RPL (other than a small amount of ETH for gas costs, of course).
Specifying a Fallback Node walks you through the optional process of pointing your node at a second (externally-managed) pair of Execution and Consensus clients that can act as a backup for your primary clients if they ever go down, so your node can keep validating while you perform maintenance on them.
Fee Distributors and the Smoothing Pool discuss the way Execution layer rewards are provided to your node every time one of your validators proposes a block, how to collect those rewards, and describes Rocket Pool's Smoothing Pool - a popular feature that combines Execution layer rewards from everyone and evenly distributes them during Rocket Pool's regular rewards intervals.
MEV, MEV-Boost, and MEV Rewards explains Maximum-Extractable Value (MEV), its role in the staking ecosystem, and how you can configure it to your liking using the Smartnode.