Find the newest guides for becoming a Steem witness here including hosting, server setup, security tutorials, Steem installation, and optimization! No experience with Ubuntu Linux? Me either! I did the research to make this post because I wanted to have everything I needed to get started today setting up my witness and seed without ever having used Linux before! My relevant experience is spending hours every day using computers and playing video games for over twenty years now including command line interfaces as far back as middle school although I have not used many recently. I am completely new to Ubuntu Linux and feel absolutely confident after reading everything I linked on this page several times that I can setup my own witness by following the instructions and asking for help when I encounter a problem!
Why even think about becoming a Steem witness?
- Steem witnesses are literally creating the blockchain in real time meaning being a witness is a position of trust.
- To attack Steemit, witnesses are the likely targets and therefore also are the defenders of our ability to use Steemit.
- Witnesses are chosen by votes at https://steemit.com/~witnesses and paid based on approval.
- The top 20 witnesses earn about $300 to $600 a day in Steem Power with Steem prices at $1 to $2 while the rest of the witnesses in the top 100 have the ability to earn $100 to $3,000 a month depending on the price of Steem and how close each is to the top.
- Witnesses can make reports each week about what they are doing for our community. Most witness reports earn at least $50 in upvotes with many earning over $100.
In summary, we need as many great witnesses as possible and being a witness is rewarding! Before trying to become a witness, here is what I have considered!
- Am I willing to do this indefinitely? Becoming a witness is not worth the time/energy to just do it for a month or a couple months. I see setting up a witness as a long term investment in Steem and Steemit.
- Can I maintain Linux servers? This was the most difficult for me because up until today I have never made any effort to do anything with Linux outside of paying those that know how to use it to make courses teaching others how to use it. After reading the guides on this page, I feel confident I can setup secure Linux servers and continue to get better at using them over time! My hope in writing this is to inspire more with no Linux experience to take the time reading the guides here and get started as a witness.
- Do I have a plan to get witness votes? For most with the experience to maintain a Linux server, the most challenging part is getting votes which makes being a Steem witness a unique opportunity where both technical experience and community relationships are required for success. While my lack of experience with Linux is currently my weak point, I hope that my relationships with our community here is my strong point. Trust according to the questionnaire linked way below is the most critical factor for a witness. Being an active daily user of Steemit authoring new posts and interacting with posts is the basic way I see to ask for votes. My plan to get witness votes is to ask in every one of my posts going forward to vote for me as a witness or set me as a proxy.
Thank you for learning about the basics of becoming a witness! Here is all the product of the hours of research I did to give me the tools to setup my witness which I hope are also helpful for you!
Summary of steps in becoming a Steem witness!
- Decide whether becoming a witness is a desirable goal using what is written above and more in the guides below.
- Get the servers either with a hosting provider or buying them. Renting is preferred for reliability and security.
- Secure the servers against hackers using a few Linux security programs and tutorials.
- Install Steem, edit the config file, and sync the blockchain.
- Use the CLI wallet to make a WIF Private Key and edit the config file again.
- Update the witness to verify it is working and publish the price feed.
- Verify the witness is working, post a witness declaration thread, and update the witness with the post link.
If this sounds scary at first, that is okay because that is how it looked to me as well! I currently have only went through steps 1 and 2 with starting the rest today because those are the real challenges. While I have attempted to minimize the technical steps here because the guides linked below go into that in detail, I value any corrections or feedback that I can use to improve this post!
Over the last several weeks, I read and read and read the guides linked below and am ready to knock out the rest during the next week to get my witness online. Once I have went through the steps here, I will post my witness declaration because I hope in sharing this BEFORE having done all of these, I am able to meet you closer to where you are if you have not done any of this yourself. Here are the guides that helped me get to this point and that I am confident will give you everything you need too!
What type of server to rent?
64GB DDR4 RAM
2x Intel Xeon E5-2630 V3
2x 240GB SSDs
1Gbit/s connection
I rented two of these for my witness and seed because @someguy123 said these should be good enough to run at the top 20 level. While less than this is acceptable to get started as a backup witness, I believe that if I am going to make a great backup witness, I should be prepared as needed during an attack or outage or disaster to step in at the top 20 level at a moment's notice.
Hosting
- What I use is Privex at https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@privex/we-are-privex-inc-we-accept-steem-protecting-your-privacy-in-the-cloud because several other witnesses are already using their hosting and witness @someguy123 is the CEO of Privex.
- DigitalOcean recommended by @kyle at https://www.digitalocean.com/
- OVH recommended by @krnel at https://www.ovh.com/
- BUYVM recommended by @personz which accepts Bitcoin. https://buyvm.net/
Best 2017 Steem witness guides!
- Complete Witness Installation Guide by @krnel at https://steemit.com/witness-category/@krnel/complete-witness-installation-guide
- Your guide to setting up a Witness Server (STEEM-in-a-box HF19) by @someguy123 at https://steemit.com/steem/@someguy123/your-guide-to-setting-up-a-witness-server-steem-in-a-box-hf19
- The REALLY gentle guide to becoming a witness by @personz at https://steemit.com/witness-category/@personz/the-really-gentle-guide-to-becoming-a-witness
- How To Setup A Low Cost, Low Memory Basic Witness + Seed Node by @bitcoinparadise (inactive as of 18.1) https://steemit.com/witness-category/@bitcoinparadise/how-to-setup-a-low-cost-low-memory-basic-witness-seed-node
Linux security tutorials by @krnel for securing our severs BEFORE launching a witness!
- Setting Up A Linux VPS Securely (Pt.1) https://steemit.com/witness-category/@krnel/setting-up-a-linux-vps-securely-pt-1-join-me-on-my-journey-to-become-a-witness
- Setting Up A Linux VPS Securely (Pt.2) https://steemit.com/cybersecurity/@krnel/setting-up-a-linux-vps-securely-pt-2
- Secure Your Linux Server with a Firewall https://steemit.com/cybersecurity/@krnel/secure-your-linux-server-with-a-firewall
- Secure Your Linux Server with Fail2Ban https://steemit.com/cybersecurity/@krnel/secure-your-linux-server-with-fail2ban
- Secure Your Linux Server with Tripwire IDS https://steemit.com/tutorial/@krnel/secure-your-linux-server-with-tripwire-ids
Optimize to avoid missing blocks and setup price feed.
- Use NTP to prevent block misses due to time synchronization issues! Howto: Configuring more frequent time synchronization on Ubuntu by @l0k1 at https://steemit.com/howto/@l0k1/howto-configuring-more-frequent-time-synchronisation-on-ubuntu
- Manage keys and setup the price feed with Conductor by witness @furion at https://github.com/Netherdrake/conductor. The guide is at https://steemit.com/steem/@furion/introducing-conductor-a-simple-steem-witness-toolkit
Why secure the server prior to launch?
Any beginner ethical hacker with the ability to find our witness IP address can begin copy and paste hacking attempts from tutorials online like many of the ones I have produced. At a minimum without security measures it is easy to take a witness online using brute force methods. Without basic security it may be easy to just use a program to crack the default password of a witness which then would allow the hacker to access to our Steemit active key and therefore the ability to withdraw funds from our accounts. Make sure to take the server security seriously BEFORE setting the witness up because if anything goes wrong and we get locked out of our server before the witness is online, no big deal! Make a mistake with the security after the witness is online and it might mean being locked out of the server and having to do everything again to get back online.
Read the newest witness updates here
https://steemit.com/trending/witness-category
More helpful Steem witness guides from 2016!
- A Full Steemit User's Guide to Steem Witnesses by @pfunk at https://steemit.com/steemit-guides/@pfunk/a-full-steemit-user-s-guide-to-steem-witnesses
- Essential Guide to Becoming a Steem Witness by @steemed at https://steemit.com/steemhelp/@steemed/become-a-steem-witness-essentials
- The Complete Noob Guide to STEEM Witness Setup by @klye at https://steemit.com/witness-category/@klye/the-complete-noob-guide-to-steem-witness-setup
- Seriously, what is a STEEM witness? Why should I care? How do I become one? (Answer) by @someguy123 at https://steemit.com/witness-category/@someguy123/seriously-what-is-a-witness-why-should-i-care-how-do-i-become-one-answer
- Heavy duty witness node infrastructure by @gtg at https://steemit.com/witness-category/@gtg/heavy-duty-witness-node-infrastructure
- Witness Questionnaire - A Solution for Voter Confusion by @thecryptofiend at https://steemit.com/steemit/@thecryptofiend/witness-questionnaire-a-solution-for-voter-confusion
Learn Ubuntu Linux
https://help.ubuntu.com/
Thank you for reading my first guide to becoming a Steem witness today! I hope this is helpful for you if you are considering becoming a witness or had no idea what one was before!
If you learned anything new in this post, would you please upvote this because each upvote helps more readers to find this!
Love,
Jerry Banfield
Very nice post! I look forward to help you even more my friend.
Thank you and I appreciate knowing I can message you with questions! I will try to Google at least 10 times first ...
Nice detailed post, Jerry. Hurry up and become a witness already, you have plenty of votes!
Hi i have confidence in you and tried to vote for you but getting error user does not exist jerrybanfield . I made sure no spaces etc but still coming back the same error. Do you have to register first or something? I voted for another account without issue and i believe you can vote up to 30 different accounts.
Thank you for trying to vote for me because my witness is not online yet! As soon as it is online, I will begin asking for votes! Until then voting for me will only make an error!
ok thanks sorry if i didn't understand correctly
Getting same error too
This is interesting, but I doubt it's something for me. Good to know anyway, thanks!
I couldn't read the whole post because of those technical jargons and things, but yes I think that this post is the step to step detailed guide for anyone like all the other posts of yours.
I personally bookmark your posts if just in case I need help somewhere later, You are doing great job in here.
You should be one of the witnesses here.
I have been following you with your keen interest in this witness pursuit and now I can see all your efforts and desire to do this. I support you and I want to know if you still need some votes. I will vote for you and also mobilize for others to do. I believe you deserve this having seen your growth and popularity rise in this place.
Congratulations in advance.
Thanks @jerrybanfield for another great indepth post! I've started your course and plan starting the process as well to become a witness.
Good post @jerrybanfield.
Big task to become a witness, but I see your videos a bunch of time about other cryptos
Your dedication will maintain steemit to the top.
Just keep on feeding us with great post.
Thanks.
could you give me @jerrybanfield youtube link?
Wow - thank you, Jerry!
Can you make a video tutorial?
Very informative and great post about witness and its requirments @jerrybanfield you will always have my upvotes.
Hi Jerry,
Just want to say thanks for being awesome! Joined Steemit 1 week ago and are already making over 400$ on my first steemit post from Sunday. All thanks to you for sharing steemit on your channels!
Great job promoting this project, I hope to able to contribute to the community as well and hope to connect with others that are as passionate as I am to grow this platform!
more than me
A great thanks to @jerrybanfield. You are the best ambassador and teacher at steem-it. It made life easy to for me to grasp all the updates about STEEM and other cryptocurrencies. Being old fashion crypto-miner, I had to research hard to be up-to-dated :P
Jerry - thank you for this detailed analysis of how and why of becoming a Witness. It is indeed a position of 'trust'. As you have correctly pointed out, it has to be something to which one has to commit long term.
I am willing to put in the effort. However, since I am just a newbie minnow (23 days old on Steemit), I do not have sufficient trust from Steemians. I am working hard for bonding and hope to, some day, become a dedicated Senior Steemit like you.
I think you richly deserve to be a witness since so many Steemians trust you. All the best.
Upvoted
I am continuing to focus on my passion, which is wildlife blogs with my original wildlife photos and my musings about them. Have posted a lion cubs life blog today. I request you to take a look if you have time. Your comments would be very welcome.
I love the wild and I am from Oregon, home of trees.
It appears that you have done quite a bit of research for becoming a Steem witness. It definitely looks like it is a lot of work. While I am interested in trying to help Steem in that capacity I am far from ready to attempt to be a witness at this point. However, I applaud your motivation, and will vote @jerrybanfield when your time comes!
Brilliant, Jerry for witness!
Thanks Jerry. I've had a very frustrating time with Linux just trying to set up a bootable usb to use for creating a wallet in a secure environment. I have not been able to get any versions of linux to function properly on my laptop, and on my PC, linux makes the keyboard stop working. I'm hoping to find a solution to this because I feel a linux usb hardware wallet is one of the most secure options for bitcoin cold storage.
Yet ankther great post. You never stop amazing me. This research is of great value for most of us. I had hard time finding upto date info on this. Thank you for your work. For a short time I have knkw you, I have no doubt you will overcome your weaknesses. You strength way surpass your weaknesses in this matter. You can count on my vote.
For anyone interested in "mining" Steem, the easy way you can do it is through Genesis Mining, here's how I did in my first week
https://steemit.com/steem/@captaincanary/first-week-of-genesis-mining-steem-btc-eth-xmr-is-it-worth-it
Good point however, I rather mine and earn steem blogging and commenting here at steemit .com
Steem can't be mined anymore. There is no such thing as mining Steem anymore. It doesn't exist.
@teamsteem thanks for your comment. Even if it is possible to mine steem i will not do it because am happy with my progress here joining last month and geting 800+ followers and making it daily via commenting , osting and joining in programs here. My last blog post about steemit taking over social media says it all (pls check it out) , thanks to hardworking people like you and your team
Yes Genesis mining is the place to go if you are interested in mining steem!! Great place to do this and not that complicated at all
Steem can't be mined anymore. There is no such thing as mining Steem anymore. It doesn't exist.
Yes sorry I know that, tnx for correcting me haha dont know why I typed steem I meant criptocurrencies like bitcoin...... was typing fast and didt read through my comment when I posted it
Great place to lose money rather!
Jesus, finally some information about how to setup a witness. I was looking for this. Upvote and resteem.
Pump that Steem! Yeah!
Always with the best information
Thank you
Vote @jerrybanfield for Witness and President !!!
Pocahontas Liz did not like smaller government.
If you want to improve your visibility in Steemit I recommend you to use this tool. Steem Activity
https://steemit.com/steemit/@jga/steem-activity-explore-what-is-the-best-time-to-publish
Yeah Jerry!! Keep on pumping Steemit! I trust thanks to you Steem will go to the moon!!
Good explaination.. now I know what is witness.. what difference with mining?
thanks very informative, i was actualy thinking to be one and will research it more myself, thanks jerry ur best
Very interesting, let us know when you have one going. I'll be sure to give you some more votes.
Great Content, It's very helpful for me, Thank you for sharing!
Great tutorial, really exhaustive in all things related to Steem witness; the Linux security tutorials are quite helpful, thank you for compiling the list !
Greetings jerry from Colombia, I have seen all your post and you really are incredible Many blessings and success a support of yours would be great;)
Witness! This really something new about which I didn't know. (as I am a newbie in steem)
Thanks @jerrybanfield for this wonderful guide and information.
Will definitely vote you for witness. :)
Hope one day I shall also stand up for being a witness in steem.
But before that, as you have said, I have to make good relationship with this community and have to attain some reputation here.
Always with the best information
good job
Damn it Jerry, your making most of us here look seriously stupid ,.. Hahaha... Just kidding. You're literally a wizard of extensive knowledge about Steemit, crypto currencies and their platform. I'm always learning something from you. Thanks 👍
that helps a lot of newbies. :D
Security is by far the most important part of set up.
Lot of Love in being a Witness and Jerry the people that want to be a Witness will really help the STEEMIT Community.........STEEEM On
3-600$ a day....well...sounds like its time for me to become a witness
wow nice post.. and great opportunity for those who wish to participate
I can see, to become a witness you have to put it the work and time..
Good luck Jerry! Doubt you will need it!
Thanks a lot. I was looking for auch great post about it
you definitely deserve to be considered as a witness
If you have the strong desire to become a Witness then you will do more than is required, you'll do great.
Very interesting. Thank you for your post. Always good to see new information come from such a good resource such as yourself.
Thanks
Hi @jerrybanfield I watch all of your tutorial on youtube and all of this are very helpful
Your post amazing as always.. nice job dude..
GReat info, as usual