Before starting the testing rounds, it is essential to properly prepare our environment and understand the critical importance of secure management of keys and seed phrases.

Drive is the client tool developed by the Lab that allows the management of multiple nodes and services in a unified way.

Drive Resources

• Repository: github.com/deep-thought-labs/drive
• Documentation: Technical documentation is available in the repository and is being continuously refined to make it more accessible.

Drive Features

Drive allows you to:

• Manage multiple nodes
• Manage services
• Coming soon: support for QL1 nodes, allowing you to run both validators on the same server

Note: Currently, the operational demand for both networks is very low, so running them on the same server is perfectly feasible, avoiding duplicate costs.

Proper key management is absolutely critical for the security of your validator. Pay special attention to these points:

1. Create your keys using Drive and the key generation utility.
2. Learn how to store them correctly.
3. Save your seed phrase offline — preferably on paper.
4. Practice initializing the node using the key you already have.

The most important value to verify is that the priv_validator_key file generated in your configuration folder after initializing the node is always the same value when you initialize your node with your recovery key.

This is the most important thing: Make sure it’s always the same value every time you use the same recovery key.

Before executing the “create-validator” transaction, you must:

1. Initialize a node two or three times with --recover, using the same seed phrase.
2. Ensure you can always generate the same priv_validator_key.
3. Know your exact and correct priv_validator_key and verify that it is present in your configuration file.
4. Only then execute the “create-validator” transaction.

If you create a validator but did NOT use a seed phrase in the node’s Init (with --recover), there is NO way to regenerate the exact priv_validator_key again.

This poses a risk: If you lose the priv_validator_key file, you also lose your validator.

It is important to understand the purpose of priv_validator_key:

• The validator uses it to sign its blocks
• It does NOT have the power to move, delegate, or perform any other operation that belongs to the token holder
• Those operations are the responsibility of the keys that are added to the Key Ring in a separate process

Ideally, the keys used in the Key Ring and the priv_validator_key generated during the INIT process should use the same seed phrase.

We recommend that everyone practice with their node using Drive and the graphical interface utility for key generation:

• Create your keys
• Learn how to store them
• Save your seed phrase offline on paper
• Practice initializing the node using that key

Once you have Drive installed and have practiced key management, we’ll be ready for the first round of testing: the Chain Launch.

Remember: The security of your validator depends entirely on the correct management of your keys. Take the time to practice and verify that everything works correctly before proceeding.