Installation

System Requirements

The daemon is a single Rust binary with low overhead. A $5/month VPS (Hetzner CX22, DigitalOcean Basic Droplet, Vultr Cloud Compute) is more than enough for testnet.

Docker (Fastest)

Run a node with a single command — no Rust toolchain needed:

docker run -d \
  --name rougechain-node \
  -p 127.0.0.1:5100:8900 \
  -v qv-data:/data/rougechain \
  rougechain/node \
  --data-dir /data/rougechain --host 0.0.0.0 --api-port 8900 \
  --mine --peers https://testnet.rougechain.io/api

Arguments after the image name replace the image's default command, so keep --data-dir /data/rougechain (the image's volume) and --api-port 8900 (the port the image's health check probes). See Docker.

Verify it's running:

curl http://127.0.0.1:5100/api/health

docker-compose

For a persistent setup, create a .env file:

API_PORT=5100
QV_PEERS=https://api.rougechain.io/api

The compose file always uses the mainnet genesis (chain id rougechain-mainnet-1; there is no chain-id setting) and always passes --mine, so point QV_PEERS at mainnet peers. The API is published on 127.0.0.1:${API_PORT} only; set API_BIND=0.0.0.0 to expose it on every interface.

Then start:

git clone https://github.com/cyberdreadx/rougechain-node
cd rougechain-node
docker compose up -d

View logs:

docker compose logs -f node

Build the image locally

git clone https://github.com/cyberdreadx/rougechain-node
cd rougechain-node
docker build -t rougechain/node .

Build from Source

Install and build manually if you prefer not to use Docker.

Prerequisites

Linux / macOS

# Install Rust
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
source ~/.cargo/env

# Install build dependencies (Ubuntu/Debian)
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y build-essential pkg-config libssl-dev

# Install build dependencies (macOS)
xcode-select --install

Windows

1. Install Rust
2. Install Visual Studio Build Tools
3. Ensure cargo is in your PATH

Compile

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/cyberdreadx/rougechain-node
cd rougechain-node/core

# Build release binary
cargo build --release -p quantum-vault-daemon

# Binary location
./target/release/quantum-vault-daemon --help

Verify Installation

./target/release/quantum-vault-daemon --version

Expected output:

quantum-vault-daemon 0.1.0

First Run

Option A: Connect to Testnet

./target/release/quantum-vault-daemon \
  --api-port 5100 \
  --peers "https://testnet.rougechain.io/api"

Option B: Start Local Devnet

./target/release/quantum-vault-daemon --mine --api-port 5100

Verify Node is Running

curl http://127.0.0.1:5100/api/health

Expected response:

{"status":"ok","chain_id":"rougechain-devnet-1","height":0}

Directory Structure

After first run, data is stored at:

Updating

Bring your node up to the latest main with one command — it fetches, fast-forwards, rebuilds the release binary, restarts the service, and health-checks:

cd rougechain-node
./scripts/update-node.sh

It refuses to run on a dirty working tree and only fast-forwards, so it never clobbers local changes. Override the defaults with env vars if your setup differs (systemd unit name, port, etc.):

ROUGECHAIN_SERVICE=my-node ROUGECHAIN_API_PORT=5100 ./scripts/update-node.sh

cd rougechain-node
git pull --ff-only
cd core
cargo build --release -p quantum-vault-daemon
sudo systemctl restart rougechain   # your service name

Troubleshooting

"cargo not found"

source ~/.cargo/env
# or restart your terminal

"OpenSSL not found"

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install libssl-dev pkg-config

# Fedora/RHEL
sudo dnf install openssl-devel

# macOS
brew install openssl

"Address already in use"

Another process is using port 5100:

# Find and kill it
lsof -i :5100
kill -9 <PID>

# Or use a different port
./quantum-vault-daemon --api-port 5101

Build fails on Windows

Ensure you have Visual Studio Build Tools with C++ workload installed.

Environment Variables

Some CLI flags can also be set via environment variables (others, such as --host, --api-port, --data-dir, --chain-id, --mine and the --rate-limit-* flags, are CLI-only):

Common CLI-only flags: