Validators
Last updated

Rakurai Validator Operators

Running Rakurai turns one revenue stream into four. Alongside block rewards, a Rakurai validator earns tips from traders competing to land, prepaid subscriptions from services consuming its post-pack stream, and a share of the backrun profit those services make — each metered in its own on-chain account.

Rakurai is a fork of jito-solana running the Rakurai scheduler library, so it replaces your client rather than adding a sidecar. Rakurai currently charges no fee for running it, and you choose how much of the block reward to share with stakers through a Merkle-root-based distribution you can hand to Rakurai at 0% distribution fee.

Operationally: build the client, create an on-chain activation account, and keep the scheduler binary in step with each release. Those, plus Geyser compatibility, are what the guides below cover.

Audience: Solana validator operators who want to run the Rakurai client and maximize block rewards.

1. Where to start

If you are…Go to
Setting up Rakurai for the first timeSetup and build
Already running Rakurai and moving to a new releaseNode upgrade
Deciding whether to share block rewards with stakersBlock reward distribution
Running a Geyser plugin alongside RakuraiGeyser
Verifying a downloaded scheduler binaryBinary attestation
Three things that will break a Rakurai node
  • Running a Geyser plugin that was not rebuilt against the Rakurai crates — Geyser.
  • Running a scheduler binary from a different release than the client — Node upgrade.
  • Losing LD_LIBRARY_PATH or XDP capabilities after a rebuild — Setup and build.

2. Guides

GuideDescription
Setup and buildPrerequisites, activation account, scheduler binary, build, and CLI args
Node UpgradeFast upgrade path for existing Rakurai operators
Block Reward DistributionShare block rewards with stakers via the RCA, and customize allocations
GeyserBuild and run Geyser plugins compatible with Rakurai
Binary attestationVerify scheduler binary with GitHub artifact attestations
Spark geyserPrebuilt sample Geyser plugin (ZeroMQ forwarding)

3. What a Rakurai validator earns

Four separate revenue streams reach a Rakurai validator, each with its own on-chain account. The full model is in Reward Distribution.

StreamAccountWhere it comes from
Block rewardsRCALeader slots; the staker share is distributed after the epoch
TipsTCATraders and landing services tipping to get prioritized
Post-pack accessPSAPrepaid subscriptions from post-pack consumers, priced from your stake
Backrun shareMCAA share of profit searchers make from your post-pack stream

Commission on block rewards is set per validator in the Rakurai Activation Account with rakurai-activation.

You do not need these to run a node, but they explain the traffic your validator receives:

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