initial files

infrastructure/general/.pages

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 title: General Infrastructure
 nav:
   - index.md
+  - setup-bootnode.md

infrastructure/general/setup-bootnode.md

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+---
+title: Set up a Boot Node
+description: Instructions on setting up, testing, maintaining, and testing a boot node.
+---
+
+!!!note
+    When you first start a node, it has to find a way to find other nodes in the network. For that
+    purpose, you need "bootnodes". After the first bootnode is found, it can use that node’s connections
+    to continue expanding and play its role in the network, like participating as a validator.
+
+<!-- TODO: link wss guide wherever applicable. -->
+
+## Accessing the Bootnode
+
+The consensus is that bootnodes have to be accessible in three ways:
+
+- **P2P**: the p2p port, which can be set by `--listen-addr /ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/<port>`. This port is
+  not automatically set on a non-validator node (for example, an archive RPC node)
+- **P2P/WS**: the WebSocket version, which can be set by `--listen-addr /ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/<port>/ws`
+- **P2P/WSS**: the _secure_ websocket version. An SSL-secured connection to the p2p/ws port must be
+  achieved by a proxy since the node cannot include certificates. It is needed for light clients.
+
+## Network Key
+
+Starting a node creates its node key in the `chains/<chain>/network/secret_ed25519` file. You can
+also create a node-key by `polkadot key generate-node-key` and use that node-key in the startup
+command line.
+
+It is essential you backup the node key, especially if it gets included in the polkadot binary
+because it gets hardcoded in the binary and needs to be recompiled to change.
+
+## Running the Bootnode
+
+Say we are running a Polkadot node with:
+
+ ```
+ polkadot --chain polkadot --name dot-bootnode --listen-addr /ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/30310 --listen-addr /ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/30311/ws
+ ```
+
+You would have the p2p on port 30310 and p2p/ws on port 30311. For the p2p/wss port, we need to
+set up a proxy, a DNS name, and a corresponding certificate. These concepts and example setups are
+described here. The following example is for the popular nginx server and enables p2p/wss on port 30312 by proxying the p2p/ws
+port 30311:
+
+_/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/dot-bootnode_
+
+```
+server {
+       listen       30312 ssl http2 default_server;
+       server_name  dot-bootnode.stakeworld.io;
+       root         /var/www/html;
+
+       ssl_certificate "<your_cert";
+       ssl_certificate_key "<your_key>";
+
+       location / {
+         proxy_buffers 16 4k;
+         proxy_buffer_size 2k;
+         proxy_pass http://localhost:30311;
+         proxy_http_version 1.1;
+         proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
+         proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
+         proxy_set_header Host $host;
+   }
+
+}
+```
+
+## Testing Bootnode Connection
+
+If we have the above node running with DNS name `dot-bootnode.stakeworld.io`, proxied with a valid
+certificate and node-id `12D3KooWAb5MyC1UJiEQJk4Hg4B2Vi3AJdqSUhTGYUqSnEqCFMFg` then the following
+commands should give you a: "syncing 1 peers".
+
+!!!tip
+    You can add `-lsub-libp2p=trace` on the end to get libp2p trace logging for debugging purposes.
+
+### P2P
+
+```bash
+polkadot --chain polkadot --base-path /tmp/node --name "Bootnode testnode" --reserved-only --reserved-nodes "/dns/dot-bootnode.stakeworld.io/tcp/30310/p2p/12D3KooWAb5MyC1UJiEQJk4Hg4B2Vi3AJdqSUhTGYUqSnEqCFMFg" --no-hardware-benchmarks
+```
+
+### P2P/WS
+
+```bash
+polkadot --chain polkadot --base-path /tmp/node --name "Bootnode testnode" --reserved-only --reserved-nodes "/dns/dot-bootnode.stakeworld.io/tcp/30311/ws/p2p/12D3KooWAb5MyC1UJiEQJk4Hg4B2Vi3AJdqSUhTGYUqSnEqCFMFg" --no-hardware-benchmarks
+```
+
+### P2P/WSS
+
+```bash
+polkadot --chain polkadot --base-path /tmp/node --name "Bootnode testnode" --reserved-only --reserved-nodes "/dns/dot-bootnode.stakeworld.io/tcp/30312/wss/p2p/12D3KooWAb5MyC1UJiEQJk4Hg4B2Vi3AJdqSUhTGYUqSnEqCFMFg" --no-hardware-benchmarks
+```