The following instructions are for installing a node locally on your computer. Element is not affiliated with Docker and does not endorse Docker however, we will use Docker in the following instructions as an example of how the setup would function. Follow along with our video tutorial.
Before setting up your node, please make sure that your Mac meets system requirements for our Docker example.
1. Go to docker.com and click on the download button for the correct operating system.
2. Double-click Docker.dmg to open the installer, then drag the Docker icon to the Applications folder.
3. Double-click Docker.app in the Applications folder to start Docker.
4. Once installed, the Docker window will appear, leave it open and minimize to your task bar.
5. Download the Element Node Setup files
6. Move the extracted element-node-docker folder to the desktop.
7. Right click readme.md file, go to Open With and select TextEdit (This file contains the directions to install the needed Element-Node files to Docker).
8. Right-click the login.env file in the element-node-docker folder, go to Open With and select TextEdit.
9. Once the text file is open replace ‘email@domain.com’ with your Element email. Then replace ‘password’ with your Element password. These are the same used to log into https://app.elementunited.com
10. Open Terminal and run these commands in order: (To Open Terminal-press command/space to pull up search bar, then search Terminal)
- docker build . -t element-node
- docker volume create element-node-volume1
- docker run --name element-node1 -d -v element-node-volume1:/root --restart unless-stopped --env-file login.env element-node
11. The last command will create a container, afterwards you can see your Element Container in your Docker. Restart from there if needed.
Congratulations, your Element node is now running locally on your computer. After installation, you can check the status of your Element node at any time by logging into your account dashboard and seeing how many nodes are online. Please allow one hour for the new node setup to appear in the dashboard. Make sure to check your node status weekly within your Element dashboard and ensure that your nodes are running for a minimum of 6 hours within the 24-hour tracking period.