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 beginning to setup, please make sure that your Windows computer meet the Docker system requirements.
1. Go to docker.com and click on the download button for the correct operating system.
2. Double-click docker desktop install.exe to open the installer.
3. Agree to any system changes and allow up to 10 minutes for Docker to install.
4. The system will request to restart your computer to finish installing, make sure to save any work before doing so.
5. View and accept Member Agreement.
6. If Docker brings up a window that says: "Docker Desktop requires a newer WSL kernel version", download and install the newer version here.
- Proceed with installing wsl_update_x64.msi by double clicking on the file.
- Agree to any system changes.
- Once the install is done it will ask to complete the install by clicking the FINISH button.
- You can close the window once you click finished.
7. Now open Docker again and it should no longer show the pop-up for the WSL kernel. It can take a few minutes for Docker to complete the Starting Docker Engine part.
8. Download the Element Node Setup files files
9. Open File Explorer and go to your Downloads folder.
10. Move the element-node-docker.zip file to the desktop.
11. Right click on the element-node-docker.zip file make sure it’s showing that it is extracting to your Desktop and select Extract All and then click on Extract.
12. That should open a window with the extracted files.
13. Right click readme.md file, this will open a window and asks how you’d like to open this file, select More Apps and select Note Pad and click, Okay. (This file contains the directions to install the needed Element-Node files to Docker that you can follow along or continue to read below.)
14. Right click the login.env file in the element-node-docker folder, go to Open With and select Note Pad.
15. Once the text file is open replace ‘email@domain.com’ with your Element email. Then replace ‘password’ with your Element password. These credentials are the same used to log into your Element account, then make sure to save the file.
16. Right click extracted file, Open Terminal, and run these commands in order by copy and pasting and pressing enter with each line:
- 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
17. 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.