monerod · five paths · pick one

Run a node. Sovereign in 12 minutes.

A full Monero node verifies every block. Yours, not someone else's. CLI on a Pi, Docker on a server, or click-to-install on macOS.

Disk

~205 GB

as of v16

RAM

4 GB min

8 GB rec

Bandwidth

~5 GB/day

after sync

Initial sync

8–24 hrs

SSD strongly rec

Quick path · docker · 60 seconds

The fastest way. Pulls the official image and starts a pruned node listening on 18089.

$ docker volume create monerod-data

$ docker run -d --name monerod --restart=always -p 18080:18080 -p 18089:18089 -v monerod-data:/home/monero/.bitmonero sethsimmons/simple-monerod:latest --prune-blockchain --rpc-restricted-bind-ip=0.0.0.0 --rpc-restricted-bind-port=18089

$ docker logs -f monerod

Privacy path · Tor + I2P · 12 minutes

Add anonymity at the network layer. Your peers see neither your IP nor your geography.

Install Tor + I2P

apt install tor i2pd · enable systemd · open ports 9050 / 7656.

Configure monerod

Edit monerod.conf: add tx-proxy & anonymous-inbound lines.

Verify routing

curl through Tor to check your .onion is reachable.

macOS · click-to-install

GUI bundle from getmonero.org. Pre-configured. Good first node.

Raspberry Pi 5 · headless

External NVMe required. Pi 5 + 8GB SDRAM keeps up nicely.

Bare metal · monerod -d

Build from source. ~12 min on a modern CPU. Pinned releases on getmonero.org.

After sync · sanity check

$ curl http://localhost:18089/get_info | jq '.height, .target, .nettype'

Expected: — · 120 · "mainnet"