First-Time Setup

A single setup screen on first launch. Five fields, all but one optional.

Identity Key

The identity key is your node's permanent cryptographic identity. The setup screen offers two options:

• Generate a new key (recommended) — the app creates a fresh key and stores it at ~/.spacerouter/certs/node-identity.key.

• Import an existing key — paste a 64-character hex private key. Use this if you're moving a node to a new machine.

Back up the file right after setup

Copy node-identity.key to safe storage. If you lose it you'll have to re-onboard from scratch (the new node looks like a brand-new node to the network).

Optional: encrypt with a passphrase

You can protect the identity key with a passphrase. The app will prompt for it on every launch. Forget it and the file is unrecoverable, so use a password manager.

For headless installs, set SR_IDENTITY_PASSPHRASE in the environment so the daemon can decrypt without prompting.

Staking Address

The Creditcoin wallet that holds your stake. Required to earn — leave it blank and the node runs in unstaked state.

The address is a standard EVM address: 42 characters starting with 0x. You can paste it from the staking dApp.

If left blank, the staking address defaults to your identity address. Most providers prefer to keep these separate (cold-storage staking, hot identity).

Collection Address (optional)

The wallet that receives your earnings when you claim. If you leave it blank, it defaults to the staking address.

Set this to a separate address if you want earnings to flow somewhere other than your staking wallet — for example, a hot wallet you actually transact from.

Referral Code (optional)

If someone referred you, paste their code here. Codes are 3–50 characters, alphanumeric with hyphens or underscores.

Network Mode

How the gateway reaches your node. Pick the one that matches your network:

Mode	Pick this if…	What you set
UPnP (Automatic)	You're on a home router that supports UPnP/NAT-PMP. Default for most setups.	Nothing — the app discovers your public IP and opens port 9090.
Manual	You disabled UPnP and forwarded the port yourself, or you have a static public IP.	Public IP / hostname and the port you forwarded.
Tunnel	You're behind CGNAT, on mobile broadband, or in a restrictive network. UPnP can't help here.	The hostname and port your tunnel service (bore, ngrok, …) gave you.

Tunnel mode example with bore

# In one terminal, run bore to expose your local port 9090
bore local 9090 --to bore.pub
# bore prints something like:
# listening at bore.pub:46213

# In SpaceRouter:
#   Network mode: Tunnel
#   Public hostname: bore.pub
#   Public port:     46213

Click Start

Hit Start. The status badge transitions through:

1. initializing — a few seconds, while the app contacts the Coordination API.

2. qualifying — your node is registered and ready; the network is verifying your reliability for the current period.

3. earning — you're approved. SPACE is being credited as you serve traffic.

qualifying and earning are reported by the Coordination API based on its review cycle (every 4 hours, 240-minute lookback window). The first transition into earning typically takes one or two review cycles after your node is reliably online and your stake is on chain.

Already running a node? Reset to start fresh

Click Reset Node on the main screen to clear the identity key and config and re-run setup. This deletes ~/.spacerouter/certs/node-identity.key — back it up first if you might want to recover it.

Headless / scripted setup

For server installs, all setup options have CLI flags:

./space-router-node-linux-x64 \
  --staking-address 0xYourStakingAddress \
  --collection-address 0xYourCollectionAddress \
  --no-upnp \
  --public-url myhost.example.com \
  --public-port 9090 \
  --label "node-eu-west-1"

See the CLI Reference for all flags.