Gaia-Net Node Tutorial || Incentivised

What is a Gaia node?

Gaia is a decentralized computing infrastructure that enables everyone to create, deploy, scale, and monetize their own AI agents that reflect their styles, values, knowledge, and expertise.

It allows individuals and businesses to create AI agents. Each Gaia node provides:

• a web-based chatbot UI Chat with a Gaia node that is an expert on the Rust programming language.
• an OpenAI compatible API. See how to use a Gaia node as a drop-in OpenAI replacement in your favorite AI agent app.

Key Components of a Gaia Node:

• WasmEdge Runtime: A fast, lightweight WebAssembly runtime for running LLMs on various devices.
• LLMs (Large Language Models): You can use any LLM from Huggingface, which is a platform hosting thousands of open-source models. Gaia has its own organization page on Huggingface where you can find optimized models for Gaia nodes. You can choose or fine-tune these models for specific tasks or knowledge areas. For example, you could select a model that’s an expert in chemistry or one that mimics a particular writing style. Checkout Gaia on Huggingface here.
• RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation): Enables AI to access relevant knowledge before responding.
• Vector Database: Organizes data for efficient AI retrieval, like a library for AI.
• Multimodal & Embeddings: Process text, images, and audio efficiently.
• API Server: Handles user interactions with the node.
• Tool Usage & Function Calling: AI can leverage external tools, e.g., calculators or APIs.
• Prompt Management: Provides context and instructions for better responses.
• Node ID: A unique identifier for each Gaia node in the network.

Funding:

Gaia Protocol​

The Gaia protocol connects and incentivizes Gaia nodes and domains to form a coherent network of web services for AI agents. It provides a mechanism to discover, connect to, and pay for Gaia node services through a decentralized marketplace. It also incentivizes domains to manage node agents through a staking program. Furthermore, the Gaia protocol connects model creators (i.e., people who have skills to finetune models) and knowledge providers to node operators through a marketplace.

Gaia XP and rewards:

First, register here using the link below and enter my invite code to earn extra XP.

• https://gaianet.ai/reward?invite_code=Rutpa8
• Invite code: Rutpa8
• Once you open the invite link, you will be redirected to the dashboard. Connect your MetaMask wallet and click on ‘Start Earning.
• After that, it will ask you to bind your invite code. Just bind it and complete the social tasks

What are the gaia points?

GaiaPoint is a metric that measures contributions within the Gaia ecosystem. Contributors earn GaiaPoints as follows:

• End Users: Earn points by interacting with AI agents on the Gaia Network.
• Node Operators: Accumulate points by running Gaia Nodes for decentralized AI inference.
• Domain Operators: Gain points by registering Gaia Domains and enabling services.

GaiaPoints are based on LLM throughput (language token consumption). Users can also earn points by participating in community activities and quest campaigns, both online and offline. Rewards are given based on accumulated GaiaPoints.

How can you get the gaia points?

gaiaPoints can be earned through interaction, usage, and contributions within the Gaia ecosystem:

• End Users: Earn points by interacting with AI agents on the Gaia Network.
• Node Operators: Accumulate points by running Gaia Nodes for decentralized AI inference.
• Domain Operators: Gain points by registering Gaia Domains and enabling node connections.

Users can also earn gaiaPoints by joining community activities and quest campaigns, both online and offline.

Important:
Developers must register on our website and create an API key before accessing the Gaia Domain API.”

Why should you participate now? is it incentivized?

yes, it is incentivized Following Gaia TGE, participants (end users, node operators, and domain operators) will get awards based on their gaiaPoints holdings. For detailed information and updates, please stay tuned to official announcements on Twitter.

Setting up your own node

Prerequisites​

Before you get started, ensure that you have the following on your system:

Learn more about system requirements.

Buy VPS:

Contabo-VPS2/VPS3 is required. Please purchase it using my affiliate link: https://linktr.ee/rajeshCNH.

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Let's install the node:

• Default model
• Use the following command to download the latest version of the Gaia node:

curl -sSfL 'https://github.com/GaiaNet-AI/gaianet-node/releases/latest/download/install.sh' | bash

• Run the command printed on the terminal to set up the environment path, it is started with source.

source /root/.bashrc

• Use this command to run the GaiaNet node on a different port.

gaianet config --port 8045

• Use the following command to initialize the Gaia node according to the configuration options in $HOME/gaianet/config.json. By default, the Gaia is initialized with a Llama 3.2 LLM and a knowledge base about Paris. This command could take some time since it will download a very large LLM file.

gaianet init

• Use the following command to start your node:

gaianet start

A Qwen2–0.5b-instruct node model:

Note: This model can run only on port 8080. If your 8080 port is already in use, please use the default model. ss -tulpn|grep 8080 — check you port

• First, remove the existing files from your VPS.

rm -rf gaianet

• Install GaiaNet node

curl -sSfL 'https://github.com/GaiaNet-AI/gaianet-node/releases/latest/download/install.sh' | bash

• Run the command printed on the terminal to set up the environment path, it is started with source.

source /root/.bashrc

• Init with the qwen2–0.5b-instruct model

gaianet init --config https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GaiaNet-AI/node-configs/main/qwen2-0.5b-instruct/config.json

• Start the node

gaianet start

llama-3.2–3b-instruct Node Model:

Note: This model can run only on port 8080. If your 8080 port is already in use, please use the default model. ss -tulpn|grep 8080 — check you port

• First, remove the existing files from your VPS.

rm -rf gaianet

• Install GaiaNet node

curl -sSfL 'https://github.com/GaiaNet-AI/gaianet-node/releases/latest/download/install.sh' | bash

• Run the command printed on the terminal to set up the environment path, it is started with source.

source /root/.bashrc

• Init with the llama-3.2–3b-instruct model

gaianet init --config https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GaiaNet-AI/node-configs/refs/heads/main/llama-3.2-3b-instruct/config.json

• Start the node

gaianet start

• For other models check out the Gaia.net GitHub page. Link here.

After starting your node​

• A successful start prints a public URL for the node. Opening a browser to that URL will display the node information and allow you to chat with the AI agent on the node.

https://0xf63939431ee11267f4855a166e11cc44d24960c0.gaianet.xyz

• To stop the node: gaianet stop

Using your Gaia Node

When you start a Gaia node, or you find a node on the web, you could use it as a web-based chatbot UI and an OpenAI compatible web service. Just load the node’s public URL in the browser to open its dashboard. Let’s say the URL is as follows.

https://0x1234...xyz.gaianet.network/

Web-based chatbot​

On the Gaia node dashboard, you will see a “Chat with this node” button.

Joining the Gaia Protocol-Reward:

After successfully running a Gaia node on your machine, it’s time to join the Gaia protocol network and get rewards for sharing computing power with the world by binding your node ID and device ID to a Metamask account.

When you run a node with the Getting Started guide, you may notice that the Gaia software has generated a node ID for you. The node ID is an ETH address. The easiest way to find the node ID is to use gaianet info to print the node ID and device ID on the terminal.

gaianet info

The output will be the following:

Node ID: 0x80642b1----9a76a284efeb2bb6d142e
Device ID: device-e77---1446f1b51

To receive rewards, bind your node and device IDs with a Metamask account using the Gaia web portal:

1. Open https://gaianet.ai/reward?invite_code=Rutpa8 on your browser and click “Connect.”
2. Log into Metamask using the QR code and connect your account.
3. Hover on your profile and click “Setting” and click “Nodes.”
4. Click “Connect new node” and enter your node and device IDs in the boxes.
5. Click “Join”

After your node has successfully joined the network, it will be displayed in the list of nodes on the Node Page.

If you are running multiple nodes, you can bind the node IDs and their corresponding device IDs to your MetaMask wallet.

Protect your node ID and device ID​

The Gaia installer generates a pair of ETH address and keystore and password for your node automatically. This information is stored in the gaianet/nodeid.json file. Please keep the JSON file carefully.

cat gaianet/nodeid.json 

• The ETH address is your node ID. You will use this ETH address to join the Gaia network.
• The keystore stores the private key associated with the ETH address encrypted by the password

The nodeid.json file is the only proof that your node belongs to you. In many protocol operations, you will need this private key to sign request messages to send to the protocol smart contracts.

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