Delegation Guide for Node Owners

Delegation Guide for Node Owners

This guide is written for node owners — the people who hold the collateral and want their hosting provider to manage their node remotely. If you are a hosting provider, see Node Delegation for Hosting Providers instead.

Why Should You Delegate?

Running a Flux node generates passive income, but keeping it online 24/7 requires constant attention. A single DOS event at 3 AM, a missed benchmark, or a daemon update can knock your node offline and cost you rewards. Delegation lets you hand over the operational burden to a professional hosting provider while you keep full custody of your collateral.

1. 1

   Peace of mind

   Your provider monitors your node around the clock and restarts it automatically when something goes wrong — no 3 AM wake-up calls for you.

2. 2

   No technical expertise required

   Once delegation is set up, you don't need to know how to SSH into a server, read logs, or run RPC commands. Your provider handles all of that.

3. 3

   Faster recovery times

   Professional providers detect outages within minutes and restart nodes before you'd even notice. Less downtime means more rewards and better PNR eligibility.

4. 4

   Zero risk to your funds

   Delegates can ONLY restart your node. They cannot move, unlock, or access your collateral in any way. Your funds never leave your wallet.

5. 5

   Multiple delegates for redundancy

   You can assign up to 4 delegate keys. For example, delegate to your hosting provider AND keep a personal backup key so you can always intervene yourself.

What Delegation Does NOT Do

It's important to understand the boundaries. Delegation does not give your provider any financial control:

• •A delegate cannot move or unlock your collateral
• •A delegate cannot change who the other delegates are
• •A delegate cannot change your node's collateral configuration
• •A delegate cannot access your wallet or private keys
• •Your collateral private key never needs to leave your wallet

Setup via Zelcore Wallet

Zelcore has built-in support for the delegation system since the PoUW v2 update. Here is the step-by-step process:

1. 1

   Update Zelcore

   Make sure you're running the latest version of Zelcore. The Node Management tab will show the new delegation options once updated.

2. 2

   Go to Node Management

   Open Zelcore, navigate to your Flux asset, and click "Node Management". You'll see a list of your active nodes.

3. 3

   Select your node

   Click on the node you want to delegate. You'll see options for "Start Node", "Update Node", and the new "Manage Delegates" section.

4. 4

   Get your provider's public key

   Ask your hosting provider for their delegate public key. This is a 66-character hexadecimal string (compressed public key format). Providers that support delegation will advertise this on their profile.

5. 5

   Add the delegate key

   Paste the provider's public key into the delegate field. You can add up to 4 delegate keys. Click "Start Node with Delegates" to broadcast the transaction.

6. 6

   Wait for confirmation

   The delegation transaction needs to be confirmed on the blockchain (typically 1-2 minutes). Once confirmed, your provider can immediately manage the node.

Setup via SSP Wallet

SSP Wallet also supports delegation through its Node Management interface:

1. 1

   Open SSP Wallet

   Launch SSP Wallet and ensure you're on the latest version. Navigate to the Node Management section from the main menu.

2. 2

   Select "Node Owner" mode

   SSP offers two modes: Node Owner and Node Management Provider. As a delegator, select "Node Owner".

3. 3

   Choose your node

   Select the node you wish to delegate from your list of active nodes.

4. 4

   Enter delegate keys

   In the delegation section, paste your provider's compressed public key. Add additional delegates if desired (up to 4 total).

5. 5

   Confirm and broadcast

   Review the transaction details and confirm. The wallet will sign with your collateral key and broadcast the delegation transaction.

Setup via CLI (Advanced)

If you prefer using the command line, you can delegate via the Flux daemon RPC directly:

# Standard node — start with one delegate
flux-cli startfluxnodewithdelegates \
  "your_collateral_txhash" \
  0 \
  '["provider_delegate_pubkey"]' \
  true

# Standard node — start with multiple delegates
flux-cli startfluxnodewithdelegates \
  "your_collateral_txhash" \
  0 \
  '["provider_pubkey", "your_personal_backup_pubkey"]' \
  true

# P2SH (multisig) node — include delegates in the start tx
flux-cli createp2shstarttx \
  "redeem_script" \
  "collateral_txid" \
  0 \
  "vps_pubkey" \
  '["provider_delegate_pubkey"]'

How to Generate a Delegate Key (Personal Backup)

Your hosting provider will give you their delegate key — you don't need to generate one for them. However, if you want to keep a personal backup delegate key so you can always intervene yourself, you'll need to generate your own key pair. There are two ways to do it:

1. 1

   Option A — Via any running Flux node (CLI)

   SSH into any running Flux node and run the command flux-cli createdelegatekeypair. This returns a fresh compressed public/private key pair. Save the private key somewhere secure (you'll need it to restart the node). The public key (66-character hex string) is what you add to your delegate list alongside your provider's key.

2. 2

   Option B — Via SSP Wallet

   Open SSP Wallet, go to the Node Management section, and select "Node Management Provider" mode. The wallet can generate a delegate key pair for you through its interface — no command line needed.

# Run on any Flux node with fluxd v9.0.0+
flux-cli createdelegatekeypair

# Output:
# {
#   "pubKey": "02abc123...def456",   ← add this to your delegate list
#   "privKey": "Kx..."               ← keep this SECRET and safe
# }

How to Revoke or Change Delegates

You can change your delegates at any time by restarting your node with a new set of delegate keys. The process is the same as the initial setup — simply start the node again with the updated delegate list. The previous delegates are automatically revoked when the new transaction confirms.

1. 1

   To remove a delegate

   Restart the node with a new list that excludes the delegate you want to remove. For example, if you had delegates A, B, C, restart with only A and B.

2. 2

   To replace a delegate

   Restart with the new delegate key in place of the old one. This is useful when switching hosting providers.

3. 3

   To remove all delegates

   Restart the node without any delegate keys (standard startfluxnode command). This returns to the pre-delegation setup where only you can manage the node.

Costs

Delegation itself is free — there is no special fee for adding delegates. The only cost is the standard Flux network transaction fee (typically less than 0.001 FLUX) when you start or restart your node with the delegate configuration. This is the same fee you'd pay for any node start transaction.

Choosing a Provider That Supports Delegation

On Fluxme.io, providers that support delegation are marked with a "Delegation Available" badge on their profile and listing card. When choosing a provider, look for this badge — it means the provider has a delegate key ready and can manage your node remotely from day one.

• •Ask your provider for their delegate public key before purchasing
• •Confirm they have monitoring and automatic restart capabilities
• •Check if they offer fleet-level dashboards so you can track your node's status
• •Providers using the "Node Management Provider" mode in SSP Wallet have built-in fleet tools