Switch networks

This guide will show you how to switch between various Filecoin networks with Lotus, depending on your testing or development needs.

Lotus is compiled to operate on a single network, and the information in the configuration folder corresponds to that network.

• Local devnet - You can run a local devnet
• Testnets
  • Calibnet - The calibration network is a testnetwork that mimics the properties of the mainnet. It is planned to be long-running, and will only be reset in case of critical bugs that are uncovered during network upgrade testing.
• Mainnet

You can choose one of the following methods to switch to a different network on your setup:

Clean, rebuild, reinstall #

The first method is the simplest. In this approach, you remove or change the path for the data related to the network you were running on before and launch a Lotus binary built to run on the new one:

1. Shut down the Lotus daemon if it is currently running.

2. Remove the ~/.lotus folder, or whatever you set $LOTUS_PATH to. The default is ~/.lotus.

3. Clone the Lotus repository and move into the lotus folder:

   git clone https://github.com/filecoin-project/lotus
   cd lotus
   

4. Build the lotus executable using make clean ... to specify which network you want to join:

   Network	Build command	Description
   Mainnet	make clean all	The production Filecoin network. FIL has real-world value on this network.
   Calibnet	make clean calibnet	A test network with a minimum sector size of 32 GiB. FIL has no real-world value on this network.

5. Start the Lotus daemon again and let it sync to the new network:

   lotus daemon
   

Backing up Lotus data #

If you wish to backup Lotus data, copy the ~/.lotus (or $LOTUS_PATH) folder somewhere. This will take quite a while if the Lotus node has synced the whole network.

Another alternative is to export your wallets and also export the chain for later re-import on a newly installed Lotus Node.

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