Validator Bonds CLI

CLI for Validator Bonds contract.

Working with CLI

To install the CLI as global npm package

npm i -g @marinade.finance/validator-bonds-cli@latest

For detailed information on NPM packages installation and execution see section NPM package installation.

Successful installation will be shown in similar fashion to this output

added 165 packages in 35s

17 packages are looking for funding
  run `npm fund` for details

# to verify installed version
validator-bonds --version
1.3.6

To get info on available commands

validator-bonds --help

Requirements: Node.js version 16 or higher.

Required steps for a validator to be eligible for stake distribution

creating a bond
funding the bond
during the time of tracking, the bond is sufficiently funded

Creating a bond

A bond account can be created for any validator.

The bond account is strictly coupled with a vote account.

It can be created in two ways:

permission-ed: --validator-identity <keypair-wallet> signature is needed. One may then configure additional authority that permits future changes at the bond account with argument --bond-authority (the bond authority can be set at this point to anything).
permission-less: anybody may create the bond account. For any future configuration change of bond account, or for withdrawal funds, the validator identity signature is needed (the bond authority is set to identity of the validator at this point).

On the bond account:

there can be only one bond for a vote account
every bond is attached to a vote account

# permission-ed: bond account at mainnet
validator-bonds -um init-bond -k <fee-payer-keypair> \
  --vote-account <vote-account-pubkey> --validator-identity <validator-identity-keypair> \
  --bond-authority <authority-on-bond-account-pubkey> \
  --rent-payer <rent-payer-account-keypair>

# permission-less: bond account at mainnet
validator-bonds -um init-bond -k <fee-payer-keypair> \
  --vote-account <vote-account-pubkey> --rent-payer <rent-payer-account-keypair>

# to configure bond account properties
validator-bonds -um configure-bond --help

Bond creation details

The init-bond command initiates the creation of an account on the blockchain containing configuration data specific to a particular bond. This bond account is intricately linked with a corresponding vote account. The creation of a bond account requires a validator's identity signature, specifically one associated with the vote account.

The parameters and their meanings are explained in detail below:

--k <fee-payer-keypair>: This parameter designates the account used to cover transaction costs (e.g., 5000 lamports).
--vote-account: Specifies the vote account on which the bond will be established.
--validator-identity: Represents the required signature; the validator identity must match one within the designated vote account.
--bond-authority: Refers to any public key with ownership rights. It is recommended to use a ledger or multisig. This key does not necessarily need to correspond to an existing on-chain account (SOL preloading is unnecessary).
--rent-payer: This account covers the creation cost of the Solana bond account, and it is expected to be the same as the fee payer (default). The rent cost is 0.00270048 SOL. Note that the --rent-payer is unrelated to bond security or "funding," which is addressed through a separate instruction. The bond's security is established by providing a stake account. The lamports in the stake account then corresponds to the SOL amount added to the security of the bond account. There is no direct payment of SOLs to the bond; it is accomplished solely by allocating stake accounts.

Show the bond account

validator-bonds -um show-bond <bond-or-vote-account-address> -f yaml

Expected output on created bond is like

{
  programId: 'vBoNdEvzMrSai7is21XgVYik65mqtaKXuSdMBJ1xkW4',
  publicKey: '...',
  account: {
    config: 'vbMaRfmTCg92HWGzmd53APkMNpPnGVGZTUHwUJQkXAU',
    voteAccount: '...',
    authority: '...'
  },
  amountActive: 10024261277,
  amountAtSettlements: 0,
  amountToWithdraw: 0,
  numberActiveStakeAccounts: 1,
  numberSettlementStakeAccounts: 0,
  withdrawRequest: '<NOT EXISTING>'
}

Bond account configuration

The bond account configures the authority public key. To both fund the bond and withdraw the funds, either the authority signature or the validator identity (linked to the bond account's vote account) is required.

When creating the bond account in a permission-ed manner (as described in section Creating a Bond), the authority can be defined upfront. If one prefers not to sign the CLI transaction with the validator identity key, they can utilize the mint-configure workflow.

When authority is configure then use

validator-bonds -um configure-bond <bond-or-vote-account-address> \
  --authority <authority-or-validator-identity.keypair> \
  --bond-authority <new-bond-authority-pubkey>

Permission-less Mint - Configure workflow

An alternative step, the permission-less mint workflow is available only for special purposes. For configuration, it is typically recommended to use the validator identity signature, as described in bond account configuration.

The owner of the validator identity key has permission to configure the bond account. To verify the ownership of the validator identity key without requiring the CLI-generated transaction signature and sending it on-chain, one can use Bond's token minting. Use the command mint-bond:

validator-bonds -um mint-bond <bond-or-vote-account-address>

After execution of this command a Bond program creates a SPL token that is transferred to wallet of the validator identity. The owner of the validator identity may transfer the token to whatever other account (by standard means). Later when she wants to configure the bonds account it's required verify ownership of the Bond's SPL token. The owner of the token (which can be different to original validator identity) has to sign the CLI command and the program burns the Bond's SPL token and permits configuration of the authority.

After executing this command, the Bond program creates an SPL token that is transferred to the wallet of the validator identity. The owner of the validator identity keypair may transfer the token to any other account using standard means. Later, when they want to configure the bond account, it's required to verify ownership of the Bond's SPL token. The owner of the token signs the CLI generated transaction, and the Bonds program burns the Bond's SPL token, allowing configuration of the authority.

validator-bonds -um configure-bond <bond-or-vote-account-address> \
  --authority <spl-token-owner-keypair> \
  --bond-authority <new-bond-authority-pubkey> \
  --with-token

Funding Bond Account

The bond account exists to be funded, where the funds may be used to cover a protected event when a validator under-performs or experiences a serious issue. "Funding the bond" consists of two steps:

Charging lamports to a stake account.
Assigning ownership of the stake account to the Validator Bonds program using the fund-bond CLI command.

The funded stake account:

Must be delegated to the vote account belonging to the bond account.
Must be fully activated.

All lamports held in the stake accounts are considered part of the protected stake amount.

validator-bonds -um fund-bond <bond-or-vote-account-address> \
  --stake-account <stake-account-address> \
  --stake-authority <withdrawer-stake-account-authority-keypair>

The meanings of parameters are as follows:

<bond-or-vote-account-address>: bond account that will be funded by the amount of lamports from the stake account.
--stake-account: address of the stake account that will be assigned under the bonds program.
--stake-authority: signature of the stake account authority that permits to change the stake account authorities

Bond Account initialization and funding SHOWCASE (credits to Bored King)

validator-bonds init-bond --vote-account <vote-account-address> \
  --validator-identity ./identity.json --keypair ./identity.json
> Bond account BondAddress9iRYo3ZEK6dpmm9jYWX3Kb63Ed7RAFfUc of config vBoNdEvzMrSai7is21XgVYik65mqtaKXuSdMBJ1xkW4 successfully created

solana-keygen grind --starts-with bnd:1
> Optional: Grind is used to remind the key is for bond a bond.
> bndk55Q9YntUzpHvnAy9bcbtdHYfFjANUfjsCECF1ba.json

solana create-stake-account ./bndk55Q9YntUzpHvnAy9bcbtdHYfFjANUfjsCECF1ba.json <Amount of SOL 1 for every 10,000 staked>

solana delegate-stake ./bndk55Q9YntUzpHvnAy9bcbtdHYfFjANUfjsCECF1ba.json <Vote Pubkey>

<wait for stake to activate in next epoch>

validator-bonds fund-bond BondAddress9iRYo3ZEK6dpmm9jYWX3Kb63Ed7RAFfUc \
  --stake-account bndk55Q9YntUzpHvnAy9bcbtdHYfFjANUfjsCECF1ba --keypair ./identity.json

How to add more funds under the bond?

It's as simple as creating a new stake account and funding it into the bond program. The amounts of SOLs delegated to the same validator are summed together. The validator bonds program may merge or split the accounts delegated to the same validator. It's not guaranteed to maintain the same stake accounts in the bond, but the amount of SOLs is always associated with the validator.

Withdrawing Bond Account

When someone chooses to stop participating in covering the bonds for protected events, they can withdraw the funds by transferring the ownership of the stake accounts back to the (original) owner.

This process involves two steps:

Initialize a withdrawal request, which means creating an on-chain account (a ticket) informing the protected event system about the intention to withdraw funds.
Only after the lockup time elapses (a program configuration property) can one call to claim the withdrawal request and regain ownership of the funds held within the stake account.

NOTE: The amount declared in the withdrawal request ticket account is no longer considered as part of the funded bond amount.

To initialize the withdrawal request, one needs to define the maximum number of lamports that are requested to be withdrawn upon claiming. The amount defined on creating withdraw request can be bigger than amount funded to bond.

IMPORTANT: If you want to withdraw all SOLs from the funded bond ALL as value for --amount argument.

For claiming, one may define --withdrawer as the public key where the claimed stake accounts will be assigned (by withdrawer and staker authorities) to. When not defined, the default wallet keypair address is used (~/.config/solana/id.json) as the new owner of the stake accounts.

# 1) Initialize withdraw request
validator-bonds -um init-withdraw-request <bond-or-vote-account-address> \
  --authority <bond-authority-keypair> \
  --amount <number-of-requested-lamports-to-be-withdrawn __OR__ "ALL">

# 2) Claim existing withdraw request
validator-bonds -um claim-withdraw-request <withdraw-request-or-bond-account-address> \
  --authority <bond-authority-keypair> \
  --withdrawer <user-pubkey>

The meanings of parameters are as follows:

<bond-or-vote-account-address>: bond account from which funds will be withdrawn
--stake-account: address of the stake account that will be assigned under the bonds program
--authority: bond account authority with permission to make changes on the bond account, either configured pubkey in the bonds account (see configure-bond above) or the validator identity
--amount: amount of lamports required to be withdrawn from the bonds program
--withdrawer: new owner of the withdrawn stake accounts

Technical details on creating withdraw request and claiming

When creating a withdraw request, a specific number of lamports is designated for withdrawal after the delayed claiming period. This represents the maximum amount that can be withdrawn once the period elapses. However, during this time, staking rewards may accrue, resulting in a discrepancy between the requested withdrawal amount and the actual available lamports in stake accounts. The system only allows withdrawal of the specified amount in the withdraw request.

At time of withdrawal (claim-withdraw-request), one must specify the stake account from which the amount will be taken. This typically results in splitting the stake account, where one portion of lamports is transferred to the withdrawer, while the remaining portion is retained in the validator bonds contract.

However, a split stake account issue may arise if the requested withdrawal amount is not conducive to creating viable stake accounts. A viable stake account requires a defined amount of 1 SOL + rent amount (~0.002282880 SOL). Failure to meet this criteria may result in the claim-withdraw-request operation failing. Refer to FAQ, section Failed to claim withdraw request for more information on issues related to failed withdrawal requests.

Cancelling Withdraw Request Account

The withdrawal request can be cancelled at any time.

If the Bond owner desires to change the withdrawal amount or wishes to return the amount to be considered as funded bonds again, they need to cancel the existing request and potentially create a new withdrawal request later on.

validator-bonds -um cancel-withdraw-request <withdraw-request-or-bond-account-address> \
  --authority <bond-authority-keypair>

Show Validator Bonds Program Configuration

To check the Validator Bonds program configuration data, use the show-config command. The Marinade config account address is vbMaRfmTCg92HWGzmd53APkMNpPnGVGZTUHwUJQkXAU.

To check the lockup period for the withdraw request ticket, verify the value of 'withdrawLockupEpochs' to find the required number of epochs that must elapse after the withdrawal request is created.

validator-bonds -um show-config vbMaRfmTCg92HWGzmd53APkMNpPnGVGZTUHwUJQkXAU

Searching Bonds funded stake accounts

Bond program assigns the funded stake accounts with withdrawal authority of address 7cgg6KhPd1G8oaoB48RyPDWu7uZs51jUpDYB3eq4VebH. To query the all stake accounts one may use the RPC call of getProgramAccounts.

Technical details of the stake account layout can be found in Solana source code for staker and withdrawer and for voter pubkey.

STAKER_OFFSET = 12 // 4 for enum, 8 rent exempt reserve
WITHDRAWER_OFFSET = 44 // 4 + 8 + staker pubkey
VOTER_PUBKEY_OFFSET = 124 // 4 for enum + 120 for Meta

RPC_URL='https://api.mainnet-beta.solana.com'
curl $RPC_URL -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '
  {
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 1,
    "method": "getProgramAccounts",
    "params": [
      "Stake11111111111111111111111111111111111111",
      {
        "encoding": "base64",
        "dataSlice": {
            "offset": 0,
            "length": 0
        },
      "filters": [
          {
            "memcmp": {
              "offset": 44,
              "bytes": "7cgg6KhPd1G8oaoB48RyPDWu7uZs51jUpDYB3eq4VebH"
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
' | jq '.'

Support for Ledger signing

Any signature can be generated using Ledger by specifying either the pubkey (usb://ledger/9rPVSygg3brqghvdZ6wsL2i5YNQTGhXGdJzF65YxaCQd) or the path (usb://ledger?key=0/0) as the parameter value. For instance, if the bond authority is set up to be controlled by a key managed on Ledger, the command can be executed as follows:

# using solana-keygen to find pubkey on a particular derivation path
solana-keygen pubkey 'usb://ledger?key=0/3'

# using the ledger to sign as the authority to change the bond account configuration
validator-bonds -um configure-bond \
  --authority 'usb://ledger?key=0/3' --bond-authority <new-authority-pubkey> \
  <bond-account-address>

The support for ledger came from @marinade.finance/ledger-utils TS implementation wrapper around @ledgerhq/hw-app-solana. The implementation tries to be compatible with way how solana CLI behaves.

NPM packages installation and execution

To verify the installation folders for NPM and to install the package globally, check the configuration. The default properties and potentially existing .npmrc configuration file can be checked with the command npm config list.

To check where NPM packages are and will be installed:

# Get npm global installation folder
npm list -g
> /usr/lib
> +-- @marinade.finance/validator-bonds-cli@1.3.6
> ...
# In this case, the `bin` folder is located at /usr/bin

To verify the configuration of paths, use:

npm config get cache
npm config get prefix

If there are defined folders accessible only by the root account, configure the user workspace local configuration as follows:

npm config set cache ~/.cache/npm
npm config set prefix ~/.local/share/npm

With this configuration, NPM packages will be installed under the prefix directory.

npm i -g @marinade.finance/validator-bonds-cli@latest
npm list -g
> ~/.local/share/npm/lib
> `-- @marinade.finance/validator-bonds-cli@1.3.6

To execute the installed packages from any location, configure the PATH to place the newly defined user workspace local installation before others.

# the nodejs binaries reside in '~/.local/share/npm/bin' for this particular case
NPM_LIB=`npm list -g | head -n 1`
export PATH=${NPM_LIB/%lib/bin}:$PATH

NPM Exec From Local Directory

One can use the npm exec command to install the NPM package into a local folder and execute it from there.

cd /tmp
npm install @marinade.finance/validator-bonds-cli@latest

# `node_modules` exists in the folder and contains the CLI and its dependencies
ls node_modules
# Execute from the local directory
npm exec -- validator-bonds --version