I need to start a new cluster of validators with new version. For the new cluster, I want to clone the original cluster's accounts' information. I thought hard fork could be one way to do sth like this, run the new cluster with new validators by hard forking the original cluster state. Can anyone give me some hints about how to do this? Or is there any other recommended way to do this? I tried to reuse the old ledger but it did not work as ledgers seems to have other information related to leaders.
1 Answer
You can configure validators to wait at a certain slot and not process anything until the rest reach the same slot and only then start validating together.
This is how Solana cluster restarts are done when the network fails. A slot is chosen by validators and then everyone configures their node as I described above and once a majority (specifically, validators that total 80% of all staked SOL) reach the same slot the blockchain starts moving again.
I am simplifying a bit, but I think this does allow you to fork off a cluster of servers. Basically just do the restart steps on your new/separate cluster.
You can find more info here on the process of restarting a cluster here.
