sui-node process. Genesis, seed peers, and a formal-snapshot bootstrap are set up for you on first start, so the node restores from a recent snapshot instead of replaying from genesis. Supported networks: mainnet, testnet.
When you deploy, the wizard offers the versions available for the network you pick — Sui client versions are network-scoped, and more than one may be on offer, newest first. The wizard is the authority on what’s available for each network today; this page deliberately doesn’t repeat the list. Deploy the newest build for the network: each Sui release raises the protocol version it can run, so an older one stops keeping up once the network activates a protocol beyond it — which is also why most steps are flagged urgent rather than optional.
Sui has a blessed update path along each network’s line, one release at a time, and every step is an in-place restart that keeps the node’s data — see Update a node’s version. One step on the mainnet line costs more than the others: it triggers a one-time reindex of the RPC store, reported upstream at close to 1.5 hours, during which the node isn’t serving; the update offer on the node names it. The data directory survives it. Moving between the mainnet and testnet lines is not an update — that’s a different network, and a new node.
Indexing is enabled by default — both the REST index store and the gRPC index — so the node can resolve gas coins and submit transactions out of the box. These index settings are managed for you (see Config overrides).
Networks and resources
These defaults are pre-filled in the deploy wizard. They are heavy because Sui state grows fast and pruning is configurable rather than aggressive. Lower with caution. Sui is one of the chains where a fast NVMe-backed storage class matters most (see the performance note below).
Node types
Full only. Sui has no separate archive node type; for archival use cases, retain more history through overrides (see below).Config overrides
Config overrides are set when you deploy — see Edit a running node. Networking, data path, genesis location, and the index settings (enable-index-processing and rpc.enable-indexing) are managed for you and rejected if you try to set them — they’re what keep transaction submission working. Seed peers are set on first start but remain overridable.
These common tuning keys are surfaced in the editor with type hints and descriptions:
Other
fullnode.yaml keys are accepted as-is.
Metrics
Sui reports progress by checkpoint rather than block. The node page surfaces the verified checkpoint (height), the network’s highest known checkpoint (tip), peer count, sync progress, and resource usage. Beyond those, Sui nodes report a fuller set of chain metrics:
The index-store series are the ones to watch when a node stalls periodically — they show storage, not CPU, as the bottleneck (see the performance note). See Node monitoring.
Common patterns
- Public RPC node — accept defaults; expose
:9000through your own reverse proxy. - Long-history node — raise
num-epochs-to-retainandnum-epochs-to-retain-for-checkpointssubstantially; expect proportional disk growth. - Lean node (events off) — set
enable-event-processing: false; the node won’t index events but uses materially less disk.