Daemon Setup

The Almena daemon (almenad) is the background service that powers the P2P network and exposes the gRPC API. This guide covers how to install and run it.

Prerequisites

• Rust toolchain (2021 edition, install via rustup)
• Protocol Buffers compiler (protoc)
  • macOS: brew install protobuf
  • Linux: apt install protobuf-compiler
  • Windows: choco install protoc
• Task runner (taskfile.dev)

Installation from Source

git clone git@github.com:almena-network/daemon.git
cd daemon
task install
task build

The release binary is located at target/release/almenad.

Running the Daemon

Development Mode

task dev

This starts the daemon with:

• Debug logging enabled
• Data stored in ./workspace/ directory
• Hot reload via cargo watch
• gRPC server on [::1]:50051 (IPv6 localhost)

Production Mode

./almenad

Or with custom settings:

./almenad --grpc-addr "[::1]:50051"

CLI Options

Flag	Default	Description
--grpc-addr	[::1]:50051	gRPC listen address
--dev	false	Enable debug logging and use dev workspace
--version	—	Print version and exit

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
RUST_LOG	Log level override (trace, debug, info, warn, error)
GRPC_ADDR	Alternative to --grpc-addr flag
ALMENAD_DATA_DIR	Custom data directory (dev mode only)

Data Directories

The daemon stores its data in platform-specific locations:

Platform	Path
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/network.almena.daemon
Linux	~/.local/share/network.almena.daemon
Windows	%APPDATA%\network.almena.daemon

In development mode (--dev), all data is stored in the local ./workspace/ directory.

Platform Installers

Pre-built installers are available for each platform:

Platform	Format	Build Command
macOS	.pkg (signed and notarized)	task package:darwin
Linux	.deb	task package:linux
Windows	.msi	task package:windows

The macOS installer registers the daemon as a LaunchAgent (starts automatically on login). On Linux, a systemd user service is created. On Windows, it runs as a Windows Service.

Verifying the Installation

Once the daemon is running, verify connectivity with any gRPC client:

# Using grpcurl
grpcurl -plaintext '[::1]:50051' almena.daemon.v1.DaemonService/Ping

Expected response:

{
  "message": "pong"
}

The daemon also supports gRPC Server Reflection, so tools like Postman and grpcurl can discover all available methods automatically.

P2P Networking

The daemon automatically discovers other Almena nodes on your local network using mDNS (multicast DNS). Discovered peers appear in the ListPeers response.

Current P2P capabilities:

• Transport: TCP
• Encryption: Noise protocol
• Multiplexing: Yamux
• Discovery: mDNS (LAN only)
• Idle timeout: 60 seconds

Coming Soon

Internet peer discovery (beyond LAN) and relay-based connectivity are planned for future releases.