Downloading the Subnet-EVM

First, download the Subnet-EVM binary from Ava-Labs GitHub and copy it into the AvalancheGo plugin directory.

mkdir subnetevm
cd subnetevm
wget https://github.com/ava-labs/subnet-evm/releases/download/v0.7.3/subnet-evm_0.7.3_linux_amd64.tar.gz
tar -xvzf subnet-evm_0.7.3_linux_amd64.tar.gz
cp subnet-evm ~/.avalanchego/plugins/kLPs8zGsTVZ28DhP1VefPCFbCgS7o5bDNez8JUxPVw9E6Ubbz

The long string kLPs8zGsTVZ28DhP1VefPCFbCgS7o5bDNez8JUxPVw9E6Ubbz is the CB58 encoded VMID of the Beam Subnet-EVM. AvalancheGo will use the name of this file to determine what VMs are available to run from the plugins directory.

Tracking the Beam L1, configuring Partial Network Sync

To start tracking the Beam L1, update your node config in your preferred editor.

nano ~/.avalanchego/configs/node.json

Add the track-subnets option to node config and set partial-sync-primary-network. By default, an AvalancheGo node syncs all chains, including the C-Chain and X-Chain. This setting ensures that only the necessary network components are synchronized, reducing resource usage and improving node startup times.

{
  "track-subnets": "eYwmVU67LmSfZb1RwqCMhBYkFyG8ftxn6jAwqzFmxC9STBWLC",
  "partial-sync-primary-network": true
}

As an alternative to the config file, you can pass the subnet ID as parameter during the node start-up:

--track-subnets eYwmVU67LmSfZb1RwqCMhBYkFyG8ftxn6jAwqzFmxC9STBWLC

Apply Network Upgrades

Create the config directory for Beam and download the upgrade.json file from GitHub. Place it in the appropriate directory.

You might need to use sudo to elevate your privileges if mkdir fails. If you don’t have wget on your particular Linux distribution, you can use the curl -O command instead.

mkdir -p ~/.avalanchego/configs/chains/2tmrrBo1Lgt1mzzvPSFt73kkQKFas5d1AP88tv9cicwoFp8BSn
cd ~/.avalanchego/configs/chains/2tmrrBo1Lgt1mzzvPSFt73kkQKFas5d1AP88tv9cicwoFp8BSn
 
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BuildOnBeam/beam-subnet/main/subnets/beam-mainnet/upgrade.json

If you didn’t use the installer, your config directory may be located elsewhere. In that case, place the file in {chain-config-dir}/2tmrrBo1Lgt1mzzvPSFt73kkQKFas5d1AP88tv9cicwoFp8BSn/, where 2tmrrBo1Lgt1mzzvPSFt73kkQKFas5d1AP88tv9cicwoFp8BSn is the {blockchainID}.

Restarting the Node

After updating your configuration, restart your node to begin tracking the Beam L1.

sudo systemctl restart avalanchego