BEACON Common Questions

If the following FAQ does not answer your question, feel free to open a ticket on our discord channel or email [email protected].

What OS does BEACON work on?

Any OS that supports Docker! That’s why we did it this way, rather than an installable client, to make it more universally supported.

Can I have more than one instance of BEACON running?

Yes. One instance per hardware.

Note: Our rewards calculation function combines uptime, uplink speed, and hardware score. Therefore, simply running additional nodes does not automatically guarantee increased rewards.

How do I enable multicast?

Multicast is determined by your network topology, not something you can actively enable at this point.

Why is my location data required? How will it be used?

As a content delivery network, we need to know your general geographic location to provide you with the fastest and most reliable streaming experience. Your location helps us:

• Route your content through the closest and most efficient network nodes

• Reduce buffering and latency by serving content from nearby cache servers

• Optimize network traffic to prevent congestion in your area

• Improve overall streaming quality by making intelligent routing decisions

We only store your location data as H3 Index, which is a hexagonal grid reference of your location. We only store which hexagon you're in, not your precise coordinates. This gives us enough information to optimize content delivery without compromising your privacy.

Common Issues / Debugging Steps

1. How do I stop running the container?

   1. docker compose down stops the container from running

2. How do I remove the container?

   1. docker compose rm removes the container from your docker client

3. How do I restart the container?

   1. running docker compose restart will restart the container

4. I don't want to run docker with sudo , what should I do?

   1. The Docker daemon binds to a Unix socket, not a TCP port. By default it's the root user that owns the Unix socket, and other users can only access it using sudo. The Docker daemon always runs as the root user. If you don't want to preface the docker command with sudo, create a Unix group called docker and add users to it. When the Docker daemon starts, it creates a Unix socket accessible by members of the docker group. On some Linux distributions, the system automatically creates this group when installing Docker Engine using a package manager. In that case, there is no need for you to manually create the group.

   2. You can read more here: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/linux-postinstall/#manage-docker-as-a-non-root-user

5. When you report a problem your encountered running your node, it's very helpful for our engineers to look into the issue with the following information:

   1. Your Node ID

      1. Go to the node details page of the node you are running into problems, copy and paste the URL and send it to us. https://app.blockcast.network/manage-nodes/gw_436b49d0-29cb-11f0-bb55-db08d02fe507

   2. Your registration email or Google account

   3. A short description of the issue you are facing

   4. It would be extra helpful if you can send us your nodes' logs

      1. How to get node logs?

         1. Run docker compose logs > output.txt and send us the output.txt file.