1-5: Create a user

For security reasons it's best not to use the root user. Instead, create a new user and add the user to the sudo group.

Also, by default, the Pocket CLI will place the data directory for the node in the user's home directory. So, when you create a new user, you'll want to make sure the home directory is on a volume that has plenty of room for the data directory.

info

At the time of writing, Pocket requires ~160GB. The following user setup process assumes you have a volume partition mounted at /mnt/data. You can change this if needed but make sure the user's home directory is on a volume can be extended or has plenty of room for the data directory to grow.

Creating a new user

To create a new user, and home directory, do the following:

1. Create a new user with the following command:

   useradd -m -g sudo -s /bin/bash pocket && passwd pocket

   Note: The user pocket will be created, added to the sudo group, and the default shell will be bin/bash. A home directory will also be created. If you want to specify the location of the home directory, you can use the -d option followed by the path to the home directory.

2. For the rest of this guide, we'll be using the pocket user. So now that the pocket user is created, you can switch from using root to the pocket user with the following command:

   su - pocket

Alright, that's it for the server setup. Now let's move on to the Pocket CLI installation.