Practical overview
When it fits
Use it when operating a private Solana node cluster and you need documented tooling for snapshot discovery, peer-to-peer fetching or S3-compatible mirroring.
Who it is for
- Operators managing multiple Solana nodes as a private cluster.
- Teams that need nodes to discover and transfer snapshot archives between peers.
- Operators who want to mirror cluster snapshots to an S3-compatible data store.
Documented uses
- Serve available snapshot archives from a node using a sidecar.
- Collect snapshot-version metadata from sidecars with a tracker.
- Help a node identify and fetch a snapshot from another node.
- Periodically mirror discovered snapshots to S3-compatible storage.
Requirements & limits
The repository is public and declares an Apache-2.0 license. It documents a source build requiring Go 1.18 and build essentials, and Docker images for amd64 and arm64.
- The tracker collects metadata and helps fetch jobs find snapshots; nodes download archives directly from sidecars.
- The sidecar and tracker APIs are explicitly not to be exposed publicly.
- The mirror command requires S3-compatible settings and AWS access-key environment variables.
- HTTP and JSON-file service discovery are described; Consul service discovery is marked as planned.
Check current requirements in the official documentation. Source-based guidance does not mean OpenViST has run or independently tested this project.
Build Solana Cluster Manager from source
Compile the project into a local solana-cluster binary.
Before you start
- Go 1.18
- Build essentials
Steps
Download the Go module dependencies with go mod download.
Build the binary with go build -o ./solana-cluster .
Expected outcome
A locally built solana-cluster binary.
Guide limitations
- These steps document building only; they do not configure or run a cluster.
Run a snapshot sidecar with the documented Docker example
Start the sidecar command with a read-only ledger mount.
Before you start
- Docker
- A Solana ledger directory at /solana/ledger
- A host network configuration
Steps
Pull ghcr.io/blockdaemon/solana-cluster-manager.
Run the image with --network-mode=host, mount /solana/ledger at /ledger:ro, and pass sidecar --ledger /ledger.
Expected outcome
The documented command starts a sidecar that serves available snapshot archives from the mounted ledger.
Guide limitations
- The README warns not to expose the sidecar API publicly.
- The example assumes the ledger path shown and does not document cluster-wide configuration.
Sources & review
Source record details
- Source availability
- Active
- Sources checked
- 14 October 2026
- Original website title
- Blockdaemon/solana-cluster · Official homepage title · retained in its source language

