Install the Divi node

1What the Divi node is

The original Divi node is the program the Divi network was built on. It is written in C++, descends from Bitcoin and Dash, and ships as three programs:

• divid, the node. It downloads the chain, keeps your wallet, and stakes.
• divi-cli, the command line you use to talk to it.
• divi-tx, a small tool for building raw transactions by hand. You will not need it.

The newer IronDivi node does the same job in Rust and is where new work happens, so it is the one we suggest first. Pick the original node when you are on Windows, when you want a node that routes over Tor, or when you want the program the rest of the network has run since 2023. The two speak the same protocol and the same commands; IronDivi vs the C++ node lists the differences.

This tutorial runs it on testnet, the practice network where coins are worth nothing. Everything here works the same on the real network without testnet=1. If you would rather have a wallet with windows and buttons, Divi Desktop or BoxWallet install and run this same node for you.

2Pick your download

Every release is on the Divi releases page. The 9e2f76c in each file name is the source commit it was built from.

3Install on Linux

Open a terminal. These four lines make a folder, download the release, check it, and unpack it:

mkdir -p ~/divi && cd ~/divi
curl -LO https://github.com/DiviProject/Divi/releases/download/v3.0.0/divi-3.0.0-x86_64-linux-gnu-9e2f76c.tar.gz
sha256sum divi-3.0.0-x86_64-linux-gnu-9e2f76c.tar.gz
tar xzf divi-3.0.0-x86_64-linux-gnu-9e2f76c.tar.gz

You now have divi-3.0.0/bin/ with divid, divi-cli and divi-tx in it. Ask the node its version to prove it runs:

./divi-3.0.0/bin/divid -version

# what we got on Ubuntu 22.04
Divi Core Daemon version v3.0.0
Copyright (C) 2009-2023 The Bitcoin Core Developers
… licence text …

Note the single dash: the original node writes its options as -version, -testnet, -datadir=…, where IronDivi uses two. That is the whole install; nothing runs as root. If you would rather type divid from anywhere, copy the programs into a folder on your PATH, such as ~/.local/bin.

4Install on a Mac

Open Terminal (Applications → Utilities). The same steps with the Mac file:

mkdir -p ~/divi && cd ~/divi
curl -LO https://github.com/DiviProject/Divi/releases/download/v3.0.0/divi-3.0.0-osx64-9e2f76c.tar.gz
shasum -a 256 divi-3.0.0-osx64-9e2f76c.tar.gz
tar xzf divi-3.0.0-osx64-9e2f76c.tar.gz
./divi-3.0.0/bin/divid -version

The Mac build is an Intel program. On an Apple silicon Mac, macOS runs it through Rosetta, Apple's Intel translator, which it offers to install the first time an Intel program runs. With Rosetta in place it printed Divi Core Daemon version v3.0.0 for us on macOS 27 with an M-series chip. Because you downloaded with curl rather than a browser, macOS does not put its quarantine mark on the files. If you unpack with Finder and macOS refuses to open the programs, unpack again from Terminal as above.

5Install on Windows

Download divi-3.0.0-win64-9e2f76c.zip from the releases page and unzip it. Inside is divi-3.0.0\bin\ with divid.exe, divi-cli.exe and divi-tx.exe. Open a Command Prompt in that folder (type cmd in the folder's address bar) and run:

certutil -hashfile divi-3.0.0-win64-9e2f76c.zip SHA256
divid.exe -version

We checked the zip's contents and checksum but have no Windows machine, so we have not run the programs there. The settings file and every command below are the same on Windows, with the files living in %APPDATA%\DIVI\ instead of a dot folder.

6Start it on testnet

The node keeps everything in one data folder, with a testnet3 folder inside it for the test network:

• Linux: ~/.divi/testnet3
• Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/DIVI/testnet3
• Windows: %APPDATA%\DIVI\testnet3

Before the first start, create the data folder and put a settings file called divi.conf in it, next to testnet3, not inside it. It tells the node to use testnet, to accept commands from divi-cli, and protects that command port with a name and password only your own machine needs to know:

mkdir -p ~/.divi
nano ~/.divi/divi.conf

# divi.conf: one setting per line, no quotes
testnet=1
server=1
daemon=1
rpcuser=pick-a-name
rpcpassword=pick-a-long-random-password

No quotes, no spaces around the =, and to repeat a setting you repeat the line. (IronDivi's file is the other way round: quoted values, each key once.) daemon=1 sends the node to the background; leave it out if you prefer to keep it in its own window and stop it with Ctrl+C. Save, then start the node:

cd ~/divi
./divi-3.0.0/bin/divid

# what it prints
DIVI server starting

The first start takes a few minutes before it talks to anyone: it builds a new wallet first, and until that is done divi-cli answers Loading wallet... with a percentage instead of a result. On our server the node began looking for other nodes two and a half minutes after starting. The log at ~/.divi/testnet3/debug.log shows what it is doing:

DIVI version v3.0.0 (2023-07-06 11:00:42 -0600)
Using data directory /home/you/.divi/testnet3
Using config file /home/you/.divi/divi.conf
init message: Loading wallet...
Generating new seed for wallet...!
init message: Initializing P2P connections...
Loading addresses from DNS seeds (could take a while)
3 addresses found from DNS seeds

You can also keep everything in a folder of your choosing with -datadir=/some/folder on both programs; the settings file then goes in that folder.

7Check it, then stop it

Ask the node how far it has got and how many other nodes it is talking to:

./divi-3.0.0/bin/divi-cli getblockcount
./divi-3.0.0/bin/divi-cli getconnectioncount

# twenty minutes after a first start, on 2026-10-21
359947
4

The node asks the Divi DNS seeds for addresses and tries them one by one. In our run the first four connections arrived about four minutes after the start, and the block count then climbed until it matched the latest block on the testnet explorer, twenty minutes after the start, helped by a fast peer on the same machine. Over the internet alone, allow an hour or two.

./divi-3.0.0/bin/divi-cli getinfo

{
    "version" : "3.0.0.0",
    "protocolversion" : 70915,
    "walletversion" : 120200,
    "balance" : 0.00000000,
    "blocks" : 359947,
    "timeoffset" : 0,
    "connections" : 4,
    "proxy" : "",
    "difficulty" : 7331.13552413,
    "testnet" : true,
    "moneysupply" : 708779665.69496620,
    "relayfee" : 0.00010000,
    "staking status" : "Staking Not Active",
    "errors" : ""
}

To stop the node cleanly, ask it to stop. It finishes writing to disk and exits, which can take ten seconds or so:

./divi-3.0.0/bin/divi-cli stop

DIVI server stopping

Next time you start it, it carries on from where it left off. From here, every setting is in Config files explained, running it in the background for good is in Run a node as a service, and Get testnet DIVI puts some practice coins in the new wallet.

If something goes wrong

Still stuck? Ask the Divi chatbot, or see all tutorials.