Delegate gateway management

An operations address is a second Solana address that you, the gateway operator, authorize to handle routine gateway tasks. It can update your gateway's metadata and claim the ArNS gateway operator discount. It can't touch your stake, your delegation settings, or who manages the gateway.

Use one to keep your operator wallet offline. The operator wallet controls your stake, so it's the key you least want on a server or in a script.

What an operations address can do

The following table shows which wallet can sign each gateway action:

Action	Operator wallet	Operations address
Update metadata: label, FQDN, port, protocol, properties, note	Yes	Yes
Claim the ArNS gateway operator discount	Yes	Yes
Change stake or delegation settings, or leave the network	Yes	No
Change the observer address	Yes	No
Set or revoke the operations address	Yes	No

A gateway has one operations address at a time. Until you set one, the operations address is your operator address, so nothing changes until you choose to delegate.

Anyone who holds the operations keypair can change your gateway's metadata, including its FQDN, until you revoke it. Store the operations keypair as carefully as any other key that can change what your gateway advertises.

Before you begin

You need the following:

A joined gateway. A gateway that's leaving the network can't change its operations address.
The ar.io CLI, version 4.4.0 or later: npm install -g @ar.io/sdk.
Your gateway's operator keypair file.
The Solana CLI, to create a keypair for the operations address.

Set an operations address

Create a keypair for the operations address

solana-keygen new --outfile operations-keypair.json
solana-keygen pubkey operations-keypair.json

The second command prints the operations address. You need it in step 3.

Fund the operations address

Send a small amount of SOL to the operations address. It pays the transaction fee for every change it signs, and 0.01 SOL covers many metadata updates.

Authorize the operations address

Sign with your operator keypair:

ar.io update-operations-address \
  --operations-address OPERATIONS_ADDRESS \
  --wallet-file OPERATOR_KEYPAIR_FILE

Replace the following:

OPERATIONS_ADDRESS: the address that step 1 printed.
OPERATOR_KEYPAIR_FILE: the path to your operator keypair file.

The CLI shows the gateway and the operations address, and asks you to confirm.

Check the result

ar.io get-gateway --address OPERATOR_ADDRESS

Replace OPERATOR_ADDRESS with your gateway's operator address. The operationsAddress field shows the address you authorized.

Update gateway metadata with the operations address

To update metadata, sign with the operations keypair and name your gateway by its operator address:

ar.io update-gateway-metadata \
  --gateway-address OPERATOR_ADDRESS \
  --fqdn GATEWAY_FQDN \
  --wallet-file OPERATIONS_KEYPAIR_FILE

Replace the following:

OPERATOR_ADDRESS: your gateway's operator address. The signer isn't the operator, so this tells the network which gateway to update.
GATEWAY_FQDN: the domain your gateway serves, such as turbo-gateway.com.
OPERATIONS_KEYPAIR_FILE: the path to the operations keypair file.

The command also accepts --label, --port, --protocol, --properties, and --note. Include only the fields you want to change.

Claim the ArNS gateway operator discount

When the operations address pays for an ArNS purchase, add --discount-gateway-address with your operator address. To check the price first:

ar.io get-cost-details \
  --intent Extend-Lease \
  --name ARNS_NAME \
  --years 1 \
  --address OPERATIONS_ADDRESS \
  --discount-gateway-address OPERATOR_ADDRESS

To make the purchase:

ar.io extend-lease \
  --name ARNS_NAME \
  --years 1 \
  --discount-gateway-address OPERATOR_ADDRESS \
  --wallet-file OPERATIONS_KEYPAIR_FILE

Replace ARNS_NAME with the name you're extending. The same flag works with buy-record, increase-undername-limit, and upgrade-record.

The discount applies only when your gateway qualifies. For the rules, see Gateway operator ArNS discount. If you name a gateway that doesn't qualify, the CLI stops and prints the reason instead of charging full price.

Revoke or replace the operations address

To revoke, set the operations address back to your operator address:

ar.io update-operations-address \
  --operations-address OPERATOR_ADDRESS \
  --wallet-file OPERATOR_KEYPAIR_FILE

To replace it, run the command with a different operations address. Either change takes effect with its transaction, and the network refuses the previous operations address from then on.

Troubleshooting

The following table lists the errors the CLI prints for an operations address, and what each one means:

Error contains	Cause	Fix
`is neither the operator nor the operations address of gateway`	The signing keypair isn't authorized for that gateway. The operations address was revoked or replaced, `--gateway-address` names another gateway, or `--wallet-file` points at the wrong keypair.	Run `ar.io get-gateway --address OPERATOR_ADDRESS` and compare `operationsAddress` with the signing address.
`does not qualify for the operator discount`	The gateway fails a discount rule. The rest of the message names the rule.	Check the gateway against the discount rules, or make the purchase without `--discount-gateway-address`.
`No gateway found for operator`	`--discount-gateway-address` isn't a gateway's operator address.	Use the operator address, not the operations address.

For the SDK methods behind these commands, see Gateways in the ar.io SDK reference.

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Delegate gateway management

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