# Install TinyChain

## Client

Most users will only need to run the TinyChain Python client, not a TinyChain host. See the [Python client introduction](/guides/python-client-introduction.md) for instructions to install the client.

## Host

### Easy install

The quick and easy way to get TinyChain up and running to try it out is to use Docker:

```
# build the Dockerfile from the GitHub repo, then run a new container with TinyChain listening on host port 8702
# the "-it" option also opens an interactive terminal
docker run -it -p 8702:8702/tcp $(docker build https://github.com/haydnv/tinychain.git -q) ./tinychain --data_dir=/tmp/data
```

You can check that your installation succeeded by loading [http://127.0.0.1:8702/state/scalar/value/string?key="Hello, World!"](http://127.0.0.1:8702/state/scalar/value/string?key=%22Hello,%20World!%22) in your browser.

### Automatic install (Ubuntu)

An install script is provided for Ubuntu (only tested on Ubuntu 20.04):

```
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/haydnv/tinychain/master/bin/install.sh -sSf | bash
```

### Manual install

1. (optional) If you need CUDA support for GPU acceleration, first install CUDA 11 by following the instructions here: <https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-installation-guide-linux/index.html#ubuntu-installation>. If you're not sure, skip this step.
2. Install cargo by following the instructions here: <https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/getting-started/installation.html>
3. Install TinyChain by running `cargo install tinychain`

## systemd configuration

To use TinyChain in production, you'll probably want to configure [systemd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd) so that TinyChain will automatically restart in the case of a crash or a host machine restart. You can find detailed instructions on how to configure a new service with systemd [here](https://www.linode.com/docs/guides/start-service-at-boot/). You can customize this example systemd config file for your use-case:

```toml
# This is an example systemd service config for TinyChain.

[Unit]
Description=Tinychain
After=network.target
StartLimitIntervalSec=0

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
RestartSec=2

# change this user name!
User=root

# change this path to match your Tinychain install path
ExecStart=/root/tinychain/host/target/release/tinychain --data_dir=/tmp/data --cache_size=4G

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
```


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