If you want to start producing blocks on avalon, your account will need to define a leader key. Generate one into a file with node src/cli key > leader-key.json
Secondly, you will need to enter your username, public leader key, and private leader key at the bottom of the scripts/start.sh file, and restart your node.
Finally, you will need to associate your public leader key with your account by using the on-chain transaction.
node src/cli enable-node YOUR_LEADER_PUB_KEY -M YOUR_USERNAME -K YOUR_KEYThis transaction must be signed with your master key, or a custom key that allows this transaction. Once this step is done, you can head to the leader election page and vote yourself. If your leader key is properly associated to your account, you should see yourself uncrossed.
Once enough votes for your account come in, and you reach the top leaders, your node will start regularly mining blocks.
Avalon has a peer-discovery mechanism turned on by default. Elected leaders can declare a public node IP in their JSON profile, which will create a lot of incoming peers for this node.
node src/cli.js profile -K <key> -M <user> '{"node":{"ws":"ws://yourip:yourport"}}'Make sure to have MAX_PEERS set to a high number (50+ recommended). The network needs a few of those public nodes, but it is strongly discouraged to produce blocks from a publicly declared node IP.
You will need to get a lot of votes from the stake holders in order to produce blocks. A good idea for new leaders is to create a video to explain who they are, and why they run an Avalon node, and why they want to be elected. Most of the elected leaders have went through this process, and it's an easy way to gather organic votes at the beggining.