Monitor a node

There are three places to see what your node is doing: the tray icon, your account page, and the terminal.

The tray icon

The Friendlai icon in your menu bar (macOS) or system tray (Linux) starts with your desktop session. It animates while your node is answering a question, and greys out when the node isn't running. Click it to see:

The node's state, public name and the models it's serving.
Questions answered and tokens written since it started.
Lifetime questions answered and rewards earned.

The menu also has Pause / Resume, Stop node / Start node and Open dashboard, and shows the node's version, with Check for updates, or Update to … when a new version is out.

On Linux the icon needs a system tray: KDE, Xfce, Cinnamon and Ubuntu's GNOME have one; other GNOME desktops need the AppIndicator extension. The node runs fine without it.

Your account page

Your nodes on your account page lists every node linked to you, from any computer: whether it's online (or when it was last seen), its version, questions answered, tokens served, and rewards earned. A node counts as online when it has checked in within the last couple of minutes.

The public status page shows the whole network: nodes online, the queue, and each node's totals and speed per model, so you can compare yours with others.

From the terminal

Status

friendlai-node status

Prints a summary like this:

Friendlai node 0.3.0+f248b931df10 on linux-x64
  Server's build: 0.3.0+f248b931df10
  Installed:      /home/you/.local/share/friendlai/friendlai-node
  Service:        active
  Config:         /home/you/.config/friendlai/node.json
  Server:         https://friendlai.xyz
  Node:           myrig-08b6 (…)
  Paused:         no
  Auto-update:    on
  Ollama:         qwen3:8b, gemma3:12b

Service	`active` (Linux) or `running` (macOS) when the node is running.
Node	Its public name and id. `not registered yet` means it hasn't reached the network.
Paused	Whether you've paused it.
Ollama	Every model Ollama has, or `not reachable` if Ollama isn't running.
Serving only	Shown if you limited the models with `--models`.

Logs

friendlai-node logs

Shows the last 100 lines and follows new ones (Ctrl+C to stop). Lines worth knowing:

`Serving: qwen3:8b, gemma3:12b`	The models the network accepted. Logged at start and whenever the list changes.
`Not in the network catalog (ignored): …`	Models you have that the network doesn't use.
`Job 3f2a…: qwen3:8b, 4 message(s)`	A question arrived. `Job 3f2a…: done, 512 tokens in 9s` follows when it's answered.
`Job 3f2a…: cancelled`	The asker stopped it, or it was given to another node.
`Job 3f2a…: failed: …`	Ollama returned an error. The question goes to another node.
`Error: … (retrying in 8s)`	A network problem. The node waits longer after each failure, up to 5 minutes.

The full history is in journald on Linux (journalctl --user -u friendlai-node) and in ~/Library/Logs/Friendlai/node.log on macOS.

Pausing and stopping

Need your computer's full power for a while? Pause or stop the node from the tray menu, or:

friendlai-node pause    # finish the current answer, then take no new questions
friendlai-node resume
friendlai-node stop     # shut down until next login or restart
friendlai-node start

Pause finishes the answer in progress, then takes no new questions. The node stays connected, so it shows as paused rather than offline. It stays paused through restarts until you resume it.
Stop shuts the node down. It starts again the next time you log in or restart, or when you run start.

Ollama keeps a model in memory for a few minutes after its last use, so memory frees up shortly after you pause.

Something not right? See Troubleshooting.