diff --git a/shared/main.go b/shared/main.go
index 67b70cfe..b59b1151 100644
--- a/shared/main.go
+++ b/shared/main.go
@@ -133,6 +133,95 @@ func StartNode(ServerID uint64, serverconfigs []*autoconfig.ConfigServer, gdb *g
 	return ss
 }
 
+func StartNodeEx(ServerID uint64, serverconfigs []*autoconfig.ConfigServer, gdb *gorm.DB) *SharedState {
+
+	// addr := "localhost"
+
+	// addr = fmt.Sprintf("%s:%d", addr, port)
+
+	// https://github.com/golang/go/issues/17393
+	if runtime.GOOS == "darwin" {
+		signal.Ignore(syscall.Signal(0xd))
+	}
+	initialMembers := make(map[uint64]string)
+
+	// when joining a new node which is not an initial members, the initialMembers
+	// map should be empty.
+	// when restarting a node that is not a member of the initial nodes, you can
+	// leave the initialMembers to be empty. we still populate the initialMembers
+	// here for simplicity.
+
+	for _, v := range serverconfigs {
+		// key is the ReplicaID, ReplicaID is not allowed to be 0
+		// value is the raft address
+
+		initialMembers[v.ReplicaId] = fmt.Sprintf("%s:%d", v.Host, v.Port-2000)
+	}
+
+	// for simplicity, in this example program, addresses of all those 3 initial
+	// raft members are hard coded. when address is not specified on the command
+	// line, we assume the node being launched is an initial raft member.
+
+	var nodeAddr = initialMembers[ServerID]
+
+	fmt.Fprintf(os.Stdout, "node address: %s\n", nodeAddr)
+	// change the log verbosity
+	logger.GetLogger("raft").SetLevel(logger.ERROR)
+	logger.GetLogger("rsm").SetLevel(logger.WARNING)
+	logger.GetLogger("transport").SetLevel(logger.WARNING)
+	logger.GetLogger("grpc").SetLevel(logger.WARNING)
+	// config for raft node
+	// See GoDoc for all available options
+	rc := config.Config{
+		// ShardID and ReplicaID of the raft node
+		ReplicaID: uint64(ServerID),
+		ShardID:   shardID,
+
+		ElectionRTT: 10,
+
+		HeartbeatRTT: 1,
+		CheckQuorum:  true,
+
+		SnapshotEntries: 10,
+
+		CompactionOverhead: 5,
+	}
+	datadir := filepath.Join(
+		"shared-state",
+		fmt.Sprintf("node%d", ServerID))
+
+	nhc := config.NodeHostConfig{
+
+		WALDir: datadir,
+		// NodeHostDir is where everything else is stored.
+		NodeHostDir: datadir,
+		// RTTMillisecond is the average round trip time between NodeHosts (usually
+		// on two machines/vms), it is in millisecond. Such RTT includes the
+		// processing delays caused by NodeHosts, not just the network delay between
+		// two NodeHost instances.
+		RTTMillisecond: 200,
+		// RaftAddress is used to identify the NodeHost instance
+		RaftAddress: nodeAddr,
+	}
+	nh, err := dragonboat.NewNodeHost(nhc)
+	if err != nil {
+		panic(err)
+	}
+
+	if err := nh.StartReplica(initialMembers, true, NewFsStateMachine, rc); err != nil {
+		fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "failed to add cluster, %v\n", err)
+		os.Exit(1)
+	}
+
+	ss := &SharedState{
+		shardID:   shardID,
+		replicaID: ServerID,
+		nh:        nh,
+	}
+
+	return ss
+}
+
 // func JoinCluster(ServerID string, LeaderAddress string, RaftBind string, gdb *gorm.DB) *StateCluster {
 
 // 	fsm := StartNode(ServerID, RaftBind, gdb)
diff --git a/shared/main_test.go b/shared/main_test.go
index 0e1b77de..10ad0958 100644
--- a/shared/main_test.go
+++ b/shared/main_test.go
@@ -5,3 +5,15 @@ import "testing"
 func TestMain(t *testing.T) {
 	test1()
 }
+
+func TestNodeA(t *testing.T) {
+	test1()
+}
+
+func TestNodeB(t *testing.T) {
+	test1()
+}
+
+func TestNodeC(t *testing.T) {
+	test1()
+}