Thank you for the thoughtful response. I have been trying all day to setup a masternode but there is no documentation on how to do it exactly. The darkcoin info is pretty much useless as it has a pretty different setup process.
I found the DRK masternode setup guide at
https://dashtalk.org/threads/taos-masternode-setup-guide-for-dummies.2680/ useful. XPH master nodes seem to work the same way as DRK and CRAVE.
The hot MN/cold wallet setup works nicely. I did it with a linux pharmad as a wallet and another linux pharmad as a MN on a vps. Once you get your MN started, you can take your wallet offline and it continues to stake.
Generate the MN privkey on the wallet and copy to the MN config file. Send 50K XPH to account 0 in the wallet. Add the MN IP address and privkey to the wallet config file. Start the masternode using 'masternode start' on the wallet
its all in the link above. Check your debug.log for error messages. If you get complaints about vin
and no coins its because you forgot to send 50K XPH to account 0 on your wallet.