A --neuron.axon_off flag would be useful, to make axon serving optional, unless there is a reason the axon is mandatory.

We made it mandatory because of a DoS attack. If your Validator has no IP served, it is blacklisted in the firewall of most miners

A --neuron.axon_off flag would be useful, to make axon serving optional, unless there is a reason the axon is mandatory.

This should probably require a manual update, so that validators can specify their --axon.port --axon.external_port --axon.external_ip settings correctly, given that axon is only now introduced.

Added your suggestion in eb39381

Also added a catch around the process to log without crashing if it fails 99f64b8