I wanted to do a post that could help people setup their SmartNodes and not go down a dead end or have to do the setup over again or worse....... lose their coins. If you are like me as soon as Cryptopia opened withdraws I got my coins off there in a hurry but didn't reread down through the SmartNode instructions again or realize that when I created the smartcash.conf file I was going to have to resync the blockchain again. Once I did that and realized I had spent that time to sync 6 months worth of blocks I was pissed. This is the error you will get after you try to create the smartcash.conf file that it talks about in the instructions. If you are at that point and feel like you don't know what to do you can click abort and then delete or rename the smartcash.conf file temporarily so you can backup your wallet and save your private key.
http://smartnodes.cc/files/SmartCash_SmartNode_Setup_Guide_v1.2.pdf
So if you have your coins in the qt wallet on Mac, Linux, or Windows the best thing to do before you start this is to backup the wallet.dat file and also get your private keys out of the wallet and save them on a thumb drive or some other safe location. If you coins are still on the exchange wait to transfer them until after you have created the smartcash.conf file and resynced the blockchain.
To backup the wallet go to File | Backup Wallet
To Save the Private Keys go to File | Receiving Addresses and copy the address that all your coins are in. Then go to Help | Debug Window and click on the Console tab.
In the command text box type dumpprivkey [your SmartCash address here]
That way you will have the private key and the wallet.dat file encase you totally FUBAR your setup during the next steps.
IMPORTANT: One of the things I didn't know right when I started and after I even watched a video on doing the SmartNode was that the 10,000 SMART you have to have needs to be transferred all in one transaction because the transaction ID becomes part of one of the config files to verify you have that many coins and that you haven't moved them once you have the SmartNode Running. You can send the 10,000 coins to another address you create in the same wallet which is what I did.
At this point after reading that you might be confused so let's take a step back and I'm going to have you watch a couple of videos and read down the appropriate setup guide to gain more understanding about what is going to be happening.
Watch The Appropriate "Girls Gone SMART" Video
Mac OS X
Windows
If you are running the SmartCash QT wallet in Linux then the main difference is just the directory where all the files are in. That is /username/.smartcash
After watching the appropriate video I would go to this help page (http://smartnodes.cc/#SmartNode_Setup) and read down through setup guide. More of it will look familiar from seeing the video.
You should follow the setup guide ultimately and only use the video for a little visual reference because a few things were left out in the video but it is tough to show every situation and scenario.
Now if you backed yourself into the corner like I did with having to resync the wallet you will likely be best off doing the bootstrap download where you download a zip file with the blocks and chainstate.
Before you do that you can rename the chainstate and blocks directories to old-blocks and old-chainstate that way if something messes up then you still have a copy of what you downloaded previously. Then you can do the following commands.
wget http://proteanx.com/txindexstrap.zip
unzip txindexstrap.zip
mv blocks ~/.smartcash
mv chainstate ~/.smartcash
rm txindexstrap.zip
If you are in Windows then you can just move those folders around in explorer to achieve the same things these commands did.
Now you can start your wallet up there with the smartcash.conf file in the smartcash directory like the instructions said and you won't get the error. At that point you will be able to setup the VPS. I ended up using Vultr for mine. It is just $5 / month for what you need.
https://www.vultr.com/?ref=7325164
That is an affiliate link and if you find this post helpful consider using that link. Another option will be to get on Google and search "Free Cloud Trial" I pretty much burned out my free credits out at this point but just keep in mind that if you set it up on a free trial and you don't pay at the end of the trial your server instance will be removed.
One of the last things I want to say about the guide is if I were you I would complete the setup of the node and then take a "snapshot" of the node (free on Vultr) and then do all the security stuff like RSA Keys, removing root access, etc. That way if something gets messed up and you lose access to the server you don't have to throw that instance away and go through everything again.
Conclusion
Read this post, Watch The Videos, Read Down through the guide, and take your time setting up your SmartNode that way you don't lose your coins somehow.
If you are trying to setup multiple SmartNodes on 1 VPS then check out 
At the time of this writing my SmartNode has been up for 4.5 days and hasn't received a payout but there is one SmartNode that has been paid out 14 times. It says that 6132 nodes have been paid at least once and there are over 8,000 of them. Here is what one of the developers said on Reddit.
https://smartnode.aneis.ch/smartnode_winners.html
Also you can check this list to see what position you are in. I'm down in the 3000s right now so hopefully in the next couple of days I will get a payout.
https://smartcash.bitcoiner.me/smartnodes/list/
If you have questions I can try to help and also there is a lot of help in the Discord channel of people who are on all different platforms. Mac, Windows, and Linux.
https://discordapp.com/invite/BDUh8jrUpdate: I got my first SuperNode Payout which is worth $75 at the time I'm typing this! Feels good to get the first one and know it is working properly. It took 5 days basically from the time I started it until now.
Earn $10 Of Free Bitcoin From Brian Phobos!
Thank you for reading my post and please consider following me @brianphobos