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Run an Ethereum node

The Ethereum Node will act as the source for the KYVE protocol validator and is required. You can either run the Ethereum node on the same machine with the KYVE protocol together (recommended) or on a seperate machine.

danger

Due to very specific requirements, an additional validation layer, accessibility as well as to prevent slashes, it is strongly recommended to run an independent data source node. API providers should be avoided and have already led to critical problems in the past.

Prerequisites​

The Ethereum node consists of an execution and a consensus layer. Geth serves as the execution client, while Lighthouse operates as the consensus client. There are multiple methods for setting up the node; however, this version is the recommended one.

Create a directory named ethereum on your SSD, followed by two subdirectories within it named consensus and execution:

📂ethereum
┣ 📂consensus
┣ 📂execution

Create a JWT secret file:

openssl rand -hex 32 | tr -d "\n" | tee ~/ethereum/jwt.hex

Execution client​

Install Geth​

Multiple methods exist for setting up the Geth execution client. This section focuses on building it from source on Linux. For additional options, refer to the Geth documentation.

Build Geth​

First, go to the consensus client directory:

cd ~/ethereum/consensus

To build Geth from source, it is required to have Go 1.21 installed (documentation). Confirm the installation with:

go version

Build Geth from source:

git clone https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum.git
cd go-ethereum
make geth

These commands create a Geth executable file in the go-ethereum/build/bin folder that can be moved and run from another directory if required. The binary is standalone and doesn't require any additional files.

Start Execution client​

To start the installed Geth execution client, simply run:

~/ethereum/execution/go-ethereum/build/bin/geth --mainnet --http --http.api eth,net,engine,admin --authrpc.jwtsecret=~/ethereum/jwt.hex --http.port 8545

Consensus client​

Install Lighthouse​

Various methods exist for installing the Lighthouse consensus client. This section focuses on building it from source on Ubuntu. For additional options, refer to the Lighthouse documentation.

Requirements:​

Install Rust with:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Verify successful installation with:

cargo version
tip

INFO: If it cannot be found, run source $HOME/.cargo/env. After that, running cargo version should return the installed version.

Install required packages:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y git gcc g++ make cmake pkg-config llvm-dev libclang-dev clang

Build Lighthouse​

First, go to the consensus client directory:

cd ~/ethereum/consensus

After installing Rust and the build dependencies, build Lighthouse with:

git clone https://github.com/sigp/lighthouse.git
cd lighthouse
git checkout stable
make

Start Beacon Node​

Checkpoint-Sync and State Reconstruction​

Initially, it is recommended to checkpoint sync the Beacon node, thereby reconstructing historic states:

lighthouse bn --network mainnet --execution-endpoint http://localhost:8551 --execution-jwt ~/ethereum/jwt.hex --http --disable-deposit-contract-sync --http-port 3500 --prune-blobs false --checkpoint-sync-url <endpoint> --reconstruct-historic-states

If the pool has almost caught up with the Ethereum live, the node can be also started with:

lighthouse bn --network mainnet --execution-endpoint http://localhost:8551 --execution-jwt ~/ethereum/jwt.hex --http --disable-deposit-contract-sync --http-port 3500 --prune-blobs false --checkpoint-sync-url <endpoint>

Endpoints for the checkpoint sync can be found here.

Pruning​

Because the blobs can result in very high storage size, the default pruning can be used after the pool has reached the Ethereum live height. The blobs then are pruned after 18 days, which gives the pool more than two weeks to validate and archive the stored blobs.

To enable pruning, simply run:

lighthouse bn --network mainnet --execution-endpoint http://localhost:8551 --execution-jwt ~/ethereum/jwt.hex --http --disable-deposit-contract-sync --http-port 3500 --checkpoint-sync-url <endpoint>

Verifying the completed node setup​

After the successful start of the node you have to wait until the Consensus client is fully synced. To verify the completed node setup, you can check if the node has synced to the required height by requesting the blobs of to_slot from the latest bundle summary. For example, with the following bundle summary:

{
    "from_slot": 8775925, 
    "to_slot": 8775931, 
    "merkle_root": "b4b60406a8a2104feceacf361c1e94fc5b4700c4a9428f9d247d189337bf24e7"
}

You can verify that your setup is completed by executing the follwing query:

curl http://localhost:3500/eth/v1/beacon/blob_sidecars/8775931

To verfiy that your execution client is running properly, you can check if the latest block of the local client is nearby the latest key of the KYVE pool. To get the height of the local running Execution client in hex, execute:

curl http://localhost:8545 \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{"method":"eth_blockNumber","params":[],"id":1,"jsonrpc":"2.0"}'

If both queries return a valid response you can continue with starting the actual KYVE protocol validator and start participating in the validation and archival process.