OP stack with Flashblocks Devnet on AWS

Terraform configuration to deploy OP stack with Flashblocks recipe on AWS EC2 using Docker Hub images.

Prerequisites

1. AWS CLI configured with appropriate credentials

brew install awscli
aws login
eval $(aws configure export-credentials --format env)

2. Terraform installed (>= 1.0)

brew install terraform

Setup

1. Configure Variables

Create a terraform.tfvars file:

aws_region        = "us-east-1"
instance_type     = "t3.xlarge"
use_spot_instance = true  # Use spot instances (60-70% cheaper, can be interrupted)
spot_max_price    = ""  # Empty = use on-demand price as max, or set custom max (e.g., "0.10")
flashblocks_rpc_image = "0xrampey/flashblocks-rpc:latest"  # Docker Hub image (default)
allowed_ssh_cidr  = "YOUR_IP/32"  # Your public IP for SSH access

SSH Key Pair

Terraform automatically generates an SSH key pair:

• Private key: ~/.ssh/builder-playground.pem (mode 0400)
• Public key: Deployed to EC2 instance
• Used for SSH access to the instance

2. Deploy Infrastructure

terraform init
terraform plan
terraform apply

3. Devnet Starts Automatically as a Daemon

The devnet starts automatically after EC2 provisioning and runs as a background daemon using nohup

Monitoring the Devnet

Once connected via SSH:

# Check if daemon is running
ps aux | grep "go run main.go" | grep -v grep

# View live logs
tail -f /home/ec2-user/devnet.log

# Check Docker containers
docker ps

# Verify flashblocks-rpc container and ports
docker ps | grep flashblocks-rpc
# Should show: 0.0.0.0:8550->8545/tcp

Accessing Services

Once the devnet is running, the Flashblocks RPC will be accessible on:

• Flashblocks RPC: http://<public-ip>:8550

Note: Only port 8550 is exposed externally. Other services run internally on the EC2 instance.

Updating Docker Images

When you update the Docker images on Docker Hub:

1. SSH into the EC2 instance
2. Pull the new images: docker pull 0xrampey/flashblocks-rpc:latest
3. Restart the devnet: /home/ec2-user/run-devnet.sh

Cleanup

To destroy all resources:

terraform destroy

Troubleshooting

Devnet Not Starting

Check the cloud-init logs:

sudo tail -100 /var/log/cloud-init-output.log

Check devnet logs:

tail -100 /home/ec2-user/devnet.log

Docker Compose Version Issues

The user data script installs Docker Compose v2.23.0 as a plugin to avoid compatibility issues with v5.0.0+.

If you see errors like unknown shorthand flag: 'f' in -f, the Docker Compose version is incompatible.

Verify version:

docker compose version  # Should show: v2.23.0

Spot Instances

Spot instances are enabled by default and can save 60-70% compared to on-demand pricing. However:

If you need guaranteed availability, set use_spot_instance = false in terraform.tfvars.