Tiny CLI for submitting large calldata transactions to EVM networks to stress test the networking layer. Main motivation: evaluating how the pre-Shanghai/Capella network handles I/O load in advance of EIP4844 blobs.
The CLI expects a signing key and RPC provider, as well as a bundle signer if going through mev-boost. These can be entered in the setup script.
We support 2 modes of transaction submission - transactions can be generated and submitted in parallel to the mempool, or bundled for inclusion via MEV-boost.
The MEV-boost route allows the user to bid for inclusion, potentially crowding out other transactions in high demand environments such as ETH Mainnet. However, it requires participating in a first price auction for transaction inclusion, which requires some subjective determination of how much to bid. It is also subject to the percentage of proposers that run mev-boost, which was ~50% on Goerli as of January 2023.
To submit large calldata transactions through mev-boost, run
cargo r -- --rpc-url $ETH_RPC_URL --tx-signer $SIGNER --bundle-signer $BUNDLE --chunk-size 1734 --fill-pct 80 --tip-wei $(cast --to-unit 3gwei) --blocks 18
ETH_RPC_URL, SIGNER, and BUNDLE environment variables are set and applied in setup_env.sh.
--fill-pct is a value in [0, 100] which sets what percentage of the 2MB block limit our bundles will fill. We have not successfully landed any bundles that requested more than 89% of a block.
--chunk-size sets the size of the calldata per transaction, in KB. Our bundle signer was explicitly whitelisted by the flashbots relay in order to submit transactions exceeding the usual 128kb limit.
--tip-wei determines how much to overbid on the gas for the transactions - this determines the "bribe" amount received by the proposer. In practice we have found reasonable landing rates with ~5gwei on Goerli.
The example command uses Foundry Cast to convert from gwei to wei; you may alternatively pass in a value of wei directly.
--blocks sets how many bundles to land. The script will keep sending bundles until this many have landed successfully.
To submit large calldata transactions through the mempool, run
cargo r -- --rpc-url $ETH_RPC_URL --tx-signer $SIGNER --chunk-size 128 --mempool-txs 128 --mem-pool
--chunk-size again sets the size of the calldata per transaction in KB. Geth enforces a maximum of 128kb for mempool propagation.
--mempool-txs sets how many transactions to pre-sign and submit. These will be submitted to the RPC provider simultaneously.
--mem-pool is a boolean flag that indicates we want to submit directly to the mempool.
Pick a private key and an RPC URL for the network you're stress testing, and ensure you have some ETH. We default to 100wei per transaction for testnets, so you shouldn't need much.
./target/release/stress4844 --help
Usage: stress4844 [OPTIONS] --rpc-url <RPC_URL> --tx-signer <TX_SIGNER> --bundle-signer <BUNDLE_SIGNER> --payment <PAYMENT>
Options:
--blocks <BLOCKS> The number of blocks to run the stress test for [default: 1]
-f, --fill-pct <FILL_PCT> What % of the block to fill (0-100) [default: 100]
-c, --chunk-size <CHUNK_SIZE> [default: 128]
-r, --rpc-url <RPC_URL> The HTTP RPC endpoint to submit the transactions to
-t, --tx-signer <TX_SIGNER> The private key for the wallet you'll submit the stress test transactions with. MUST have enough ETH to cover for the gas
-b, --bundle-signer <BUNDLE_SIGNER> The private key for the full-block template bundle signer wallet
-g, --gas-price <GAS_PRICE> [default: 100]
-p, --payment <PAYMENT>
-h, --help Print help information