Erigon

Erigon is an implementation of Ethereum (aka "Ethereum client"), on the efficiency frontier, written in Go.

• System Requirements

• Usage

  • Getting Started
  • Testnets
  • Mining
  • Windows
  • GoDoc
  • Beacon Chain
  • Dev Chain

• Key features

  • More Efficient State Storage
  • Faster Initial Sync
  • JSON-RPC daemon
  • Run all components by docker-compose
  • Grafana dashboard

• FAQ

• Getting in touch

  • Erigon Discord Server
  • Reporting security issues/concerns
  • Team

• Known issues

  • htop shows incorrect memory usage

NB! In-depth links are marked by the microscope sign (🔬)

Disclaimer: this software is currently a tech preview. We will do our best to keep it stable and make no breaking changes but we don't guarantee anything. Things can and will break.

🔬 Alpha/Beta versions difference: here

System Requirements

• For an Archive node of Ethereum Mainnet we recommend >=3TB storage space: 1.8TB state (as of March 2022), 200GB temp files (can symlink or mount folder <datadir>/etl-tmp to another disk). Ethereum Mainnet Full node (see --prune* flags): 400Gb (April 2022).

• Goerli Full node (see --prune* flags): 189GB on Beta, 114GB on Alpha (April 2022).

• BSC Archive: 7TB. BSC Full: 1TB.

• Polygon Mainnet Archive: 5TB. Polygon Mumbai Archive: 1TB.

SSD or NVMe. Do not recommend HDD - on HDD Erigon will always stay N blocks behind chain tip, but not fall behind. Bear in mind that SSD performance deteriorates when close to capacity.

RAM: >=16GB, 64-bit architecture, Golang version >= 1.18, GCC 10+

🔬 more details on disk storage here and here.

Usage

Getting Started

git clone --recurse-submodules -j8 https://github.com/ledgerwatch/erigon.git
cd erigon
make erigon
./build/bin/erigon

Default --snapshots=true for mainnet, goerli, bsc. Other networks now have default --snapshots=false. Increase download speed by flag --torrent.download.rate=20mb. 🔬 See Downloader docs

Use --datadir to choose where to store data.

Use --chain=bor-mainnet for Polygon Mainnet and --chain=mumbai for Polygon Mumbai.

Running make help will list and describe the convenience commands available in the Makefile

Modularity

Erigon by default is "all in one binary" solution, but it's possible start TxPool as separated processes. Same true about: JSON RPC layer (RPCDaemon), p2p layer (Sentry), history download layer (Downloader), consensus. Don't start services as separated processes unless you have clear reason for it: resource limiting, scale, replace by your own implementation, security. How to start Erigon's services as separated processes, see in docker-compose.yml.

Optional stages

There is an optional stage that can be enabled through flags:

• --watch-the-burn, Enable WatchTheBurn stage which keeps track of ETH issuance and is required to use erigon_watchTheBurn.

Testnets

If you would like to give Erigon a try, but do not have spare 2TB on your drive, a good option is to start syncing one of the public testnets, Görli. It syncs much quicker, and does not take so much disk space:

git clone --recurse-submodules -j8 https://github.com/ledgerwatch/erigon.git
cd erigon
make erigon
./build/bin/erigon --datadir goerli --chain goerli

Please note the --datadir option that allows you to store Erigon files in a non-default location, in this example, in goerli subdirectory of the current directory. Name of the directory --datadir does not have to match the name of the chain in --chain.

Mining

Disclaimer: Not supported/tested for Polygon Network (In Progress)

Support only remote-miners.

• To enable, add --mine --miner.etherbase=... or --mine --miner.miner.sigkey=... flags.
• Other supported options: --miner.extradata, --miner.notify, --miner.gaslimit, --miner.gasprice , --miner.gastarget
• JSON-RPC supports methods: eth_coinbase , eth_hashrate, eth_mining, eth_getWork, eth_submitWork, eth_submitHashrate
• JSON-RPC supports websocket methods: newPendingTransaction
• TODO:
  • we don't broadcast mined blocks to p2p-network yet, but it's easy to accomplish
  • eth_newPendingTransactionFilter
  • eth_newBlockFilter
  • eth_newFilter
  • websocket Logs

🔬 Detailed mining explanation is here.

Windows

Windows users may run erigon in 3 possible ways:

• Build executable binaries natively for Windows using provided wmake.ps1 PowerShell script. Usage syntax is the same as make command so you have to run .\wmake.ps1 [-target] <targetname>. Example: .\wmake.ps1 erigon builds erigon executable. All binaries are placed in .\build\bin\ subfolder. There are some requirements for a successful native build on windows :

  • Git for Windows must be installed. If you're cloning this repository is very likely you already have it
  • GO Programming Language must be installed. Minimum required version is 1.18
  • GNU CC Compiler at least version 10 (is highly suggested that you install chocolatey package manager - see following point)
  • If you need to build MDBX tools (i.e. .\wmake.ps1 db-tools) then Chocolatey package manager for Windows must be installed. By Chocolatey you need to install the following components : cmake, make, mingw by choco install cmake make mingw.

  Important note about Anti-Viruses During MinGW's compiler detection phase some temporary executables are generated to test compiler capabilities. It's been reported some anti-virus programs detect those files as possibly infected by Win64/Kryptic.CIS trojan horse (or a variant of it). Although those are false positives we have no control over 100+ vendors of security products for Windows and their respective detection algorythms and we understand this might make your experience with Windows builds uncomfortable. To workaround the issue you might either set exclusions for your antivirus specifically for build\bin\mdbx\CMakeFiles sub-folder of the cloned repo or you can run erigon using the following other two options

• Use Docker : see docker-compose.yml

• Use WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) strictly on version 2. Under this option you can build Erigon just as you would on a regular Linux distribution. You can point your data also to any of the mounted Windows partitions ( eg. /mnt/c/[...], /mnt/d/[...] etc) but in such case be advised performance is impacted: this is due to the fact those mount points use DrvFS which is a network file system and, additionally, MDBX locks the db for exclusive access which implies only one process at a time can access data. This has consequences on the running of rpcdaemon which has to be configured as Remote DB even if it is executed on the very same computer. If instead your data is hosted on the native Linux filesystem non limitations apply. Please also note the default WSL2 environment has its own IP address which does not match the one of the network interface of Windows host: take this into account when configuring NAT for port 30303 on your router.

Beacon Chain

Erigon can be used as an execution-layer for beacon chain consensus clients (Eth2). Default configuration is ok. Eth2 relies on availability of receipts - don't prune them: don't add character r to --prune flag. However, old receipts are not needed for Eth2 and you can safely prune them with --prune.r.before=11184524 in combination with --prune htc.

You must enable JSON-RPC by --http and add engine to --http.api list. (Or run the JSON-RPC daemon in addition to the Erigon)

If beacon chain client on a different device: add --http.addr 0.0.0.0 (JSON-RPC listen on localhost by default) .

Once the JSON-RPC is running, all you need to do is point your beacon chain client to <ip address>:8545, where <ip address> is either localhost or the IP address of the device running the JSON-RPC.

Erigon has been tested with Lighthouse however all other clients that support JSON-RPC should also work.

Authentication API

In order to establish a secure connection between the Consensus Layer and the Execution Layer, a JWT secret key is automatically generated.

The JWT secret key will be present in the datadir by default under the name of jwt.hex and its path can be specified with the flag --authrpc.jwtsecret.

This piece of info needs to be specified in the Consensus Layer as well in order to establish connection successfully. More information can be found here

Multiple Instances / One Machine

Define 5 flags to avoid conflicts: --datadir --port --http.port --torrent.port --private.api.addr. Example of multiple chains on the same machine:

# mainnet
./build/bin/erigon --datadir="<your_mainnet_data_path>" --chain=mainnet --port=30303 --http.port=8545 --torrent.port=42069 --private.api.addr=127.0.0.1:9090 --http --ws --http.api=eth,debug,net,trace,web3,erigon


# rinkeby
./build/bin/erigon --datadir="<your_rinkeby_data_path>" --chain=rinkeby --port=30304 --http.port=8546 --torrent.port=42068 --private.api.addr=127.0.0.1:9091 --http --ws --http.api=eth,debug,net,trace,web3,erigon

Quote your path if it has spaces.

Dev Chain

🔬 Detailed explanation is DEV_CHAIN.

Key features

🔬 See more detailed overview of functionality and current limitations. It is being updated on recurring basis.

More Efficient State Storage

Flat KV storage. Erigon uses a key-value database and storing accounts and storage in a simple way.

🔬 See our detailed DB walkthrough here.

Preprocessing. For some operations, Erigon uses temporary files to preprocess data before inserting it into the main DB. That reduces write amplification and DB inserts are orders of magnitude quicker.

🔬 See our detailed ETL explanation here.

Plain state.

Single accounts/state trie. Erigon uses a single Merkle trie for both accounts and the storage.

Faster Initial Sync

Erigon uses a rearchitected full sync algorithm from Go-Ethereum that is split into "stages".

🔬 See more detailed explanation in the Staged Sync Readme

It uses the same network primitives and is compatible with regular go-ethereum nodes that are using full sync, you do not need any special sync capabilities for Erigon to sync.

When reimagining the full sync, with focus on batching data together and minimize DB overwrites. That makes it possible to sync Ethereum mainnet in under 2 days if you have a fast enough network connection and an SSD drive.

Examples of stages are:

• Downloading headers;

• Downloading block bodies;

• Recovering senders' addresses;

• Executing blocks;

• Validating root hashes and building intermediate hashes for the state Merkle trie;

• [...]

JSON-RPC daemon

Most of Erigon's components (sentry, txpool, snapshots downloader, can work inside Erigon and as independent process.

To enable built-in RPC server: --http and --ws (sharing same port with http)

Run RPCDaemon as separated process: this daemon can use local DB (with running Erigon or on snapshot of a database) or remote DB (run on another server). 🔬 See RPC-Daemon docs

For remote DB

This works regardless of whether RPC daemon is on the same computer with Erigon, or on a different one. They use TPC socket connection to pass data between them. To use this mode, run Erigon in one terminal window

make erigon
./build/bin/erigon --private.api.addr=localhost:9090 --http=false
make rpcdaemon
./build/bin/rpcdaemon --private.api.addr=localhost:9090 --http.api=eth,erigon,web3,net,debug,trace,txpool

gRPC ports

9090 erigon, 9091 sentry, 9092 consensus engine, 9093 torrent downloader, 9094 transactions pool

Supported JSON-RPC calls (eth, debug , net, web3):

For a details on the implementation status of each command, see this table.

Run all components by docker-compose

Docker allows for building and running Erigon via containers. This alleviates the need for installing build dependencies onto the host OS.

Optional: Setup dedicated user

User UID/GID need to be synchronized between the host OS and container so files are written with correct permission.

You may wish to setup a dedicated user/group on the host OS, in which case the following make targets are available.

# create "erigon" user
make user_linux
# or
make user_macos

Environment Variables

There is a .env.example file in the root of the repo.

• DOCKER_UID - The UID of the docker user
• DOCKER_GID - The GID of the docker user
• XDG_DATA_HOME - The data directory which will be mounted to the docker containers

If not specified, the UID/GID will use the current user.

A good choice for XDG_DATA_HOME is to use the ~erigon/.ethereum directory created by helper targets make user_linux or make user_macos.

Check: Permissions

In all cases, XDG_DATA_HOME (specified or default) must be writeable by the user UID/GID in docker, which will be determined by the DOCKER_UID and DOCKER_GID at build time.

If a build or service startup is failing due to permissions, check that all the directories, UID, and GID controlled by these environment variables are correct.

Run

Next command starts: Erigon on port 30303, rpcdaemon on port 8545, prometheus on port 9090, and grafana on port 3000.

#
# Will mount ~/.local/share/erigon to /home/erigon/.local/share/erigon inside container
#
make docker-compose

#
# or
#
# if you want to use a custom data directory
# or, if you want to use different uid/gid for a dedicated user
#
# To solve this, pass in the uid/gid parameters into the container.
#
# DOCKER_UID: the user id
# DOCKER_GID: the group id
# XDG_DATA_HOME: the data directory (default: ~/.local/share)
#
# Note: /preferred/data/folder must be read/writeable on host OS by user with UID/GID given
#       if you followed above instructions
#
# Note: uid/gid syntax below will automatically use uid/gid of running user so this syntax
#       is intended to be ran via the dedicated user setup earlier
#
DOCKER_UID=$(id -u) DOCKER_GID=$(id -g) XDG_DATA_HOME=/preferred/data/folder DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 COMPOSE_DOCKER_CLI_BUILD=1 make docker-compose

#
# if you want to run the docker, but you are not logged in as the $ERIGON_USER
# then you'll need to adjust the syntax above to grab the correct uid/gid
#
# To run the command via another user, use
#
ERIGON_USER=erigon
sudo -u ${ERIGON_USER} DOCKER_UID=$(id -u ${ERIGON_USER}) DOCKER_GID=$(id -g ${ERIGON_USER}) XDG_DATA_HOME=~${ERIGON_USER}/.ethereum DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 COMPOSE_DOCKER_CLI_BUILD=1 make docker-compose

Makefile creates the initial directories for erigon, prometheus and grafana. The PID namespace is shared between erigon and rpcdaemon which is required to open Erigon's DB from another process (RPCDaemon local-mode). See: https://github.com/ledgerwatch/erigon/pull/2392/files

If your docker installation requires the docker daemon to run as root (which is by default), you will need to prefix the command above with sudo. However, it is sometimes recommended running docker (and therefore its containers) as a non-root user for security reasons. For more information about how to do this, refer to this article.

Windows support for docker-compose is not ready yet. Please help us with .ps1 port.

Grafana dashboard

docker-compose up prometheus grafana, detailed docs.

Prune old data

Disabled by default. To enable see ./build/bin/erigon --help for flags --prune

FAQ

How much RAM do I need

• Baseline (ext4 SSD): 16Gb RAM sync takes 6 days, 32Gb - 5 days, 64Gb - 4 days
• +1 day on "zfs compression=off". +2 days on "zfs compression=on" (2x compression ratio). +3 days on btrfs.
• -1 day on NVMe

Detailed explanation: ./docs/programmers_guide/db_faq.md

Default Ports and Protocols / Firewalls?

erigon ports

Port	Protocol	Purpose	Expose
30303	TCP & UDP	eth/66 or 67 peering	Public
9090	TCP	gRPC Connections	Private
42069	TCP & UDP	Snap sync (Bittorrent)	Public
6060	TCP	Metrics or Pprof	Private

Typically, 30303 is exposed to the internet to allow incoming peering connections. 9090 is exposed only internally for rpcdaemon or other connections, (e.g. rpcdaemon -> erigon).

RPC ports

Port	Protocol	Purpose	Expose
8545	TCP	HTTP & WebSockets	Private
8551	TCP	HTTP with JWT auth	Private

Typically, 8545 is exposed only internally for JSON-RPC queries. Both HTTP and WebSocket connections are on the same port. Typically, 8551 (JWT authenticated) is exposed only internally for the Engine API JSON-RPC queries.

sentry ports

Port	Protocol	Purpose	Expose
30303	TCP & UDP	Peering	Public
9091	TCP	gRPC Connections	Private

Typically, a sentry process will run one eth/xx protocol (e.g. eth/66) and will be exposed to the internet on 30303. Port 9091 is for internal gRCP connections (e.g erigon -> sentry).

Other ports

Port	Protocol	Purpose	Expose
6060	TCP	pprof	Private
6060	TCP	metrics	Private

Optional flags can be enabled that enable pprof or metrics (or both) - however, they both run on 6060 by default, so you'll have to change one if you want to run both at the same time. use --help with the binary for more info.

Reserved for future use: gRPC ports: 9092 consensus engine, 9093 snapshot downloader, 9094 TxPool

How to get diagnostic for bug report?

• Get stack trace: kill -SIGUSR1 <pid>, get trace and stop: kill -6 <pid>
• Get CPU profiling: add --pprof flag run go tool pprof -png http://127.0.0.1:6060/debug/pprof/profile\?seconds\=20 > cpu.png
• Get RAM profiling: add --pprof flag run go tool pprof -inuse_space -png http://127.0.0.1:6060/debug/pprof/heap > mem.png

How to run local devnet?

🔬 Detailed explanation is here.

Docker permissions error

Docker uses user erigon with UID/GID 1000 (for security reasons). You can see this user being created in the Dockerfile. Can fix by giving a host's user ownership of the folder, where the host's user UID/GID is the same as the docker's user UID/GID (1000). More details in post

Run RaspberyPI

https://github.com/mathMakesArt/Erigon-on-RPi-4

Getting in touch

Erigon Discord Server

The main discussions are happening on our Discord server. To get an invite, send an email to tg [at] torquem.ch with your name, occupation, a brief explanation of why you want to join the Discord, and how you heard about Erigon.

Reporting security issues/concerns

Send an email to security [at] torquem.ch.

Team

Core contributors (in alpabetical order of first names):

• Alex Sharov (AskAlexSharov)

• Alexey Akhunov (@realLedgerwatch)

• Andrea Lanfranchi(@AndreaLanfranchi)

• Andrew Ashikhmin (yperbasis)

• Artem Vorotnikov (vorot93)

• Boris Petrov (b00ris)

• Eugene Danilenko (JekaMas)

• Igor Mandrigin (@mandrigin)

• Giulio Rebuffo (Giulio2002)

• Thomas Jay Rush (@tjayrush)

Thanks to:

• All contributors of Erigon

• All contributors of Go-Ethereum

• Our special respect and graditude is to the core team of Go-Ethereum. Keep up the great job!

Happy testing! 🥤

Known issues

htop shows incorrect memory usage

Erigon's internal DB (MDBX) using MemoryMap - when OS does manage all read, write, cache operations instead of Application (linux , windows)

htop on column res shows memory of "App + OS used to hold page cache for given App", but it's not informative, because if htop says that app using 90% of memory you still can run 3 more instances of app on the same machine - because most of that 90% is "OS pages cache". OS automatically free this cache any time it needs memory. Smaller "page cache size" may not impact performance of Erigon at all.

Next tools show correct memory usage of Erigon:

• vmmap -summary PID | grep -i "Physical footprint". Without grep you can see details
  • section MALLOC ZONE column Resident Size shows App memory usage, section REGION TYPE column Resident Size shows OS pages cache size.
• Prometheus dashboard shows memory of Go app without OS pages cache (make prometheus, open in browser localhost:3000, credentials admin/admin)
• cat /proc/<PID>/smaps

Erigon uses ~4Gb of RAM during genesis sync and ~1Gb during normal work. OS pages cache can utilize unlimited amount of memory.

Warning: Multiple instances of Erigon on same machine will touch Disk concurrently, it impacts performance - one of main Erigon optimisations: "reduce Disk random access". "Blocks Execution stage" still does much random reads - this is reason why it's slowest stage. We do not recommend run multiple genesis syncs on same Disk. If genesis sync passed, then it's fine to run multiple Erigon on same Disk.

Blocks Execution is slow on cloud-network-drives

Please read ledgerwatch#1516 (comment) In short: network-disks are bad for blocks execution - because blocks execution reading data from db non-parallel non-batched way.

Filesystem's background features are expensive

For example: btrfs's autodefrag option - may increase write IO 100x times

Gnome Tracker can kill Erigon

Gnome Tracker - detecting miners and kill them.

the --mount option requires BuildKit error

For anyone else that was getting the BuildKit error when trying to start Erigon the old way you can use the below...

XDG_DATA_HOME=/preferred/data/folder DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 COMPOSE_DOCKER_CLI_BUILD=1 make docker-compose