Updating your consensus client

Scenario: In discord, you see an alert that your consensus client just announced a new release. How best to update?

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⏩ Quick steps guide

The following steps align with our mainnet guide. You may need to adjust file names and directory locations where appropriate. The core concepts remain the same.

When a new release is cut, you will want to update to the latest stable release. The following shows you how to update your beacon chain and validator.

Always review the git logs with command git logor release notes before updating. There may be changes requiring your attention.

🔥 Pro tip: Plan your update to overlap with the longest attestation gap. Learn how here.

1. Select your consensus client.

Lighthouse

Review release notes and check for breaking changes/features.

https://github.com/sigp/lighthouse/releases

Option 1: Download binaries

RELEASE_URL="https://api.github.com/repos/sigp/lighthouse/releases/latest"
BINARIES_URL="$(curl -s $RELEASE_URL | jq -r ".assets[] | select(.name) | .browser_download_url" | grep x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz$)"

echo Downloading URL: $BINARIES_URL

cd $HOME
# Download
wget -O lighthouse.tar.gz $BINARIES_URL
# Untar
tar -xzvf lighthouse.tar.gz -C $HOME
# Cleanup
rm lighthouse.tar.gz

# Stop the services.
sudo systemctl stop beacon-chain validator

# Remove old binaries, install new binaries, display version and restart the services.
sudo rm -r $HOME/.cargo/bin/lighthouse
sudo mv $HOME/lighthouse $HOME/.cargo/bin
$HOME/.cargo/bin/lighthouse --version
sudo systemctl restart beacon-chain validator

Option 2: Build from source

Pull the latest source and build it.

cd $HOME/git/lighthouse
git fetch --all && git checkout stable && git pull
make

Improve some Lighthouse benchmarks by around 20% at the expense of increased compile time? Use maxperf profile. To compile with maxperf, replace the above make command with

PROFILE=maxperf make

In case of compilation errors, update Rust with the following sequence.

rustup update
cargo clean
make

Verify the build completed by checking the new version number.

lighthouse --version

Restart beacon chain and validator as per normal operating procedures.

sudo systemctl reload-or-restart beacon-chain validator

Nimbus

Teku

Prysm

Lodestar

2. Check the logs to verify the services are working properly and ensure there are no errors.

Lighthouse | Prysm | Lodestar

sudo systemctl status beacon-chain validator

Nimbus | Teku

3. Finally, verify your validator's attestations are working with public block explorer such as

https://beaconcha.in/ or https://beaconscan.com/

Enter your validator's pubkey to view its status.