Erigon

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

Overview

Official Links

Subject	Link
Releases	https://github.com/ledgerwatch/erigon/releases
Documentation	https://github.com/ledgerwatch/erigon#documentation
Website	https://erigon.substack.com

1. Initial configuration

Create a service user for the execution service, create data directory and assign ownership.

sudo adduser --system --no-create-home --group execution
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/erigon
sudo chown -R execution:execution /var/lib/erigon

Install dependencies.

sudo apt install curl libsnappy-dev libc6-dev jq libc6 unzip -y

2. Install Binaries

• Downloading binaries is often faster and more convenient.

• Building from source code can offer better compatibility and is more aligned with the spirit of FOSS (free open source software).

Option 1 - Download binaries

Run the following to automatically download the latest linux release, un-tar and cleanup.

RELEASE_URL="https://api.github.com/repos/ledgerwatch/erigon/releases/latest"
BINARIES_URL="$(curl -s $RELEASE_URL | jq -r ".assets[] | select(.name) | .browser_download_url" | grep linux_amd64)"

echo Downloading URL: $BINARIES_URL

cd $HOME
wget -O erigon.tar.gz $BINARIES_URL
tar -xzvf erigon.tar.gz -C $HOME
rm erigon.tar.gz

Install the binaries.

sudo mv $HOME/erigon /usr/local/bin/erigon

Option 2 - Build from source code

Install Go dependencies. Latest version available here.

wget -O go.tar.gz https://go.dev/dl/go1.20.5.linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/go && sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf go.tar.gz
echo export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin >> $HOME/.bashrc
source $HOME/.bashrc

Verify Go is properly installed by checking the version and cleanup files.

go version
rm go.tar.gz

Install build dependencies.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install build-essential git

Build the binary.

mkdir -p ~/git
cd ~/git
git clone https://github.com/ledgerwatch/erigon.git
cd erigon
git fetch --tags
# Get latest tag name
latestTag=$(git describe --tags `git rev-list --tags --max-count=1`)
# Checkout latest tag
git checkout $latestTag
make erigon

Install the binary.

sudo cp $HOME/git/erigon/build/bin/erigon /usr/local/bin

3. Setup and configure systemd

Create a systemd unit file to define your execution.service configuration.

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/execution.service

Paste the following configuration into the file.

[Unit]
Description=Erigon Execution Layer Client service for Holesky
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target
Documentation=https://www.coincashew.com

[Service]
Type=simple
User=execution
Group=execution
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=3
KillSignal=SIGINT
TimeoutStopSec=900
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/erigon \
   --datadir /var/lib/erigon \
   --chain holesky \
   --port 30303 \
   --torrent.port 42069 \
   --maxpeers 50 \
   --private.api.addr 127.0.0.1:9099 \
   --authrpc.port 8551 \
   --metrics \
   --pprof \
   --prune htc \
   --authrpc.jwtsecret=/secrets/jwtsecret

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

To exit and save, press Ctrl + X, then Y, then Enter.

Run the following to enable auto-start at boot time.

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable execution

Finally, start your execution layer client and check it's status.

sudo systemctl start execution
sudo systemctl status execution

Press Ctrl + C to exit the status.

4. Helpful execution client commands

View Logs

sudo journalctl -fu execution | ccze

A properly functioning Erigon execution client will indicate "Handling new payload". For example,

erigon[3]: [INFO] [09-29|03:36:24.689] [NewPayload] Handling new payload        height=19999 hash=0xea060...2846a907ceb4
erigon[3]: [INFO] [09-29|03:36:25.278] [updateForkchoice] Fork choice update: flushing in-memory state (built by previous newPayload)
erigon[3]: [INFO] [09-29|03:36:25.280] RPC Daemon notified of new headers       from=19998 to=19999 hash=0xeeed..710b597 header sending=13.32µs log sending=290ns
erigon[3]: [INFO] [09-29|03:36:25.280] head updated                             hash=0xea06098ad5e...5e5f43 number=20000

Stop

sudo systemctl stop execution

Start

sudo systemctl start execution

View Status

sudo systemctl status execution

Reset Database

Common reasons to reset the database can include:

• Recovering from a corrupted database due to power outage or hardware failure

• Re-syncing to reduce disk space usage

• Upgrading to a new storage format

sudo systemctl stop execution
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/erigon/*
sudo systemctl restart execution

Time to re-sync the execution client can take a few hours up to a day.

Now that your execution client is configured and started, proceed to the next step on setting up your consensus client.

If you're checking the logs and see any warnings or errors, please be patient as these will normally resolve once both your execution and consensus clients are fully synced to the Ethereum network.