Overview
Lighthouse is an Eth client with a heavy focus on speed and security. The team behind it, Sigma Prime , is an information security and software engineering firm who have funded Lighthouse along with the Ethereum Foundation, Consensys, and private individuals. Lighthouse is built in Rust and offered under an Apache 2.0 License.
Official Links
1. Initial configuration
Create a service user for the consensus service, create data directory and assign ownership.
Copy sudo adduser --system --no-create-home --group consensus
sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/lighthouse
sudo chown -R consensus:consensus /var/lib/lighthouse
Install dependencies.
Copy sudo apt install curl jq ccze -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 binariesRun the following to automatically download the latest linux release, un-tar and cleanup.
Copy 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
Install the binaries.
Copy sudo mv $HOME /lighthouse /usr/local/bin/lighthouse
Option 2 - Build from source codeInstall rust dependency
Copy curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
When prompted, enter '1' to proceed with the default install.
Update your environment variables.
Copy echo export PATH= "$HOME/.cargo/bin:$PATH" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
Install rust dependencies.
Copy sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install -y git gcc g++ make cmake pkg-config libssl-dev libclang-dev clang protobuf-compiler
Build the binaries.
Copy mkdir -p ~/git
cd ~/git
git clone -b stable https://github.com/sigp/lighthouse.git
cd lighthouse
make
In case of compilation errors, run the following sequence.
Copy rustup update
cargo clean
make
Verify lighthouse was built properly by checking the version number.
Install the binary.
Copy sudo cp $HOME /.cargo/bin/lighthouse /usr/local/bin/lighthouse
3. Setup and configure systemd
Create a systemd unit file to define your consensus.service
configuration.
Copy sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/consensus.service
Paste the following configuration into the file.
Copy [Unit]
Description = Lighthouse Consensus Layer Client service for Mainnet
Wants = network-online.target
After = network-online.target
Documentation = https://www.coincashew.com
[Service]
Type = simple
User = consensus
Group = consensus
Restart = on-failure
RestartSec = 3
KillSignal = SIGINT
TimeoutStopSec = 900
ExecStart = /usr/local/bin/lighthouse bn \
--datadir /var/lib/lighthouse \
--network mainnet \
--staking \
--validator-monitor-auto \
--metrics \
--checkpoint-sync-url=https://beaconstate.info \
--port 9000 \
--quic-port 9001 \
--http-port 5052 \
--target-peers 100 \
--metrics-port 8008 \
--execution-endpoint http://127.0.0.1:8551 \
--execution-jwt /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.
Copy sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable consensus
Finally, start your consensus layer client and check it's status.
Copy sudo systemctl start consensus
sudo systemctl status consensus
Press Ctrl
+ C
to exit the status.
Check your logs to confirm that the consensus client is up and syncing.
Copy sudo journalctl -fu consensus | ccze
Press Ctrl
+ C
to exit the logs.
4. Helpful consensus client commands
View Logs Stop Start View Status Reset Database
Copy sudo journalctl -fu consensus | ccze
Example of Synced Lighthouse Consensus Client Logs
Copy Feb 03 01:02:36.000 INFO New block received root: 0xb5ccb2f85d981ca9e1c0d904f967403ddf8c47532c195fe213c94a28ffaf6a2e, slot: 2138
Feb 03 01:02:42.000 INFO Synced slot: 2138, block: 0x1cb281a, epoch: 121, finalized_epoch: 120, finalized_root: 0x1dce0, exec_hash: 0x6827aeb (verified), peers: 50, service: slot_notifier
Copy sudo systemctl stop consensus
Copy sudo systemctl start consensus
Copy sudo systemctl status consensus
Common reasons to reset the database can include:
To reduce disk space usage
To recover from a corrupted database due to power outage or hardware failure
To upgrade to a new storage format
Copy sudo systemctl stop consensus
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/lighthouse/beacon
sudo systemctl restart consensus
With checkpoint sync enabled, time to re-sync the consensus client should take only a minute or two.
Now that your consensus client is configured and started, you have a full node.
Proceed to the next step on setting up your validator client, which turns a full node into a staking node.