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Version: v0.18.0

Run a DV on mainnet

warning

Charon is in a beta state, and you should proceed only if you accept the risk, the terms of use, and have tested running a Distributed Validator on a testnet first.

Distributed Validators created for goerli cannot be used on mainnet and vice versa, please take caution when creating, backing up, and activating mainnet validators. Incorrect usage may result in a loss of funds.

This section is intended for users who wish to run their Distributed Validator on Ethereum mainnet.

Pre-requisites​

  • You have enough up-to-spec nodes for your mainnet deployment.
  • Ensure you have docker installed on each node.
  • Ensure you have git installed on each node.
  • Make sure docker is running before executing the commands below.

Steps​

Using charon-distributed-validator-node in full​

  1. Clone the charon-distributed-validator-node repo and cd into the directory.
# Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/ObolNetwork/charon-distributed-validator-node.git

# Change directory
cd charon-distributed-validator-node

  1. If you have already cloned the repo previously, make sure that it is up-to-date.

  2. Copy the .env.sample.mainnet file to .env

cp -n .env.sample.mainnet .env
  1. Run the docker compose file
docker compose up -d

Once your clients can connect and sync appropriately, your DV stack is now mainnet ready 🎉

Using a remote mainnet beacon node​

warning

Using a remote beacon node will impact the performance of your Distributed Validator and should be used sparingly.

If you already have a mainnet beacon node running somewhere and you want to use that instead of running EL (geth) & CL (lighthouse) as part of the repo, you can disable these images. To do so, follow these steps:

  1. Copy the docker-compose.override.yml.sample file
cp -n docker-compose.override.yml.sample docker-compose.override.yml
  1. Uncomment the profiles: [disable] section for both geth and lighthouse. The override file should now look like this
services:
  geth:
    # Disable geth
    profiles: [disable]
    # Bind geth internal ports to host ports
    #ports:
      #- 8545:8545 # JSON-RPC
      #- 8551:8551 # AUTH-RPC
      #- 6060:6060 # Metrics

  lighthouse:
    # Disable lighthouse
    profiles: [disable]
    # Bind lighthouse internal ports to host ports
    #ports:
      #- 5052:5052 # HTTP
      #- 5054:5054 # Metrics
...
  1. Then, uncomment and set the CHARON_BEACON_NODE_ENDPOINTS variable in the .env file to your mainnet beacon node's URL
...
# Connect to one or more external beacon nodes. Use a comma separated list excluding spaces.
CHARON_BEACON_NODE_ENDPOINTS=<YOUR_REMOTE_MAINNET_BEACON_NODE_URL>
...
  1. Restart your docker compose
docker compose down
docker compose up -d

Exit a mainnet Distributed Validator​

If you want to exit your mainnet validator, refer to our exit guide.