Combine DV keyshares

warning

Combining keyshares into an Ethereum validator key is a security hazard, and can potentially cause your validator to be slashed.

Only combine keyshares for a cluster that's about to be shut down.

Combine distributed validator keyshares into an Ethereum validator key.

Pre-requisites

• Ensure you have all the .charon directories of all the cluster node operators.
• Ensure you have docker installed.
• Make sure docker is running before executing the commands below.

Step 1. Set up the key combination directory tree

Rename each cluster node operator .charon directory in a different way.

We suggest naming them clearly and distinctly, to avoid confusion.

At the end of this process, you should have a tree like this:

$ tree ./validators-to-be-combined

validators-to-be-combined/
├── node0
│   ├── charon-enr-private-key
│   ├── cluster-lock.json
│   ├── deposit-data.json
│   └── validator_keys
│       ├── keystore-0.json
│       ├── keystore-0.txt
│       ├── keystore-1.json
│       └── keystore-1.txt
├── node1
│   ├── charon-enr-private-key
│   ├── cluster-lock.json
│   ├── deposit-data.json
│   └── validator_keys
│       ├── keystore-0.json
│       ├── keystore-0.txt
│       ├── keystore-1.json
│       └── keystore-1.txt
├── node2
│   ├── charon-enr-private-key
│   ├── cluster-lock.json
│   ├── deposit-data.json
│   └── validator_keys
│       ├── keystore-0.json
│       ├── keystore-0.txt
│       ├── keystore-1.json
│       └── keystore-1.txt
...
└── node*
    ├── charon-enr-private-key
    ├── cluster-lock.json
    ├── deposit-data.json
    └── validator_keys
        ├── keystore-0.json
        ├── keystore-0.txt
        ├── keystore-1.json
        └── keystore-1.txt

warning

Make sure to never mix the various .charon directories one with another!

Doing can potentially mix the keyshares in an unsupported way, and the combination process will fail.

Step 2. Combine the keyshares

Run the following command:

# Create a distributed validator cluster
docker run --rm -v "$(pwd):/opt/charon" obolnetwork/charon:latest combine --cluster-dir /opt/charon/validators-to-be-combined

This command will create one subdirectory for each validator private key that has been combined, named after its public key.

$ tree ./validators-to-be-combined

validators-to-be-combined/
├── 0x822c5310674f4fc4ec595642d0eab73d01c62b588f467da6f98564f292a975a0ac4c3a10f1b3a00ccc166a28093c2dcd
│   └── validator_keys
│       ├── keystore-0.json
│       └── keystore-0.txt
├── 0x8929b4c8af2d2eb222d377cac2aa7be950e71d2b247507d19b5fdec838f0fb045ea8910075f191fd468da4be29690106
│   └── validator_keys
│       ├── keystore-0.json
│       └── keystore-0.txt
├── node0
│   ├── charon-enr-private-key
│   ├── cluster-lock.json
│   ├── deposit-data.json
│   └── validator_keys
│       ├── keystore-0.json
│       ├── keystore-0.txt
│       ├── keystore-1.json
│       └── keystore-1.txt
├── node1
│   ├── charon-enr-private-key
│   ├── cluster-lock.json
│   ├── deposit-data.json
│   └── validator_keys
│       ├── keystore-0.json
│       ├── keystore-0.txt
│       ├── keystore-1.json
│       └── keystore-1.txt
├── node2
│   ├── charon-enr-private-key
│   ├── cluster-lock.json
│   ├── deposit-data.json
│   └── validator_keys
│       ├── keystore-0.json
│       ├── keystore-0.txt
│       ├── keystore-1.json
│       └── keystore-1.txt
└── node3
    ├── charon-enr-private-key
    ├── cluster-lock.json
    ├── deposit-data.json
    └── validator_keys
        ├── keystore-0.json
        ├── keystore-0.txt
        ├── keystore-1.json
        └── keystore-1.txt

We can verify that the directory names are correct by looking at the lock file:

$ jq .distributed_validators[].distributed_public_key  validators-to-be-combined//node0/cluster-lock.json
"0x822c5310674f4fc4ec595642d0eab73d01c62b588f467da6f98564f292a975a0ac4c3a10f1b3a00ccc166a28093c2dcd"
"0x8929b4c8af2d2eb222d377cac2aa7be950e71d2b247507d19b5fdec838f0fb045ea8910075f191fd468da4be29690106"

info

The generated private keys are in the standard EIP-2335 format, and can be imported in any Ethereum validator client that supports it.

Feedback

If you have gotten this far through the process, and whether you succeeded or failed at recombining a set of keyshares, we would like to hear your feedback on the process and where you encountered difficulties. Please let us know by joining and posting on our Discord. Also, feel free to add issues to our GitHub repos.