Run a Node

Run a local node and start the REST and JSON-RPC clients

Pre-requisite Readings

• Installation

Automated deployment

Run the local node

The script below will remove any pre-existing binaries installed. Use the manual deploy if you want to keep your binaries and configuration files.

Copy ./init.sh

In another terminal window or tab, run the Ethereum JSON-RPC server as well as the SDK REST server:

Copy ethermintcli rest-server --laddr "tcp://localhost:8545" --unlock-key mykey --chain-id 8

Manual deployment

The instructions for setting up a brand new full node from scratch are the the same as running a single node local testnet.

Start node

To start your node, just type:

Copy ethermintd start

Key Management

To run a node with the same key every time: replace ethermintcli keys add $KEY in ./init.sh with:

Copy echo "your mnemonic here" | ethermintcli keys add $KEY --recover

Ethermint currently only supports 24 word mnemonics.

You can generate a new key/mnemonic with:

Copy ethermintcli keys add $KEY

To export your ethermint key as an ethereum private key (for use with Metamask for example):

Copy ethermintcli keys unsafe-export-eth-key $KEY

For more about the available key commands, use the --help flag

Copy ethermintcli keys -h

Keyring backend options

The instructions above include commands to use test as the keyring-backend. This is an unsecured keyring that doesn't require entering a password and should not be used in production. Otherwise, Ethermint supports using a file or OS keyring backend for key storage. To create and use a file stored key instead of defaulting to the OS keyring, add the flag --keyring-backend file to any relevant command and the password prompt will occur through the command line. This can also be saved as a CLI config option with:

Copy ethermintcli config keyring-backend file

Clearing data from chain

Reset Data

Alternatively, you can reset the blockchain database, remove the node's address book files, and reset the priv_validator.json to the genesis state.

If you are running a validator node, always be careful when doing ethermintd unsafe-reset-all. You should never use this command if you are not switching chain-id.

IMPORTANT: Make sure that every node has a unique priv_validator.json. Do not copy the priv_validator.json from an old node to multiple new nodes. Running two nodes with the same priv_validator.json will cause you to double sign!

First, remove the outdated files and reset the data.

Copy rm $HOME/.ethermintd/config/addrbook.json $HOME/.ethermintd/config/genesis.json ethermintd unsafe-reset-all

Your node is now in a pristine state while keeping the original priv_validator.json and config.toml. If you had any sentry nodes or full nodes setup before, your node will still try to connect to them, but may fail if they haven't also been upgraded.

Delete Data

Data for the Daemon and CLI binaries should be stored at ~/.ethermintd and ~/.ethermintcli, respectively by default. To delete the existing binaries and configuration, run:

Copy rm -rf ~/.emint*

To clear all data except key storage (if keyring backend chosen) and then you can rerun the full node installation commands from above to start the node again.

Next

Learn about running a Ethermint testnet