mev-toolkit/nodes/more-on-validators.md

🍕 More dets on validators

tl;dr

• the validator is responsible for creating a new block and sending it out to other nodes on the network.
• to participate as a validators, a user must deposit 32 ETH into the deposit contract and run 3 pieces of software: - an execution client - a consensus client - the engine api
• once activated, validators receive new blocsk from peers (the txs delivered in the block are re-executed, and the block signature is checked).
• the validator then sends a vote (attestation) in favor of that block across the network.
• the timing of blocks is not determined by the mining difficult anymore, but it's fixed:
  • slots (12 seconds)
  • epochs (32 slots)
• in every slot, a committee of validators is randomly chosen, whose votes are used to determine the validity of the block being proposed.
• the first block in each epoch is a checkpoint.

validator lifecycle

The sequence of states that a validator can exist in:

1. deposited: At least 32 ETH has been deposited to the deposit contract by the validator.
2. pending: the validator is in the activation queue waiting to be voted into the network by existing validators.
3. active: currently attesting and proposing blocks.
4. slashing: the validator has misbehaved and is being slashed.
5. exiting: the validator has been flagged for exiting the network, either voluntarily or because they have been ejected.

the JSON-RPC interface

• interface that allows us to write programs that use an Ethereum client as a gateway to an Ethereum network and blockchain.
• the RPC interface is offered as an HTTP service on port 8545. For security reasons it is restricted, by default, to only accept connections from localhost.

setting a dedicated hardware

execution client

• check estimate of the blockchain size.
• minimum specs:
  • CPU with 4+ cores
  • 16 GB+ RAM
  • fast SSD with at least 1TB free space, up to 12TB+ (bottleneck for your hardware is mostly disk space.
  • interent bandwith ~1.2-1.3 GB download and ~0.9-1 GB upload per hour.

consensus client

• ~200GB for beacon data.

engine api

• in order to connect a consensus client, the execution client must generate a jwtsecret:

openssl rand -hex 32 > jwtsecret

other considerations

• after downloading a client release and its signature, use some PGP to verify them.
• your router and firewall needs to accept connections on listening ports. By default Ethereum clients use a listener (TCP) port and a discovery (UDP) port, both on 30303 by default.
• execution clients offer RPC API endpoints that you can use to submit transactions, interact with or deploy smart contracts on Ethereum.
• the consensus clients all expose a Beacon API that can be used to check the status of the consensus client or download blocks and consensus data.
• a privacy-preserving way to set up a publicly reachable endpoint is to host the node on your own Tor onion service.