Simple Local Testnet

You can setup a local, two-node testnet in Only Three CLI Commands™.

Follow the Quick instructions version if you're confident, or see Detailed instructions for more.

Quick instructions

Setup a development environment, build the project and navigate to the target/release directory.

Start the first node: $ ./beacon_node testnet -f recent 8
Start a validator client: TODO
Start another node $ ./beacon_node -b 10 testnet -f bootstrap http://localhost:5052

Repeat #3 to add more nodes.

Detailed instructions

First, setup a Lighthouse development environment and navigate to the target/release directory (this is where the binaries are located).

Starting the Beacon Node

Start a new node (creating a fresh database and configuration in ~/.lighthouse), using:

$ ./beacon_node testnet -f recent 8

The -f flag ignores any existing database or configuration, backing them up before re-initializing. 8 is number of validators with deposits in the genesis state.

See $ ./beacon_node testnet recent --help for more configuration options, including minimal/mainnet specification.

Starting the Validator Client

TODO

Adding another Beacon Node

You may connect another (non-validating) node to your local network using the lighthouse bootstrap command.

In a new terminal terminal, run:

$ ./beacon_node -b 10 testnet -r bootstrap http://localhost:5052

The -b (or --port-bump) increases all the listening TCP/UDP ports of the new node to 10 higher. Your first node's HTTP server was at TCP 5052 but this one will be at 5062.

The -r flag creates a new data directory in your home with a random string appended, to avoid conflicting with any other running node.

The HTTP address is the API of the first node. The new node will download configuration via HTTP before starting sync via libp2p.

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