44
votes
Accepted
How can I find out what the highest block is?
For Geth, in another terminal, attach to the Geth console, such as geth attach. This will allow you to keep your syncing node running, without restarting, and you will not see the noisy logs as you ...
eth♦
- 78.8k
41
votes
How long is the first sync supposed to last?
Do following steps to check the sync state:
1.) open a new geth instance and type in geth attach
2.) now type in eth.syncing
This shows you the "currentBlock" and the "highestBlock".
- 511
39
votes
Accepted
What are the valuable benefits of having a node?
[EDIT] this answer was edited to add more information about non monetary valuable benefits provided by a full node. This edit was triggered by one of @fraxture comment on this answer.
TL;DR
No, you ...
- 6,523
37
votes
Accepted
What exactly is an Ethereum client and what clients are there?
An 'Ethereum client' is just a term. It refers to any node able to parse and verify the blockchain, its smart contracts and everything related. It also allows you/provides interfaces to create ...
30
votes
Accepted
How many nodes are there on the Ethereum network?
Disclaimer: I run ethernodes.org
There is a node explorer available at ethernodes.org which tries to estimate the number of nodes on the Ethereum network.
The estimation is based on an active ...
- 565
27
votes
What are the types of nodes in Ethereum?
A node is a device/program that communicates with the Ethereum network. Nodes are also known as clients. Software that can act as an Ethereum node include Parity and Go-ethereum (geth). This software ...
- 6,550
24
votes
Accepted
Why is geth always returning a 0 balance?
It sounds like geth is not yet synced up.
Please type this into your geth console:
eth.getBlock("latest").number
As of this post, you should get 894332 or higher.
I get the correct output on my ...
- 5,848
23
votes
Accepted
Get a peer list for my geth node
Use admin.peers to get a list of the currently connected peers:
> admin.peers
[{
caps: ["eth/61", "eth/62", "eth/63"],
id: "...
- 8,241
23
votes
Accepted
How do Ethereum mining nodes maintain a time consistent with the network?
Ethereum nodes (regardless of mining) need to have an accurate time, otherwise they will not be able to connect to peers and to the network (https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/wiki/Connecting-to-...
eth♦
- 78.8k
22
votes
Accepted
What is http://localhost:8545?
http://localhost:8545 is the RPC port of your locally running Ethereum node software.
When running geth, the Go implementation of the Ethereum node software, the command line parameters to create and ...
- 39.2k
22
votes
What's the difference between node and peer?
It's a language thing about the relationship. It's like "people" and "friends". It's not that friends aren't also people. We might say that people are friends because they have a certain relationship ...
- 51.8k
19
votes
How can I find out what the highest block is?
If you are using Geth:
geth attach http://host
then enter:
web3.eth.blockNumber
It will give you the block number as integer, here's the function documentation. If you are looking for the block ...
- 2,331
18
votes
Accepted
are there "public" ethereum nodes? or any recommendations on hosting solutions?
Infura is the most prominent public Ethereum nodes. They run mainnet and many of the testnets. They also run IPFS servers. http://infura.io.
- 9,562
18
votes
CryptoCurrency NODE.js Web3 Ethereum - Can't connect to TESTRPC
If you are using the new web3.js 1.0.0-beta, then try this (all the syntax has changed, sigh). Tested with testrpc -d.
> var Web3 = require('web3');
> var web3 = new Web3('http://localhost:8545'...
- 8,712
17
votes
Get a peer list for my geth node
Paste this line of code into the geth console to get a more concise version:
admin.peers.forEach(function(value){console.log(value.network.remoteAddress+"\t"+value.name)})
This will display ...
- 431
15
votes
What exactly is an Ethereum client and what clients are there?
There are a couple of "reference implementations" that the Ethereum foundation is supporting.
Ethereum C++ (known as Eth or "TurboEthereum")
Go Ethereum (known for the command line client Geth)
...
- 1,775
14
votes
Accepted
What are the types of nodes in Ethereum?
I think that Bitcoin wiki has a good article: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Full_node its not for ethereum but the concept is pretty much the same.
Full node is somebody connected to p2p network that ...
- 681
13
votes
geth import vs copying chaindata
geth saves its internal states for the main network in the chaindata directory. You can find it in the directory:
~/.ethereum on linux
~/Library/Ethereum on OS X
~/AppData/Roaming/Ethereum
It uses ...
- 2,314
13
votes
Accepted
Can incentive be provided for non-mining Ethereum nodes?
Currently there is indeed no monetary incentive to run a full node. It's done by enthusiasts that just do it for the fun of it, or by projects who are building on top of Ethereum and need access to ...
- 10k
13
votes
Accepted
Difference between full node and bootstrap nodes in Ethereum?
Q: I know that when a new geth instance runs it connects to the bootstrap nodes. What I want to know that do other nodes download blockchain from the bootstrap nodes or nor?
A: No. Regular nodes do ...
- 39.2k
12
votes
Accepted
Can chaindata be split across two (or more) locations?
Geth has a freezer as of v1.9 https://blog.ethereum.org/2019/07/10/geth-v1-9-0/
Freezer
Wouldn’t it be amazing if we didn’t have to waste so much precious
space on our expensive and sensitive SSDs to ...
eth♦
- 78.8k
11
votes
Accepted
At any given time, how many nodes is my node connected to? As the number of nodes in the network increases, will communication between them be faster?
You can see the connected peers by typing admin.peers in the Geth console. The maximum number of peers is set using the -maxpeers n flag in Geth.
There is a discovery process based on Kademlia for ...
- 3,282
11
votes
How many concurrent requests can an Ethereum node handle?
So we actually very, very rarely completely exploded. During big ICOs for instance we were seeing 200k transactions being sent via the MEW node in a single hour, which is about 55 TX/sec. Each ...
- 15.3k
11
votes
How to Compile and Deploy a Smart Contract without running a full node?
Install https://metamask.io/ and
Navigate to https://remix.ethereum.org/
Click on settings -> choose your compiler (e.g. 0.4.19+commit.c4cbbb05). Note that optimization is unchecked.
Login to metmask ...
- 1,181
10
votes
Are there any public/free nodes to connect a Dapp front end?
You may use Infura as a "read only / signed transactions only" node.
The use of the API is free: https://infura.io
Your may recommend your users to use Metamask Browser extension to be able to ...
- 440
10
votes
How long is the first sync supposed to last?
I think you should edit the question to ask, "How do I know when geth is done syncing?"
The question you asked was vague, but I believe this is the answer you were after:
Geth will continue running ...
- 201
10
votes
How long is the first sync supposed to last?
Assuming you are using a Linux flavoured OS, you can check the sync status as well (run this as the user under which geth is running):
$ geth --exec eth.syncing.currentBlock attach
3991639
If it's ...
- 146
9
votes
Are there any public/free nodes to connect a Dapp front end?
If you are deploying an app at scale, you probably don't want a mere node. You want a full and performant web API. There are several available: I've personally used etherscan.io and been reasonably ...
- 21k
9
votes
Is there a Javascript client for Ethereum, like Geth?
Yes, there are 3 official clients in Golang, C++ and Python. And there are 4 unofficial clients in Java, Haskell, JavaScript and most recently Rust.
To answer your question, the full node client ...
- 31.5k
9
votes
geth import vs copying chaindata
Copying the .ethereum/chaindata folder is a good idea. I've done that on my Rpi2 and everything worked fine. Also, if it's not fully synced on the original machine, the RPi2 will just start syncing ...
- 4,651
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible