Archive, Full or Expired node

Types of nodes

You can run an Archive node, with all history and full lookup for all historical transactions. This may take large amounts of space, depending on the execution layer client.

You can run a Full node, with all history and limited lookup for historical transactions. This fits into a 4TB drive and is often the choice for RPC nodes.

You can run an Expired node, with pre-merge history and receipts gone. This fits into a 2TB drive and is often the choice for validator nodes.

This is controlled by variables in .env, which can be set with nano .env. Switching from one type to another often requires a full resync.

EL_ARCHIVE_NODE - run the execution layer node as an archive. The required space can vary widely depending on the client: From right around 2 TB to well over 50TB
EL_MINIMAL_NODE - run the execution layer node with history expiry. true is pre-merge history expiry; rolling is 1-year rolling if the client supports it; aggressive expires all but the last few blocks, if the client supports it

If both variables are set to false, you have a Full node.

CL_ARCHIVE_NODE - run the consensus layer node as an archive, including blobs where supported CL_MINIMAL_NODE - run the consensus layer node with minimal storage, if the client makes that distinction. See the --help for Grandine and Teku, for example, with ./ethd cmd run --rm consensus --help, or directly via docker run on their image.

Switch from Full to Expired node

You can use ./ethd prune-history to switch the execution layer client to history expiry, in some cases without resync. Note that Besu requires 200 GiB free for this, and it will take less space if instead it is resynced with ./ethd resync-execution while EL_MINIMAL_NODE=true

State pruning

In addition to history, execution layer clients also carry state. Historically, the size of the state DB has been growing and can be pruned periodically. Today, only Nethermind still requires a state prune. Note this is entirely separate from history expiry. It applies to Full and Expired nodes. Archive nodes should never have their state pruned.

Automatic Nethermind prune

By default, Nethermind will prune when free disk space falls below 350 GiB on mainnet, or 50 GiB on testnet. If you want to disable that, nano .env and change AUTOPRUNE_NM to false.

If you have disabled automatic prune, you can run ./ethd prune-nethermind. It will check prerequisites, online prune Nethermind, and restart it.

Continuous Besu prune

Besu continuously prunes with BONSAI, and from 24.1.0 on also prunes its trie-logs. A long-running Besu may benefit from a manual trie-log prune, once.

If you have a large amount of trie logs, run ./ethd prune-besu on a long-running Besu. It will check prerequisites, offline prune Besu trie-logs, and restart it.

Continuous Geth prune

Geth continuously prunes if synced with PBSS. If you are using an old hash-synced Geth, run ./ethd resync-execution to use PBSS. This will cause downtime while Geth syncs, which can take 6-12 hours.