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This tutorial will walk you through setting up your own Base Node.

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Objectives

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to:
  • Deploy and sync a Base node
  • Enable Flashblocks for 200ms preconfirmations

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Prerequisites

Running a node is time consuming, resource expensive, and potentially costly. If you don’t already know why you want to run your own node, you probably don’t need to.If you’re just getting started and need an RPC URL, you can use our free endpoints:
  • Mainnet: https://mainnet.base.org
  • Testnet (Sepolia): https://sepolia.base.org
Note: Our RPCs are rate-limited, they are not suitable for production apps.If you’re looking to harden your app and avoid rate-limiting for your users, please consider using an endpoint from one of our partners.

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Hardware requirements

We recommend you have this configuration to run a node:
  • 8-Core CPU
  • at least 16 GB RAM
  • a locally attached NVMe SSD drive
  • Adequate storage capacity:
    • Minimum: (2 × chain_size) + snapshot_size + 20% buffer
    • Accounts for snapshot restoration (if applicable) and chain data
If utilizing Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), ensure timing buffered disk reads are fast enough in order to avoid latency issues alongside the rate of new blocks added to Base during the initial synchronization process; io2 block express is recommended.

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Networking

Ensure the following ports are accessible (not blocked by firewall) for peer discovery and sync:
PortProtocolPurpose
30303TCP/UDPP2P Discovery (discv4) & RLPx
9222TCP/UDPReth Discovery v5 (discv5)
Port 9222 is critical for Reth peer discovery. If this port is blocked, your node may have difficulty finding peers and syncing.

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Docker

This tutorial assumes you are familiar with Docker and have it running on your machine.

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L1 RPC URL

You’ll need your own L1 RPC URL. This can be one that you run yourself, or via a third-party provider, such as our partners.

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Running a Node

  1. Clone the repo.
  2. Ensure you have an Ethereum L1 full node RPC available (not Base), and set OP_NODE_L1_ETH_RPC & OP_NODE_L1_BEACON (in the .env.* file if using docker-compose). If running your own L1 node, it needs to be synced before Base will be able to fully sync.
  3. Uncomment the line relevant to your network (.env.sepolia, or .env.mainnet) under the 2 env_file keys in docker-compose.yml.
  4. Run docker compose up. Confirm you get a response from:
Terminal
curl -d '{"id":0,"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_getBlockByNumber","params":["latest",false]}' \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://localhost:8545
Syncing your node may take days and will consume a vast amount of your requests quota. Be sure to monitor usage and up your plan if needed.

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Snapshots

Geth Archive Nodes are no longer supported. For Archive functionality, use Reth, which provides significantly better performance in Base’s high-throughput environment.
If you’re a Base Node operator and would like to save significant time on the initial sync, you may restore from a snapshot. The snapshots are updated every week.

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Syncing

You can monitor the progress of your sync with:
Terminal
echo Latest synced block behind by: $((($(date +%s)-$( \
  curl -d '{"id":0,"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"optimism_syncStatus"}' \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://localhost:7545 | \
  jq -r .result.unsafe_l2.timestamp))/60)) minutes
You’ll also know that the sync hasn’t completed if you get Error: nonce has already been used if you try to deploy using your node.

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Enable Flashblocks

Once your node is synced, you can enable Flashblocks to serve 200ms preconfirmations to your applications.

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Configuration

To enable Flashblocks, start your node with the following environment variables: 
NODE_TYPE=base CLIENT=reth RETH_FB_WEBSOCKET_URL="wss://mainnet.flashblocks.base.org/ws" docker-compose up
VariableDescriptionValues
NODE_TYPEEnables base reth node with Flashblocksbase
CLIENTExecution clientreth
RETH_FB_WEBSOCKET_URLFlashblocks WebSocket endpointSee below

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WebSocket Endpoints

NetworkURL
Mainnetwss://mainnet.flashblocks.base.org/ws
Sepoliawss://sepolia.flashblocks.base.org/ws
These WebSocket endpoints are for node infrastructure only. Applications should not connect directly to wss://mainnet.flashblocks.base.org/ws. Instead, apps should query your RPC node for Flashblocks data. See the App Integration guide for details.
The base binary listens to the Flashblocks WebSocket stream and caches preconfirmation data. When Flashblocks-aware RPC methods are called, it returns data from this cache.

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Verify Flashblocks Functionality

Test that your node is properly serving Flashblocks by querying a pending block: 
curl -X POST \
  --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_getBlockByNumber","params":["pending", false],"id":1}' \
  http://localhost:8545
A successful response will include block data from the latest Flashblock. If Flashblocks are temporarily unavailable, the node falls back to returning the latest finalized block.

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Available RPC Methods

Your Flashblocks-aware node supports all standard Ethereum JSON-RPC methods, plus these Flashblocks-enabled endpoints:
MethodFlashblocks Usage
eth_getBlockByNumberUse pending tag
eth_getBalanceUse pending tag
eth_getTransactionReceiptReturns preconfirmed receipts
eth_getTransactionByHashUse pending tag
eth_getTransactionCountUse pending tag
eth_callUse pending tag
eth_simulateV1Use pending tag
eth_estimateGasUse pending tag
eth_getLogsUse pending for toBlock
eth_subscribeStream Flashblock data in real-time (Beta)
base_transactionStatusCheck if transaction is in mempool (Beta)
For code examples, see the App Integration guide.