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

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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 check out 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 to accommodate both the snapshot restoration process (if restoring from snapshot) and chain data, ensuring a minimum of (2 * current_chain_size) + snapshot_size + 20%_buffer

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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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 prospective or current Base Node operator and would like to restore from a snapshot to save time on the initial sync, it’s possible to always get the latest available snapshot of the Base chain on mainnet and/or testnet by using the following CLI commands. The snapshots are updated every week.

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Restoring from snapshot

In the home directory of your Base Node, create a folder named geth-data or reth-data. If you already have this folder, remove it to clear the existing state and then recreate it. Next, run the following code and wait for the operation to complete.

NetworkClientSnapshot TypeCommand
TestnetGethFullwget https://sepolia-full-snapshots.base.org/$(curl https://sepolia-full-snapshots.base.org/latest)
TestnetRethArchivewget https://sepolia-reth-archive-snapshots.base.org/$(curl https://sepolia-reth-archive-snapshots.base.org/latest)
MainnetGethFullwget https://mainnet-full-snapshots.base.org/$(curl https://mainnet-full-snapshots.base.org/latest)
MainnetRethArchivewget https://mainnet-reth-archive-snapshots.base.org/$(curl https://mainnet-reth-archive-snapshots.base.org/latest)

You’ll then need to untar the downloaded snapshot and place the geth subfolder inside of it in the geth-data folder you created (unless you changed the location of your data directory).

Return to the root of your Base node folder and start your node.

Terminal
cd ..
docker compose up --build

Your node should begin syncing from the last block in the snapshot.

Check the latest block to make sure you’re syncing from the snapshot and that it restored correctly. If so, you can remove the snapshot archive that you downloaded.

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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.