Prysm can be installed on Windows, GNU/Linux, and MacOS systems with Docker. We use Bazel to push preconfigured Docker images to a publicly accessible Google Cloud container registry.
Not familiar with Docker? Try our quickstart
This guidance is targeted at users who are already comfortable with Docker. See our Quickstart for beginner-friendly installation instructions.
We recommend opening up ports tcp/13000 and udp/12000 on your router and firewall to improve peer-to-peer connectivity. Refer to your operating system and router documentation for port configuration instructions. With this complete, appending --p2p-host-ip=$(curl -s ident.me) to your beacon node startup command will configure Prysm to use your newly opened ports. Refer to Configure ports and firewalls for more information.
Not familiar with nodes, networks, and related terminology? Consider reading Nodes and networks before proceeding.
If you're not already running an execution node, refer to our Quickstart for beginner-friendly execution node installation instructions.
Next, use Docker to tell your beacon node to connect to your local execution node. Note that <YOUR_ETH_EXECUTION_NODE_ENDPOINT> is either an HTTP endpoint http://host:port or an IPC path such as /path/to/geth.ipc.
To ensure that your Docker image has access to a data directory, mount a local drive to your container. Right click your Docker tray icon -> Settings -> Shared Drives -> select your drive -> Apply. Next, create a directory named /prysm/ within your shared drive. This folder will be used as a local data directory for Prysm. This guide assumes that C: is the drive you've selected:
Ensure that you're not running multiple instances of the same validator public key, especially if you're using scripts or other forms of automation. If the Ethereum network detects two instances of the same validator key submitting proposals, attestations, or votes, it may assume malicious intent and slash accordingly.
Verify that your beacon node and execution node are both fully synced. If you're not fully synced, you risk being penalized and losing some of your staked ETH.
Check the sync status of your node with the following command:
The Ethereum launchpad URL is https://launchpad.ethereum.org and the only, official validator deposit contract is 0x00000000219ab540356cbb839cbe05303d7705fa. Don't send ETH directly to the contract - deposit your stake through Ethereum.org launchpad.
Use the Mainnet Launchpad to deposit your 32 ETH. If you want to participate in the testnet, use the Goerli-Prater launchpad.
Throughout the process, you'll be asked to generate new validator credentials using the official Ethereum deposit command-line-tool. Make sure you use the mainnet option when generating keys with the deposit CLI. During the process, you will have generated a validator_keys folder under the eth2.0-deposit-cli directory. You can import all of your validator keys into Prysm from that folder in the next step.
Copy the path to the validator_keys folder under the eth2.0-deposit-cli directory you created during the launchpad process and issue the following command:
You’re now running a full Ethereum node and a validator.
It can a long time (from days to months) for your validator to become fully activated. To learn more about the validator activation process, see Deposit Process. See Check node and validator status for detailed status monitoring guidance.
You can leave your execution client, beacon node, and validator client terminal windows open and running. Once your validator is activated, it will automatically begin proposing and validating blocks.
To interact with your beacon node through Docker, use one of the following commands:
Halt: docker stop beacon-node or Ctrl+c
Restart: docker start -ai beacon-node
Delete: docker rm beacon-node
To recreate a deleted container and refresh the chain database, issue the start command with an additional --clear-db parameter, where <YOUR_ETH_EXECUTION_NODE_ENDPOINT> is in the format of an http endpoint such as http://host:port (ex: http://localhost:8551 for Geth) or an IPC path such as /path/to/geth.ipc:
Why do we set --rpc-host and --grpc-gateway-host to 0.0.0.0?
This tells your Docker container to to "listen" for connections from outside of your container, allowing you (and other services) to reach your RPC endpoint(s). See Configure ports and firewalls for more information.