Run a slasher
This section provides instructions on how to run slasher as an optional process to report slashable offenses on Ethereum proof-of-stake. If slasher detects a slashable offense, proof is sent to the beacon-chain node for inclusion in a block. Validators earn a small whistleblower reward for including this proof into a block.
Slasher is essentially a beacon node with superpowers. It uses significantly more disk space when running on mainnet.
System requirements
Minimum specifications
These specifications must be met in order to successfully run a Prysm beacon node in --slasher mode
- Operating System: 64-bit Linux, Mac OS X 10.14+, Windows 64-bit
- Processor: Intel Core i5–760 or AMD FX-8100 or better
- Memory: 8GB RAM
- Storage: 1TB available space SSD
- Internet: Broadband connection
Recommended specifications
These hardware specifications are recommended, but not required to run the Prysm client.
- Processor: Intel Core i7–4770 or AMD FX-8310 or better
- Memory: 16GB RAM
- Storage: 1TB available space SSD
- Internet: Broadband connection
What is Slashing
Slashing occurs when there is evidence a validator has acted against the Ethereum network. Ethereum proof of stake works on a penalty-based incentive mechanism to heavily discourage actions on the network that could cause instability, malicious forking and conflicting information from validators. Slashing does not need to have been the result of malicious intent, it could also happen accidentally via misconfiguration. If a validator acts in a way that can confuse or disrupt the integrity of the system, the protocol removes, or slashes, a portion of the offending validator's existing stake, causing a gradual loss of ETH over time until the validator is forcefully ejected from the network and marked as SLASHED. This is an irreversible process.
The main purpose of slashing is to discourage attacks against the Ethereum proof-of-stake network that might otherwise be cheap to perform such as trivially creating conflicting forks where validators attest on a different view of historical checkpoints.
A validator that correctly follows the protocol should never emit a slashable vote during normal operation. Validators will not be slashed for simply being offline (however, they may be penalized).
What is a Slasher
Slasher is the name of software that can detect slashable events from validators and report them to the protocol. You can think of a slasher as the network “police”. Running a slasher is optional. In order to detect slashable messages, the slasher records the attesting and proposing history for every validator on the network, then cross references this history with what has been broadcasted to find slashable messages such as double blocks or surrounding votes.
In theory all the network needs is 1 honest, properly functioning slasher to monitor the network because any slashings found are propagated to the entire network for it to be put into a block as soon as possible.
Running a slasher is not meant to be profitable. Slashing is meant to be rare and whistleblower rewards are purposefully low. Running a slasher is meant to be an altruistic action, and as stated, only a single, honest, properly functioning slasher needs to be active in the network to catch slashable offenses. Thankfully, this is a low bar to entry, and we envision quite a lot of users and entities will run slashers to ensure network security.
Running Slasher
Running a slasher is as simple as adding the --slasher flag to your beacon node. Doing this will enable your beacon node to perform slashing detection. However, home stakers are advised not to run a slasher on personal hardware, as it is a tremendously resource-hungry process. Slasher is very heavy on database access and disk usage, and the slasher.db will quickly grow to 1TB or more when running on mainnet. Given that slasher needs to store a lot of information about attestations and blocks within the network, this is to be expected.
Whistleblower Rewards
Running a slasher can also offer some profits to your validators given certain conditions. If slasher detects a slashable condition, it will broadcast it to the network by default. Some lucky validator will then package this slashing evidence into a block and be rewarded for doing so. You can disable this broadcast in Prysm using the --disable-broadcast-slashings option in your beacon node.
Who Should Run a Slasher
As summarized above, the slasher process is likely to overwhelm most home validator setups. The incentives for running a slasher accumulate irregularly, at great cost, so home stakers are advised to run their beacon node without it. It is an entirely optional process. Beacon node operators should consider running the slasher if they are operating a staking pool or data center.
Using Slasher for Advanced Slashing Protection
An alternative implementation for slashing prevention is the use of slasher itself as a middleware client between your beacon node and validator client. Before a validator client submits a block or an attestation, it asks the slasher if the object is slashable. If the check passes, the data will go through to the beacon node. This is the most advanced form of slashing protection as slasher is, ideally, aware of everything happening in the network and has a recorded history of blocks and attestations for every validator.
Further Reading
We recommend reading our piece on slashing prevention tips which has more detailed information on how to protect your own validator from being slashed, the document also clarifies a number of common misconceptions.