Silver

A high-performance Ethereum consensus client.

Silver runs Fulu and Gloas. Prebuilt binaries are linux-x86_64 only.

Quick start (mainnet)

Silver works with any execution client (EL) that supports the engine API. This example runs ethrex next to it:

curl -L https://github.com/gattaca-com/silver/releases/latest/download/silver-linux-x86_64 -o silver
curl -L https://github.com/lambdaclass/ethrex/releases/latest/download/ethrex-linux-x86_64 -o ethrex
chmod +x silver ethrex

openssl rand -hex 32 > jwt.hex

nohup ./ethrex --network mainnet --authrpc.jwtsecret jwt.hex > ethrex.log 2>&1 &
nohup ./silver --execution-endpoint http://localhost:8551 --jwt-secret jwt.hex > silver.out 2>&1 &

Open UDP ports 31133 (discovery) and 31123 (QUIC peers) to the internet. The first start takes a few minutes to download a recent state.

An EL on another machine works too: point --execution-endpoint at its engine API URL and give both the same JWT secret file.

Check it works

Silver Surfer is a live dashboard for the node, shipped in each release. Run it on the same machine:

curl -L https://github.com/gattaca-com/silver/releases/latest/download/silver_surfer-linux-x86_64 -o silver_surfer
chmod +x silver_surfer && ./silver_surfer

Or ask the beacon API on port 5051:

curl -s localhost:5051/eth/v1/node/syncing     # synced: "sync_distance":"0", "is_syncing":false
curl -s localhost:5051/eth/v1/node/peer_count  # "connected" well above zero

Logs go to /tmp/logs/silver.<date>.

Verify the download

Each release file has a .sha256 and a build attestation:

curl -sL https://github.com/gattaca-com/silver/releases/latest/download/silver-linux-x86_64.sha256 \
  | sed 's/silver-linux-x86_64/silver/' | sha256sum -c
gh attestation verify silver --repo gattaca-com/silver   # proves Silver's CI built it

Networks

hoodi or sepolia

./silver --network hoodi --execution-endpoint http://localhost:8551 --jwt-secret jwt.hex

The name brings the network's spec, bootnodes and checkpoint providers. Its data lives in ~/.local/silver/<network>.

Devnet

Point --network at the devnet's published metadata directory:

./silver --network /path/to/<devnet>/metadata --execution-endpoint http://localhost:8551 --jwt-secret jwt.hex

Silver reads only these files from it:

File	Use
config.yaml	The spec. Missing keys default to mainnet values.
genesis.ssz	The boot state, read on every start. Required.
bootstrap_nodes.yaml	The bootnodes, as a list of ENRs. Optional.

Its data lives in a ~/.local/silver/devnet-<id> subdirectory. Silver logs the path at startup.

Flags

silver --help lists every flag, and silver --version prints the version. Flags override the config file. The common ones are:

• --network <name or dir>
• --config <path>
• --execution-endpoint <url>
• --jwt-secret <path>

Config file

Pass it with --config <path>. Every key is optional. Missing keys default to mainnet values. Unknown keys are ignored, so check spelling. A malformed config stops Silver at startup.

network = "mainnet"
data_storage_dir = "/var/lib/silver"

[engine_config]
execution_endpoint = "http://127.0.0.1:8551"
jwt_secret = "/etc/silver/jwt.hex"

A supernode custodies every data column and joins every attestation subnet. On mainnet it averages about 100 Mbit/s each way, but bursts reach about 500 Mbit/s. Its data directory holds about 400 GB:

data_column_custody_group_count = 128  # default 8
attestation_subnet_count = 64          # default 2

Overriding a network's defaults

These [chain_config] keys replace the network's own values:

Key	Replaces
bootstrap_enrs	the bootnodes
checkpoint_sync_urls	the checkpoint providers, or a devnet's genesis.ssz
checkpoint_file	the boot state, read on every start

Build from source

Requires Rust (pinned in rust-toolchain.toml) and clang.

cargo build --profile release-prod --locked --bin silver

Development commands live in the justfile.