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On December 23, 2022 30 minutes

Reduce GETH ETH Node Disk Space Usage

So, I have an ETH2 validator node which uses a Hetzner AX41 dedicated server and has been running since genesis. The set-up includes a GETH ETH1 node, beacon chain and the ETH2 Validator (Prysm) and is slowly using the allocated 1TB NVMe disk space (2 x 512GB using RAID 0). I contacted the Prysm Discord channel to seek advice on what best to do. An amiable chap replied, and I thought it helpful to share in case anyone else has the same challenge.

I came across a Reddit post that used the first method suggested by Discord, although using a Geth Service method. This is the approach I followed, and it was very simple to implement. Notes below...

A simple way to prune GETH disk space

Beacon-node set-up

#Set-up Beacon-chain failover for infura.io free or alchemy.io free.

#Prylabs fallback eth1 nodes documentation.

http-web3provider: http://localhost:8545

fallback-web3provider:

- https://mainnet.infura.io/v3/YOUR-PROJECT-ID

- https://eth-mainnet.alchemyapi.io/v2/YOUR-PROJECT-ID

#Restart Beacon-node

sudo service beacon-node restart

#Check Beacon-node service status

sudo service beacon-node status

#Check Beacon-node service logs for activity

sudo journalctl -fu beacon-node

Geth node pruning

#Check location of Geth working directory

cat /etc/systemd/system/geth.service

#Get current size of GETH data location

du -sh <WorkingDirectory>

#Stop Geth

sudo service geth stop

#Change Service to Prune

vi /etc/systemd/system/geth.service

[Comment out existing ExecStart using a #]

#ExecStart=/usr/bin/geth blah blah blah

[Add new ExecStart to prune]

ExecStart=/usr/bin/geth snapshot prune-state

#Reload Service config

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

#Start Geth Pruning

sudo service geth start

#Check Geth service status

sudo service geth status

#Check Geth service logs for pruning activity

sudo journalctl -fu geth

Logs should look something like this and can take up to 4 hours to complete…

Once pruning and dB compacting have finished...

#Stop Geth in Pruning mode

sudo service geth stop

#Change Service back to normal (comment out the Prune exec line)

vi /etc/systemd/system/geth.service

[Uncomment the normal ExecStart removing the #]

ExecStart=/usr/bin/geth blah blah blah

[Comment out the ExecStart to prune with an #]

#ExecStart=/usr/bin/geth snapshot prune-state

#Reload Service config

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

#Start Geth in normal mode

sudo service geth start

#Check Geth service status

sudo service geth status

#Check Geth service logs for normal activity

sudo journalctl -fu geth

#Check the current size of GETH data location

du -sh <WorkingDirectory>

Boom!

Useful commands

If you encounter any errors during the pruning, then you may wish to consider starting a fresh and removing the Geth chain data. There is a formal and easy way to remove the data and start again, but sometimes Geth can get mixed up if a previous Geth has been running and created multiple chain data folders. In this scenario, you can manually remove the folder and Geth will sync from day one.

NB: Geth working directory when running within a service is typically "/home/geth/"

The formal removal of Geth Chaindata

#Stop Geth in normal mode

sudo service geth stop

#Remove Geth database (chaindata) NB: Ensure that the prompted Geth working directory is what you expect it to be. If its not, then you may consider the informal method for removing the Geth chaindata.

geth removedb

#Start Geth in normal mode

sudo service geth start

#Check Geth service logs for normal activity

sudo journalctl -fu geth

#Check current size of GETH data location

du -sh <WorkingDirectory>

Boom!

Informal removal of Geth Chaindata

#Stop Geth in normal mode

sudo service geth stop

#manually remove Geth database (chaindata) NB: Ensure the correct path is used for the Geth working directory (/home/geth/ used in this example

sudo rm -rf /home/geth/.ethereum/geth/chaindata/

#Start Geth in normal mode

sudo service geth start

#Check Geth service logs for normal activity

sudo journalctl -fu geth

#Check current size of GETH data location

du -sh <WorkingDirectory>

Boom!