lighthouse/book/src/validator-create.md

Create a validator

Note: we recommend using the Staking launchpad to create validators.

Validators are fundamentally represented by a BLS keypair. In Lighthouse, we use a wallet to generate these keypairs. Once a wallet exists, the lighthouse account validator create command is used to generate the BLS keypair and all necessary information to submit a validator deposit and have that validator operate in the lighthouse validator_client.

Usage

To create a validator from a wallet, use the lighthouse account validator create command:

lighthouse account validator create --help

Creates new validators from an existing EIP-2386 wallet using the EIP-2333 HD key derivation scheme.

USAGE:
    lighthouse account_manager validator create [FLAGS] [OPTIONS]

FLAGS:
    -h, --help                         Prints help information
        --stdin-inputs                 If present, read all user inputs from stdin instead of tty.
        --store-withdrawal-keystore    If present, the withdrawal keystore will be stored alongside the voting keypair.
                                       It is generally recommended to *not* store the withdrawal key and instead
                                       generate them from the wallet seed when required.
    -V, --version                      Prints version information

OPTIONS:
        --at-most <AT_MOST_VALIDATORS>
            Observe the number of validators in --validator-dir, only creating enough to reach the given count. Never
            deletes an existing validator.
        --count <VALIDATOR_COUNT>
            The number of validators to create, regardless of how many already exist

    -d, --datadir <DIR>
            Used to specify a custom root data directory for lighthouse keys and databases. Defaults to
            $HOME/.lighthouse/{network} where network is the value of the `network` flag Note: Users should specify
            separate custom datadirs for different networks.
        --debug-level <LEVEL>
            The verbosity level for emitting logs. [default: info]  [possible values: info, debug, trace, warn, error,
            crit]
        --deposit-gwei <DEPOSIT_GWEI>
            The GWEI value of the deposit amount. Defaults to the minimum amount required for an active validator
            (MAX_EFFECTIVE_BALANCE)
        --network <network>
            Name of the Eth2 chain Lighthouse will sync and follow. [default: mainnet]  [possible values: prater, mainnet]
        --secrets-dir <SECRETS_DIR>
            The path where the validator keystore passwords will be stored. Defaults to ~/.lighthouse/{network}/secrets

    -s, --spec <DEPRECATED>
            This flag is deprecated, it will be disallowed in a future release. This value is now derived from the
            --network or --testnet-dir flags.
    -t, --testnet-dir <DIR>
            Path to directory containing eth2_testnet specs. Defaults to a hard-coded Lighthouse testnet. Only effective
            if there is no existing database.
        --wallet-name <WALLET_NAME>                 Use the wallet identified by this name
        --wallet-password <WALLET_PASSWORD_PATH>
            A path to a file containing the password which will unlock the wallet.

        --wallets-dir <wallets-dir>
            A path containing Eth2 EIP-2386 wallets. Defaults to ~/.lighthouse/{network}/wallets

Example

The example assumes that the wally wallet was generated from the wallet example.

lighthouse --network prater account validator create --wallet-name wally --wallet-password wally.pass --count 1

This command will:

• Derive a single new BLS keypair from wallet wally in ~/.lighthouse/{network}/wallets, updating it so that it generates a new key next time.
• Create a new directory in ~/.lighthouse/{network}/validators containing:
  • An encrypted keystore containing the validators voting keypair.
  • An eth1_deposit_data.rlp assuming the default deposit amount (32 ETH for most testnets and mainnet) which can be submitted to the deposit contract for the Prater testnet. Other testnets can be set via the --network CLI param.
• Store a password to the validators voting keypair in ~/.lighthouse/{network}/secrets.