lighthouse/book/src/become-a-validator.md

Become an Ethereum 2.0 Testnet Validator

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The Schlesi testnet is currently down.

Please do not submit any deposits. For updates, see:

• The Lighthouse "announcements" Discord channel.
• The Eth R&D "Schlesi" Discord channel.
• goerli/witti for technical information.

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Running a Lighthouse validator is easy if you're familiar with the terminal.

Lighthouse runs on Linux, MacOS and Windows and has a Docker work-flow to make things as simple as possible.

0. Acquire Goerli ETH

Before you install Lighthouse, you'll need Metamask and 3.2 gETH (Goerli ETH). We recommend the mudit.blog faucet for those familiar with Goerli, or goerli.net for an overview of the testnet.

If this is your first time using Metamask and/or interacting with an ethereum test network, we recommend going through the beginning of this guide first (up to the Signing your first transaction with MetaMask section).

1. Install and start Lighthouse

There are two, different ways to install and start a Lighthouse validator:

1. Using docker-compose: this is the easiest method.

2. Building from source: this is a little more involved, however it gives a more hands-on experience.

Once you've completed either one of these steps, you can move onto the next step.

2. Submit your deposit to Goerli

Upload the eth1_deposit_data.rlp file from your validator directory (created in the previous step) to submit your 3.2 Goerli-ETH deposit using Metamask.

Note that the method you used in step 1 will determine where this file is located.

Upload and Submit Deposit

Your validator deposit was submitted and this step is complete.

See the transaction on Etherscan or reload to perform another deposit.

Error

Unknown error.

Please refresh to reupload.

This deposit is made using gETH (Goerli ETH) which has no real value. Please don't ever send real ETH to our deposit contract!

3. Leave Lighthouse running

Leave your beacon node and validator client running and you'll see logs as the beacon node stays synced with the network while the validator client produces blocks and attestations.

It will take 4-8+ hours for the beacon chain to process and activate your validator, however you'll know you're active when the validator client starts successfully publishing attestations each slot:

Dec 03 08:49:40.053 INFO Successfully published attestation      slot: 98, committee_index: 0, head_block: 0xa208…7fd5,

Although you'll produce an attestation each slot, it's less common to produce a block. Watch for the block production logs too:

Dec 03 08:49:36.225 INFO Successfully published block            slot: 98, attestations: 2, deposits: 0, service: block

If you see any ERRO (error) logs, please reach out on Discord or create an issue.

Don't forget to checkout the open-source block explorer for the Lighthouse testnet at lighthouse-testnet3.beaconcha.in.

Happy staking!