A command-line tool for managing common tasks in Ethereum 2.

Table of Contents

• Install
  • Binaries
  • Docker
  • Source
• Setting up
• Usage
• Maintainers
• Contribute
• License

Install

Binaries

Binaries for the latest version of ethdo can be obtained from the releases page.

Docker

You can obtain the latest version of ethdo using docker with:

docker pull wealdtech/ethdo

Source

ethdo is a standard Go program which can be installed with:

go install github.com/wealdtech/ethdo@latest

Note that ethdo requires at least version 1.20 of go to operate. The version of go can be found with go version.

If this does not work please see the troubleshooting page.

The docker image can be build locally with:

docker build -t ethdo .

You can run ethdo using docker after that. Example:

docker run -it ethdo --help

Note that that many ethdo commands connect to the beacon node to obtain information. If the beacon node is running directly on the server this requires the --network=host command, for example:

docker run --network=host ethdo chain status

Alternatively, if the beacon node is running in a separate docker container a shared network can be created with docker network create eth2 and accessed by adding --network=eth2 added to both the beacon node and ethdo containers.

Setting up

ethdo needs a connection to a beacon node for many of its features. ethdo can connect to any beacon node that fully supports the standard REST API using the --connection <beacon-node:port> argument. The following changes are required to beacon nodes to make this available.

Lighthouse

Lighthouse disables the REST API by default. To enable it, the beacon node must be started with the --http parameter. If you want to access the REST API from a remote server then you should also look to change the --http-address and --http-allow-origin options as per the Lighthouse documentation.

The default port for the REST API is 5052, which can be changed with the --http-port parameter.

Nimbus

Nimbus disables the REST API by default. To enable it, the beacon node must be started with the --rest parameter. If you want to access the REST API from a remote server then you should also look to change the --rest-address and --rest-allow-origin options as per the Nimbus documentation.

The default port for the REST API is 5052, which can be changed with the --rest-port parameter.

Prysm

Prysm enables the REST API by default. You will need to add the parameter --grpc-max-msg-size 268435456 to be obtain to obtain large sets of information such as the list of current validators. If you want to access the REST API from a remote server then you should also look to change the --grpc-gateway-host and --grpc-gateway-corsdomain options as per the Prysm documentation.

The default port for the REST API is 3500, which can be changed with the --grpc-gateway-port parameter.

Teku

Teku disables the REST API by default. To enable it, the beacon node must be started with the --rest-api-enabled parameter. If you want to access the REST API from a remote server then you should also look to change the --rest-api-interface, --rest-api-host-allowlist and --rest-api-cors-origins options as per the Teku documentation.

The default port for the REST API is 5051, which can be changed with the --rest-api-port parameter.

Lodestar

Lodestar enables the REST API by default and should just work locally. If you want to access the REST API from a remote server then you should also look to change the --rest.address to 0.0.0.0 as per the Lodestar documentation.

The default port for the REST API is 9596, which can be changed with the --rest.port parameter.

Usage

ethdo contains a large number of features that are useful for day-to-day interactions with the different consensus clients.

Wallets and accounts

ethdo uses the go-eth2-wallet system to provide unified access to different wallet types. When on the filesystem the locations of the created wallets and accounts are:

- for Linux: $HOME/.config/ethereum2/wallets
- for OSX: $HOME/Library/Application Support/ethereum2/wallets
- for Windows: %APPDATA%\ethereum2\wallets

If using the filesystem store, the additional parameter base-dir can be supplied to change this location.

If using docker as above you can make this directory accessible to docker to make wallets and accounts persistent. For example, for linux you could use the following command to list your wallets on Linux:

docker run -v $HOME/.config/ethereum2/wallets:/data ethdo --base-dir=/data wallet list

This will allow you to use ethdo with or without docker, with the same location for wallets and accounts.

All ethdo comands take the following parameters:

• store: the name of the storage system for wallets. This can be one of "filesystem" (for local storage of the wallet) or "s3" (for remote storage of the wallet on Amazon's S3 storage system), and defaults to "filesystem"
• storepassphrase: the passphrase for the store. If this is empty the store is unencrypted
• walletpassphrase: the passphrase for the wallet. This is required for some wallet-centric operations such as creating new accounts
• passphrase: the passphrase for the account. This is required for some account-centric operations such as signing data

Accounts are specified in the standard "/" format, for example the account "savings" in the wallet "primary" would be referenced as "primary/savings".

Configuration file and environment

ethdo supports a configuration file; by default in the user's home directory but changeable with the --config argument on the command line. The configuration file provides values that override the defaults but themselves can be overridden with command-line arguments.

The default file name is .ethdo.json or .ethdo.yml depending on the encoding used (JSON or YAML, respectively). An example .ethdo.json file is shown below:

{
  "store": "s3",
  "storepassphrase": "s3 secret passphrse",
  "account": "Personal wallet/Operations",
  "verbose": true
}

ethdo also supports environment variables. Environment variables are prefixed with "ETHDO_" and are upper-cased. So for example to provide your account passphrase in an environment variable on a Unix system you could use:

export ETHDO_PASSPHRASE="my account passphrase"

S3 store options

Amazon S3-compatible stores have additional options available, which can be configured under the "stores.s3" key. An example configuration is as follows:

{
  "stores": {
    "s3": {
      "bucket":"mybucketname",
      "path":"path/in/bucket",
      "passphrase":"secret"
    }
  }
}

Information on these and other options can be found in the S3 store repository.

Output and exit status

If set, the --quiet argument will suppress all output.

If set, the --verbose argument will output additional information related to the command. Details of the additional information is command-specific and explained in the command help below.

If set, the --debug argument will output additional information about the operation of ethdo as it carries out its work.

Commands will have an exit status of 0 on success and 1 on failure. The specific definition of success is specified in the help for each command.

Validator specifier

Ethereum validators can be specified in a number of different ways. The options are:

• an ethdo account, in the format wallet/account. It is possible to use the validator specified in this way to sign validator-related operations, if the passphrase is also supplied, with a passphrase (for local accounts) or authority (for remote accounts)
• the validator's 48-byte public key. It is not possible to use the a validator specified in this way to sign validator-related operations
• a keystore, supplied either as direct JSON or as a path to a keystore on the local filesystem. It is possible to use the validator specified in this way to sign validator-related operations, if the passphrase is also supplied
• the validator's numeric index. It is not possible to use a validator specified in this way to sign validator-related operations. Note that this only works with on-chain operations, as the validator's index must be resolved to its public key

Passphrase strength

ethdo will by default not allow creation or export of accounts or wallets with weak passphrases. If a weak pasphrase is used then ethdo will refuse to continue.

If a weak passphrase is required, ethdo can be supplied with the --allow-weak-passphrases option which will force it to accept any passphrase, even if it is considered weak.

Rules for account passphrases

Account passphrases are used in various places in ethdo. Where they are used, the following rules apply:

• commands that require passphrases to operate, for example unlocking an account, can be supplied with multiple passphrases. If they are, then each passphrase is tried until one succeeds or they all fail
• commands that require passphrases to create, for example creating an account, must be supplied with a single passphrase. If more than one passphrase is supplied the command will fail

In addition, the following rules apply to passphrases supplied on the command line:

• passphrases must not start with 0x
• passphrases must not contain the comma (,) character

Commands

Command information, along with sample outputs and optional arguments, is available in the usage section.

HOWTO

There is a HOWTO that covers details about how to carry out various common tasks. There is also a specific document that provides details of how to carry out common conversions from mnemonic, to account, to deposit data, for launchpad-related configurations.

Maintainers

Jim McDonald: @mcdee.

Special thanks to @SuburbanDad for updating xgo to allow for cross-compilation of ethdo releases.

Contribute

Contributions welcome. Please check out the issues.

License

Apache-2.0 © 2019, 2020 Weald Technology Trading Ltd