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Running a Lisk Node

This tutorial will walk you through setting up your own Lisk Node.

Objectives​

By the end of this tutorial you should be able to:

  • Deploy and sync a Lisk node

Prerequisites​

caution

Running a node is time consuming, resource expensive, and potentially costly. If you don't already know why you want to run your own node, you probably don't need to.

If you're just getting started and need an RPC URL, you can use our free endpoints:

  • Mainnet: https://rpc.api.lisk.com
  • Testnet (Sepolia): https://rpc.sepolia-api.lisk.com

Note: Our RPCs are rate-limited, they are not suitable for production apps.

If you're looking to harden your app and avoid rate-limiting for your users, please check out one of our partners.

System requirements​

The following system requirements are recommended to run a Lisk L2 node.

Memory​

  • Modern multi-core CPU with good single-core performance.
  • Machines with a minimum of 16 GB RAM (32 GB recommended).

Storage​

  • Machines with a high performance SSD drive with at least 750GB (full node) or 4.5TB (archive node) free.

Usage​

note

It is currently not possible to run the nodes with the --op-network flag until the configs for Lisk have been merged into the superchain-registry.

There is currently an open PR to add the Lisk Mainnet config. The Lisk Sepolia Testnet will be supported soon as well.

Clone the Repository​

git clone https://github.com/LiskHQ/lisk-node.git
cd lisk-node

Docker​

  1. Ensure you have an Ethereum L1 full node RPC available (not Lisk), and set the OP_NODE_L1_ETH_RPC and the OP_NODE_L1_BEACON variables (within the .env.* files, if using docker-compose). If running your own L1 node, it needs to be synced before the Lisk node will be able to fully sync.

  2. Please ensure that the environment file relevant to your network (.env.sepolia, or .env.mainnet) is set for the env_file properties within docker-compose.yml. By default, it is set to .env.mainnet.

  3. Run:

    docker compose up --build --detach

  4. You should now be able to curl your Lisk node:

    curl -s -d '{"id":0,"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_getBlockByNumber","params":["latest",false]}' \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://localhost:8545

Syncing​

Sync speed depends on your L1 node, as the majority of the chain is derived from data submitted to the L1. You can check your syncing status using the optimism_syncStatus RPC on the op-node container. Example:

command -v jq  &> /dev/null || { echo "jq is not installed" 1>&2 ; }
echo Latest synced block behind by: \
$((($( date +%s )-\
$( curl -s -d '{"id":0,"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"optimism_syncStatus"}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://localhost:7545 |
   jq -r .result.unsafe_l2.timestamp))/60)) minutes