pruning.md

Pruning & Full Node

Pruning and full node are new features of Reth, and we will be happy to hear about your experience using them either on GitHub or in the Telegram group.

By default, Reth runs as an archive node. Such nodes have all historical blocks and the state at each of these blocks available for querying and tracing.

Reth also supports pruning of historical data and running as a full node. This chapter will walk through the steps for running Reth as a full node, what caveats to expect and how to configure your own pruned node.

Basic concepts

• Archive node – Reth node that has all historical data from genesis.
• Pruned node – Reth node that has its historical data pruned partially or fully through a custom configuration.
• Full Node – Reth node that has the latest state and historical data for only the last 10064 blocks available for querying in the same way as an archive node.

The node type that was chosen when first running a node can not be changed after the initial sync. Turning Archive into Pruned, or Pruned into Full is not supported.

Modes

Archive Node

Default mode, follow the steps from the previous chapter on how to run on mainnet or official testnets.

Pruned Node

To run Reth as a pruned node configured through a custom configuration, modify the reth.toml file and run Reth in the same way as archive node by following the steps from the previous chapter on how to run on mainnet or official testnets.

Full Node

To run Reth as a full node, follow the steps from the previous chapter on how to run on mainnet or official testnets, and add a --full flag. For example:

reth node \
    --full \
    --authrpc.jwtsecret /path/to/secret \
    --authrpc.addr 127.0.0.1 \
    --authrpc.port 8551

Size

All numbers are as of April 2024 at block number 19.6M for mainnet.

Archive Node

Archive node occupies at least 2.14TB.

You can track the growth of Reth archive node size with our public Grafana dashboard.

Pruned Node

Different segments take up different amounts of disk space. If pruned fully, this is the total freed space you'll get, per segment:

Segment	Size
Sender Recovery	85GB
Transaction Lookup	200GB
Receipts	250GB
Account History	235GB
Storage History	590GB

Full Node

Full node occupies at least 1.13TB.

Essentially, the full node is the same as following configuration for the pruned node:

[prune]
block_interval = 5

[prune.parts]
sender_recovery = "full"
# transaction_lookup is not pruned
receipts = { before = 11052984 } # Beacon Deposit Contract deployment block: https://etherscan.io/tx/0xe75fb554e433e03763a1560646ee22dcb74e5274b34c5ad644e7c0f619a7e1d0
account_history = { distance = 10_064 }
storage_history = { distance = 10_064 }

[prune.parts.receipts_log_filter]
# Prune all receipts, leaving only those which contain logs from address `0x00000000219ab540356cbb839cbe05303d7705fa`,
# starting from the block 11052984. This leaves receipts with the logs from the Beacon Deposit Contract.
"0x00000000219ab540356cbb839cbe05303d7705fa" = { before = 11052984 }

Meaning, it prunes:

• Account History and Storage History up to the last 10064 blocks
• All of Sender Recovery data. The caveat is that it's pruned gradually after the initial sync is completed, so the disk space is reclaimed slowly.
• Receipts up to the last 10064 blocks, preserving all receipts with the logs from Beacon Deposit Contract

RPC support

As it was mentioned in the pruning configuration chapter, there are several segments which can be pruned independently of each other:

• Sender Recovery
• Transaction Lookup
• Receipts
• Account History
• Storage History

Pruning of each of these segments disables different RPC methods, because the historical data or lookup indexes become unavailable.

Full Node

The following tables describe RPC methods available in the full node.

debug namespace

RPC	Note
debug_getRawBlock
debug_getRawHeader
debug_getRawReceipts	Only for the last 10064 blocks and Beacon Deposit Contract
debug_getRawTransaction
debug_traceBlock	Only for the last 10064 blocks
debug_traceBlockByHash	Only for the last 10064 blocks
debug_traceBlockByNumber	Only for the last 10064 blocks
debug_traceCall	Only for the last 10064 blocks
debug_traceCallMany	Only for the last 10064 blocks
debug_traceTransaction	Only for the last 10064 blocks

eth namespace

RPC / Segment	Note
eth_accounts
eth_blockNumber
eth_call	Only for the last 10064 blocks
eth_chainId
eth_createAccessList	Only for the last 10064 blocks
eth_estimateGas	Only for the last 10064 blocks
eth_feeHistory
eth_gasPrice
eth_getBalance	Only for the last 10064 blocks
eth_getBlockByHash
eth_getBlockByNumber
eth_getBlockReceipts	Only for the last 10064 blocks and Beacon Deposit Contract
eth_getBlockTransactionCountByHash
eth_getBlockTransactionCountByNumber
eth_getCode
eth_getFilterChanges
eth_getFilterLogs	Only for the last 10064 blocks and Beacon Deposit Contract
eth_getLogs	Only for the last 10064 blocks and Beacon Deposit Contract
eth_getStorageAt	Only for the last 10064 blocks
eth_getTransactionByBlockHashAndIndex
eth_getTransactionByBlockNumberAndIndex
eth_getTransactionByHash
eth_getTransactionCount	Only for the last 10064 blocks
eth_getTransactionReceipt	Only for the last 10064 blocks and Beacon Deposit Contract
eth_getUncleByBlockHashAndIndex
eth_getUncleByBlockNumberAndIndex
eth_getUncleCountByBlockHash
eth_getUncleCountByBlockNumber
eth_maxPriorityFeePerGas
eth_mining
eth_newBlockFilter
eth_newFilter
eth_newPendingTransactionFilter
eth_protocolVersion
eth_sendRawTransaction
eth_sendTransaction
eth_sign
eth_signTransaction
eth_signTypedData
eth_subscribe
eth_syncing
eth_uninstallFilter
eth_unsubscribe

net namespace

RPC / Segment
net_listening
net_peerCount
net_version

trace namespace

RPC / Segment	Note
trace_block	Only for the last 10064 blocks
trace_call	Only for the last 10064 blocks
trace_callMany	Only for the last 10064 blocks
trace_get	Only for the last 10064 blocks
trace_rawTransaction	Only for the last 10064 blocks
trace_replayBlockTransactions	Only for the last 10064 blocks
trace_replayTransaction	Only for the last 10064 blocks
trace_transaction	Only for the last 10064 blocks

txpool namespace

RPC / Segment
txpool_content
txpool_contentFrom
txpool_inspect
txpool_status

Pruned Node

The following tables describe the requirements for prune segments, per RPC method:

• ✅ – if the segment is pruned, the RPC method still works
• ❌ - if the segment is pruned, the RPC method doesn't work anymore

debug namespace

RPC / Segment	Sender Recovery	Transaction Lookup	Receipts	Account History	Storage History
debug_getRawBlock	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
debug_getRawHeader	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
debug_getRawReceipts	✅	✅	❌	✅	✅
debug_getRawTransaction	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅
debug_traceBlock	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
debug_traceBlockByHash	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
debug_traceBlockByNumber	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
debug_traceCall	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
debug_traceCallMany	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
debug_traceTransaction	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌

eth namespace

RPC / Segment	Sender Recovery	Transaction Lookup	Receipts	Account History	Storage History
eth_accounts	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_blockNumber	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_call	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
eth_chainId	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_createAccessList	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
eth_estimateGas	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
eth_feeHistory	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_gasPrice	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_getBalance	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅
eth_getBlockByHash	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_getBlockByNumber	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_getBlockReceipts	✅	✅	❌	✅	✅
eth_getBlockTransactionCountByHash	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_getBlockTransactionCountByNumber	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_getCode	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_getFilterChanges	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_getFilterLogs	✅	✅	❌	✅	✅
eth_getLogs	✅	✅	❌	✅	✅
eth_getStorageAt	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌
eth_getTransactionByBlockHashAndIndex	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_getTransactionByBlockNumberAndIndex	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_getTransactionByHash	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅
eth_getTransactionCount	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅
eth_getTransactionReceipt	✅	❌	❌	✅	✅
eth_getUncleByBlockHashAndIndex	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_getUncleByBlockNumberAndIndex	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_getUncleCountByBlockHash	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_getUncleCountByBlockNumber	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_maxPriorityFeePerGas	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_mining	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_newBlockFilter	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_newFilter	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_newPendingTransactionFilter	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_protocolVersion	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_sendRawTransaction	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_sendTransaction	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_sign	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_signTransaction	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_signTypedData	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_subscribe	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_syncing	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_uninstallFilter	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
eth_unsubscribe	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅

net namespace

RPC / Segment	Sender Recovery	Transaction Lookup	Receipts	Account History	Storage History
net_listening	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
net_peerCount	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
net_version	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅

trace namespace

RPC / Segment	Sender Recovery	Transaction Lookup	Receipts	Account History	Storage History
trace_block	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
trace_call	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
trace_callMany	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
trace_get	✅	❌	✅	❌	❌
trace_rawTransaction	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
trace_replayBlockTransactions	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
trace_replayTransaction	✅	❌	✅	❌	❌
trace_transaction	✅	❌	✅	❌	❌

txpool namespace

RPC / Segment	Sender Recovery	Transaction Lookup	Receipts	Account History	Storage History
txpool_content	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
txpool_contentFrom	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
txpool_inspect	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
txpool_status	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅