Joining Nimbus Testnet0

This document is a very short guide on how to join our testnet. For a full explanation of what’s going on behind the scenes, please see the official announcement post.

Joining Nimbus Testnet 0

Note: in the below commands, the command make is universal to *nix systems like Linux / OS X. On Windows, it becomes available with Git Bash if you install Git for Windows, but you can also install MinGW64 (recommended).

Here is the full process if you’re starting from scratch, without even Nim installed (you still need RocksDB though, so install that first), unless you’re on Windows, in which case the “WINDOWS ONLY” part below will handle the problem for you:

# Ensure you have rocksdb installed before running this!
git clone https://github.com/status-im/nim-beacon-chain
cd nim-beacon-chain
make update # this might take a few minutes

# >>> WINDOWS ONLY <<<
make fetch-dlls # WINDOWS ONLY
# >>> WINDOWS ONLY <<<

make testnet0
./build/testnet0_node # this launches the testnet0-specific node you just built

Here is the full process if you’ve already run testnet0 before but might be stuck with old source code or old, incompatible cache.

cd nim-beacon-chain
make update # update dependencies

# >>> WINDOWS ONLY <<<
make fetch-dlls # WINDOWS ONLY
# >>> WINDOWS ONLY <<<

cd vendor/nim-beacon-chain
make clean-testnet0 testnet0 # clean cache and rebuild binary
./build/testnet0_node # this launches the testnet0-specific node you just built

Congratulations, you should now be joining us - your node will start syncing with the current state of our beacon chain. Once you’re in sync, you should also start proposing your own blocks and providing attestations - exciting! You are now among Ethereum 2.0 Nimbus pioneers!