Op-Reth Base Sepolia archive node has a size of 637GB on March 10th, 2025
Base is a secure, low-cost Ethereum L2 built on Optimism’s open-source . In this guide, we cover docker installation of op-reth and op-nodeto facilitate the node's synchronization on Sepolia Testnet Network. This method has proved to sync an archive node successfully in ~24 hours using the official snapshot provided by the Base team
Before you start, make sure that you have your own synced Ethereum Sepolia L1 RPC URL and L1 Consensus Layer Beacon endpoint (e.g. Lighthouse Sepolia) ready
sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin
# Test docker is working
sudo docker run hello-world
#Install docker compose
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install docker-compose-plugin
# Test the docker version
docker compose version
Setting up a domain name to access RPC
Get the IP address of the host machine, you can use the following command in a terminal or command prompt
curl ifconfig.me
Set an A record for a domain, you need to access the domain's DNS settings and create an A record that points to the IP address of the host machine. This configuration allows users to reach your domain by resolving the domain name to the specific IP address associated with your host machine.
Create Base Sepolia directory
mkdir base-sepolia && cd base-sepolia
Create .env file
sudo nano .env
Paste the following into the file.
EMAIL={YOUR_EMAIL} #Your email to receive SSL renewal emails
DOMAIN={YOUR_DOMAIN} #Domain should be something like rpc.mywebsite.com, e.g. base-sepolia.infradao.org
WHITELIST={YOUR_REMOTE_MACHINE_IP} #the server's own IP and comma separated list of IP's allowed to connect to RPC (e.g. Indexer)
LAYER_1_RPC={YOUR_L1_RPC} #Your ready synced L1 Ethereum Sepolia node RPC endpoint
L1_BEACON={YOUR_L1_BEACON} #Your synced L1 CL (Consensus Layer) Beacon endpoint, e.g. Lighthouse (Prysm, Lodestar) Sepolia
This is an optional step based on whether you want to sync the node from scratch or sync the node from a snapshot. Based on InfraDAO’s experience, we recommend downloading a snapshot and syncing the node from that snapshot. Syncing the node from the scratch will take weeks while the snapshot requires a couple of hours to download, some time to extract, and roughly 24 hours to sync from that point.
As downloading a snapshot takes some time it is good idea to run it in a screen session
screen -S reth
Use aria2c to download the most recent Base Sepolia Reth Archive Snapshot
press ctrl+A and D to return to previous screen and continue installation
screen -r reth #will bring you back to monitor downloading progress
You'll need to extract the downloaded snapshot and move its contents to the op-reth-data directory, where Docker stores persistent data.
zstd -d base-sepolia-reth-1741404553.tar.zst -c | tar xvf -
# replace the archive with an actual name
If you initially tried to sync the node from scratch and are now trying with a snapshot make sure to empty the destination directory first:
cd /var/lib/docker/volumes/reth_op-reth_data/_data
ls
#if directory isn't empty remove all contents
rm -rf blobstore db discovery-secret invalid_block_hooks known-peers.json reth.toml static_files
mv /root/base-sepolia/snapshots/sepolia/download/* /var/lib/docker/volumes/reth_op-reth_data/_data/
cd /var/lib/docker/volumes/reth_op-reth_data/_data/
ls
If you haven't started the node yet, create op-reth-data directory first:
docker volume create reth_op-reth_data
cd /var/lib/docker/volumes/reth_op-reth_data/_data
mv /root/base-sepolia/snapshots/sepolia/download/* /var/lib/docker/volumes/reth_op-reth_data/_data/
ls
Launch Base Sepolia
cd /root/base-sepolia
sudo nano docker-compose.yml
