Troubleshooting

Network Won’t Start

1. Check if ports are in use

   lsof -i :8545  # RPC port
   lsof -i :30303 # P2P port
   

2. View Docker logs

   docker compose logs reth0
   docker compose logs reth1
   

3. Verify genesis file exists

   ls -la assets/genesis.json
   

4. Check emerald logs

   tail -f nodes/0/emerald.log
   

Validator Operations Fail

1. Verify network is running

   curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8545 \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_blockNumber","params":[],"id":1}'
   

2. Check validator public key format

   • Must be hex-encoded secp256k1 public key
   • Can be 64 bytes (raw) or 65 bytes (with 0x04 prefix)
   • Include 0x prefix

3. Verify contract owner key

   • Default: 0xac0974bec39a17e36ba4a6b4d238ff944bacb478cbed5efcae784d7bf4f2ff80

Public Key Extraction

To get a validator’s public key from their private key file:

cargo run --bin emerald show-pubkey \
  nodes/0/config/priv_validator_key.json

Cannot Connect to Docker

When using Docker Desktop, ensure that Enable host networking is turned on in the Docker Desktop settings. This option allows the containers to bind correctly to the host machine’s network interface, ensuring the Reth nodes and the monitoring services are reachable on the expected ports.