execd

execd is a process that reads information from an Ethereum execution node and stores it in a database for reporting and analysis.

Table of Contents

• Install
  • Binaries
  • Docker
  • Source
• Usage
• Maintainers
• Contribute
• License

Install

Binaries

Binaries for the latest version of execd can be obtained from the releases page.

Docker

You can obtain the latest version of execd using docker with:

docker pull wealdtech/execd

Source

execd is a standard Go binary which can be installed with:

go get github.com/wealdtech/execd

Requirements to run execd

Database

At current the only supported backend is PostgreSQL. Once you have a PostgreSQL instance you will need to create a user and database that execd can use, for example run the following commands as the PostgreSQL superuser (postgres on most linux installations):

# This command creates a user named 'exec' and will prompt for a password.
createuser exec -P
# This command creates a database named 'exec' owned by the 'exec' user.
createdb -E UTF8 --owner=exec exec

Execution node

execd supports Erigon execution nodes. The current state of obtaining data from execution nodes is as follows:

• Erigon:
  • must be run without pruning to allow execd to obtain historical data
  • must run the RPC daemon

Upgrading execd

execd should upgrade automatically from earlier versions. Note that the upgrade process can take a long time to complete, especially where data needs to be refetched or recalculated. execd should be left to complete the upgrade, to avoid the situation where additional fields are not fully populated. If this does occur then execd can be run with the options --blocks.start-height=0 to force execd to refetch all blocks, although note that it will commonly be faster to restart execd with a clean database in this situation.

Querying execd

execd attempts to lay its data out in a standard fashion for a SQL database, mirroring the data structures that are present in Ethereum. There are some places where the structure or data deviates from the specification, commonly to provide additional information or to make the data easier to query with SQL. The database schema can be found in the database module.

Configuring execd

The minimal requirements for execd are references to the database and execution node, for example:

execd --execdb.url=postgres://chain:secret@localhost:5432 --execclient.address=http://localhost:8545/

Here, execdb.url is the URL of a local PostgreSQL database with pasword 'secret' and 'execdb.address' is the address of a supported execution node.

execd allows additional configuration for itself and its modules. It takes configuration from the command line, environment variables or a configuration file, but for the purposes of explaining the configuration options the configuration file is used. This should be in the home directory and called .execd.yml. Alternatively, the configuration file can be placed in a different directory and referenced by --base-dir, for example --base-dir=/home/user/config/execd; in this case the file should be called execd.yml (without the leading period).

# log-level is the base log level of the process.
# 'info' should be a suitable log level, unless detailed information is
# required in which case 'debug' or 'trace' can be used.
log-level: info
# log-file specifies that log output should go to a file.  If this is not
# present log output will be to stderr.
log-file: /var/log/execd.log
execdb:
  # server is the server of the PostgreSQL database.
  server: localhost
  # port is the port of the PostgreSQL database.
  port: 5432
  # user is a user in the PostgreSQL database that has access to the 'exec' database.
  user: exec
  # password is the password of the user specified above.
  password: secret
# execclient contains configuration for the Ethereum client.
execclient:
  # log-level is the log level of the specific module.  If not present the base log
  # level will be used.
  log-level: debug
  # address is the address of the execution node.
  address: http://localhost:8545/
# blocks contains configuration for obtaining block-related information.
blocks:
  # enable states if this module will be operational.
  enable: true
  # address is a separate connection for this module.  If not present then
  # execd will use the global connection.
  address: http://otherhost:8544/
  # transactions handles transactions in blocks.
  transactions:
    # enable states that transaction data should be stored
    enable: true

Maintainers

Jim McDonald: @mcdee.

Contribute

Contributions welcome. Please check out the issues.

License

Apache-2.0 © 2021 Weald Technology Trading.