Running an operator

CURRENT VERSION: Aligned Operator v0.20.0

IMPORTANT: You must be whitelisted to become an Aligned operator.

Requirements

This guide assumes you are already registered as an operator with EigenLayer.

Hardware Requirements

Minimum hardware requirements:

Component
Specification

CPU

16 cores

Memory

32 GB RAM

Bandwidth

1 Gbps

Storage

256 GB disk space

Supported Strategies

The list of supported strategies can be found here.

Step 1 - Clone the repo

To start with, clone the Aligned repository and move inside it

Step 2 - Building the Operator

Ensure you have the following installed:

Also, you have to install the following dependencies for Linux:

  • pkg-config

  • libssl-dev

  • g++

To install foundry, run:

To build the operator binary for Hoodi or Holesky, run:

To build the operator binary for Mainnet, run:

Upgrading the Operator

If you want to upgrade the operator in Hoodi or Holesky, run:

If you want to upgrade the operator in Mainnet, run:

This will recreate the binaries. You can then proceed to restart the operator.

You can find the latest version of the operator here.

Checking the Operator Version

To see the operator version, run:

This will display the current version of the operator binary.

Step 3 - Update the configuration for your specific Operator

Locate the appropiate operator_config_file:

  • Mainnet: ./config-files/config-operator-mainnet.yaml.

  • Holesky: ./config-files/config-operator-holesky.yaml.

  • Hoodi: ./config-files/config-operator-hoodi.yaml.

Update the following placeholders:

  • "<operator_address>"

  • "<earnings_receiver_address>"

  • "<ecdsa_key_store_location_path>"

  • "<ecdsa_key_store_password>"

  • "<bls_key_store_location_path>"

  • "<bls_key_store_password>"

"<ecdsa_key_store_location_path>" and "<bls_key_store_location_path>" are the paths to your keys generated with the EigenLayer CLI, "<operator_address>" and "<earnings_receiver_address>" can be found in the operator.yaml file created in the EigenLayer registration process.

The keys are stored by default in the ~/.eigenlayer/operator_keys/ directory, so for example <ecdsa_key_store_location_path> could be /path/to/home/.eigenlayer/operator_keys/some_key.ecdsa.key.json and for <bls_key_store_location_path> it could be /path/to/home/.eigenlayer/operator_keys/some_key.bls.key.json.

Don't keep the Operator Key in the Aligned Operator Node. If you already registered, don't use it. If you need to register, delete it after step 4.

The ECDSA key is only used for registration and funding of the operator and is not needed afterwards. It is recommended that you remove it after you're done, as well as the ecdsa section in the config file, or better yet for that data to never make it to the server (e.g., you run the registration from a machine without listening ports). If you run the registration on the server, it's recommended to do this part on a RAM filesystem to ease secure removal, and only after removing the ecdsa section move the config file to persistent storage.

If you run on a different computer, you will need to copy the BLS key store to the server.

Two RPCs are used, one as the main one, and the other one as a fallback in case one node is working unreliably.

Default configurations is set up to use the same public node in both scenarios.

PUBLIC NODES SHOULDN'T BE USED AS THE MAIN RPC. We recommend not using public nodes at all.

FALLBACK AND MAIN RPCs SHOULD BE DIFFERENT.

Most of the actions will pass through the main RPC unless there is a problem with it. Events are fetched from both nodes.

Step 4 - Register Operator on AlignedLayer

Then you must register as an Operator on AlignedLayer. To do this, you must run:

  • Mainnet:

  • Holesky:

  • Hoodi:

If you are going to run the server in this machine, delete the operator key

Step 5 - Start the operator

  • Mainnet:

  • Holesky:

  • Hoodi:

Run Operator using Systemd

To manage the Operator process on Linux systems, we recommend use systemd with the following configuration:

You should create a user and a group in order to run the Operator and set the service unit to use that. In the provided service unit, we assume you have already created a user called aligned

aligned-operator.service is just an arbitrary name. You can name your service as you wish, following the format <service-name>.service.

Once you have configured the aligned-operator.service file, you need to run the following commands:

All paths must be absolute.

Those commands will link the service to systemd directory and then, will start the Operator service.

Also, if the server running the operator goes down, systemd will start automatically the Operator on server startup.

Restart operator

If you want to restart the operator, you can use the following command:

Get Operators logs

Once you are running your operator using systemd, you can get its logs using journalctl as follows:

Operator Metrics

Metrics are exposed by default at localhost:9092/metrics in Prometheus format. To change the endpoint, update the following line in the configuration file:

Example of exposed metrics:

You can scrape these metrics using Prometheus and visualize them in Grafana or configure alerts based on the data.

Unregistering the operator

To unregister the Aligned operator, run:

  • Mainnet:

  • Holesky:

  • Hoodi:

<private_key> is the one specified in the output when generating your keys with the EigenLayer CLI.

Deposit Strategy Tokens in Holesky

We are using WETH as the strategy token.

To do so, there are two options, either doing it through EigenLayer's website, and following their guide, or running the commands specified by us below.

You will need to stake a minimum of 1000 WEI in WETH. We recommend to stake a maximum amount of 10 WETH. If you are staking more than 10 WETH please unstake any surplus over 10.

Option 1

EigenLayer's restaking documentation can be found here (general restaking overview).

Option 2

If you have ETH and need to convert it to WETH you can use the following command, that will convert 1 ETH to WETH. Make sure to have foundry already installed. Change the parameter in ---value if you want to wrap a different amount:

Here <private_key> is the placeholder for the ECDSA key specified in the output when generating your keys with the EigenLayer CLI.

Finally, to end the staking process, you need to deposit into the WETH strategy, as shown in the EigenLayer guide.

An alternative using the CLI

Run the following command to deposit one WETH

If you don't have Holesky ETH, these are some useful faucets:

Deposit Strategy Tokens in Hoodi

You can restake stETH as the strategy token.

You will need to stake a minimum of 1000 WEI in stETH. We recommend to stake a maximum amount of 10 stETH. If you are staking more than 10 stETH please unstake any surplus over 10.

If you already have ETH and need to convert it to stETH, you can get it from Lido Website.

Finally, to end the staking process, you need to deposit into the stETH strategy,

There are two options, either doing it through EigenLayer's website, or running the commands specified by us below.

Option 1

To restake through EigenLayer's website, go to stETH strategy.

Option 2

To deposit one stETH using the Operator CLI, run the following command:

Where 0x19536FAd6Eb831e8211B316177979161BBdb2c2B is the stETH strategy address in Hoodi.

If you don't have Hoodi ETH, these are some useful faucets:

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