How to switch from full Geth node to Remote or Light client

Technical Support How-To
1

I’m an idiot and only set up my node with a 500GB SSD which is already 76% full. I’m thinking the simplest solution in the near term would be to just switch over to using the remote Geth option instead of further filling my drive. Or would using the light client reduce drive space? What is the proper process for making the switchover? Should I switch to the remote and then delete my Geth volume, or some other order of steps? Thanks for any details that could make the process go smoothly.

System Info below

Core DAppNode Packages versions

  • ipfs.dnp.dappnode.eth: 0.2.14
  • dappmanager.dnp.dappnode.eth: 0.2.37, commit: 2b96e582
  • core.dnp.dappnode.eth: 0.2.41
  • wifi.dnp.dappnode.eth: 0.2.5
  • bind.dnp.dappnode.eth: 0.2.6
  • vpn.dnp.dappnode.eth: 0.2.7, commit: 12ae223f

System info

  • docker version: Docker version 18.09.8-ce, build 0dd43dd87fd530113bf44c9bba9ad8b20ce4637f
  • docker compose version: docker-compose version 1.25.5, build unknown
  • platform: linux, x64, 5.9.0-4-amd64
  • Disk usage: 370870426010
2

Hi there!

Your best solution would be to switch to a light client and start syncing again using Geth, or whatever ETH1 provider you choose.

3

I finally went ahead and switched to the Geth light client today, but it seems to never initiate synching. Any ideas? Process just seems to hang here:

INFO [01-19|00:19:57.408] Starting Geth on Ethereum mainnet... 
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.408] Dropping default light client cache      provided=1024 updated=128
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.409] Maximum peer count                       ETH=0 LES=10 total=50
WARN [01-19|00:19:57.409] The flag --rpcapi is deprecated and will be removed in the future, please use --http.api 
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.409] Smartcard socket not found, disabling    err="stat /run/pcscd/pcscd.comm: no such file or directory"
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.409] Set global gas cap                       cap=25000000
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.409] Allocated cache and file handles         database=/root/.ethereum/geth/lightchaindata cache=64.00MiB handles=524288
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.426] Allocated cache and file handles         database=/root/.ethereum/geth/lespay         cache=16.00MiB handles=16
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.442] Initialised chain configuration          config="{ChainID: 1 Homestead: 1150000 DAO: 1920000 DAOSupport: true EIP150: 2463000 EIP155: 2675000 EIP158: 2675000 Byzantium: 4370000 Constantinople: 7280000 Petersburg: 7280000 Istanbul: 9069000, Muir Glacier: 9200000, YOLO v2: <nil>, Engine: ethash}"
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.442] Disk storage enabled for ethash caches   dir=/root/.ethereum/geth/ethash count=3
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.442] Disk storage enabled for ethash DAGs     dir=/root/.ethash               count=2
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.443] Added trusted checkpoint                 block=11042815 hash="d42b78…6c716b"
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.443] Loaded most recent local header          number=0 hash="d4e567…cb8fa3" td=17179869184 age=51y9mo2w
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.443] Configured checkpoint registrar          address=0x9a9070028361F7AAbeB3f2F2Dc07F82C4a98A02a signers=5 threshold=2
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.443] Starting peer-to-peer node               instance=Geth/v1.9.24-stable-cc05b050/linux-amd64/go1.15.5
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.461] UDP listener up                          net=enode://eca88b843e065232f3475689d4f4eb411ed8e66587c4d99e0d40a29a006e3ab2637a725cde18d33aacd98b7a9a3e925c3966c186ca5e3fe452d67f5eb93dc6f3@[::]:30303
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.464] New local node record                    seq=2 id=81a4129dac40d096 ip=127.0.0.1 udp=30303 tcp=30303
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.464] Started P2P networking                   self=enode://eca88b843e065232f3475689d4f4eb411ed8e66587c4d99e0d40a29a006e3ab2637a725cde18d33aacd98b7a9a3e925c3966c186ca5e3fe452d67f5eb93dc6f3@127.0.0.1:30303
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.464] IPC endpoint opened                      url=/root/.ethereum/geth.ipc
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.464] HTTP server started                      endpoint=[::]:8545 cors=* vhosts=*
INFO [01-19|00:19:57.464] WebSocket enabled                        url=ws://[::]:8546
WARN [01-19|00:19:57.464] Light client mode is an experimental feature
4

This issue was solved on this post: Geth Light Client will not sync