Medalla package feedback

Product and Content
1

Hi team, installed the new Medalla package and wanted to give some constructive feedback.
First and foremost, this was a really good experience! I had no major problems getting the beaconchain and validator client packages installed and running (am currently running lighthouse with multiple validators). Process looked smooth and understandable – like the validator manager and its enhancement now from the Witti/Altona packages – the drag and drop import of your keystore files I really like!

Couple of minor issues to flag:

  • I had an issue during install with creating the password for the validator manager (and I see this logged already). Cannot create a password with special characters it would seem. Created a simpler one and continued without a problem. (Didn’t have any problem later on with special characters in the wallet passphrase being handled in the validator manager - all good there)
  • I have proposed a couple of blocks on Medalla already and note that my Graffiti although correctly configured in the validator package is not getting recorded on chain? (need them POAPs!).
  • Small typo on the “Validator client status section” of the validator manager “Runing for” also length of time running is not showing correctly

Couple of low prio questions/wish-list items:

  • Keen to see a DMS dashboard for Medalla (current link in validator manager goes to Altona dashboard). I’m sure this is WiP anyway!
  • Would like to see the validator index number on the validator manager in addition to the pubkeys? Don’t know about anyone else but the index reference is so much easier to use than the pubkeys for monitoring
  • I had a more general question on the Eth2 withdrawl key public address. I was surprised to not see it provided as part of the Eth2 Launchpad. I know it can be gotten from the key manager but if you are preparing to exit you’ll want it and I wonder if it has a place then on validator dashboard or as part of a “validator exit” function there? (appreciate this a rather edge case for now)
  • The Beaconchain and its summary status not shown as a chain on the main DappNode Dashboard page or chain status drop down
  • Any plans for more packages? Would be keen to see/test others over time
  • Any plans to support multiple simultaneous clients? I would ideally like to run 2 for diversity/redundancy purposes come mainnet

Thanks for all your efforts!

2 Likes
2

yes! thank you!

the experience was very good!

still testing but i upgraded the medalla package and it wiped out all validators.i had to import them again

3

Great feedback and I would echo a lot of the points. Your last suggestion about running multiple clients simultaneously would be a nice have in case there is an issue on one or stakers would like jump to another client in support of client diversity. However, great care would be needed to ensure a staker cannot run validator keys on both clients simultaneously for risk of being slashed.

4

Thanks for the great feedback!

  • DMS Dashboard being done as we speak
  • Next version of the Medalla validator should include all the non essential but good to have: validator index, be able to exit, export keystores, etc
  • Eth2 withdrawal could be eventually generated from your Eth2 Launchpad mnemonic. Since they are of zero use now, tools don’t bother to generate them.
  • More clients of the way for sure!
  • Running multiple simultaneous clients is tricky. I’m not keen to add the feature for risks of slashing.

Looking into the future I want to embrace a remote signer architecture. With that, I think it would be much safer to have multiple validator clients running simultaneously.

2 Likes
5

Great to hear, thanks a lot for the update :+1:

6

on another (dapp?) node? :wink:

people may run multiple clients if it’s not supported by dappnode and be at greater risk of slashing.

an idea is the validator ui could have another column for client. each row has a switch for client, so there is no way for the switch to run more than one client per validator.

it is strange if the future dappnode only allows one type of client to be running at one time.