We will set up 1 bootnode and 2 geth nodes in 3 different servers. They will form the network for the EVM chain. All the nodes will run in containers.

My setup

• I created 3 droplets on digitalocean (CentOS; shared CPU; 1GB 1Core)

• install and start docker (with the compose plugin) in all droplets

Step 1: set up bootnode (droplet A)

first create boot.key

mkdir /root/devnet/ && docker run -d --rm -v /root:/root ethereum/client-go:alltools-latest bootnode --genkey=/root/devnet/boot.key

then create a compose file and run docker compose up -d:

services:
  bootnode:
    image: ethereum/client-go:alltools-latest
    container_name: bootnode
    command:
      [
        'bootnode',
        '--nodekey=/root/devnet/boot.key',
        '-addr=:30303',
        '-verbosity=5',
      ]
    ports:
      - '30303:30303/udp'
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - /root:/root

in docker compose log, you will see a encode URL like this:

enode://<REDACTED>@127.0.0.1:0?discport=30303

replace 127.0.0.1:0 with <the public IP>:30303 and take it down some where. We will refer it as encodeURL later.

Step 2: create account (droplet B and C)

echo 123456 > /root/devnet/password.txt
docker run -d --rm -v /root:/root ethereum/client-go:alltools-latest geth account new --password /root/devnet/password.txt

then you can find the address by ls /root/.ethereum/keystore/

you will see a file: UTC--2022-10-28…--<address> where you can extract the address.

Step 3: create genesis file

you can run this command in any server to create the genesis file (Note: don’t forget to export the file to /root/devnet/devnet.json)

docker run -it --rm -v /root:/root ethereum/client-go:alltools-latest puppeth

you should provide the two addresses generated in previous step for these questions:

• Which accounts are allowed to seal?

• Which accounts should be pre-funded?

then modify the "nonce" field to be a random value as recommended here

last, copy the genesis file to both droplet B and C

Step 4: init genesis block and start the node (droplet B and C)

docker run -d --rm -v /root:/root ethereum/client-go:alltools-latest geth init /root/devnet/devnet.json

then create a compose file and run docker compose up -d:

services:
  geth:
    image: ethereum/client-go
    container_name: geth
    command:
      [
        '--syncmode=full',
        '--bootnodes=<encodeURL>',
        '--port=30303',
        '--http',
        '--http.addr=0.0.0.0',
        '--networkid=<read from the genesis file>',
        '--mine',
        '--miner.threads=1',
        '--miner.gasprice=1',
        '--unlock=<step2 generated address>',
        '--password=/root/devnet/password.txt',
        '--allow-insecure-unlock',
      ]
    ports:
      - '8545:8545'
      - '30303:30303'
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - /root:/root

Step 5: verify

in the bootnode server, run docker compose log you should see:

bootnode  | TRACE[10-29|03:28:44.657] << FINDNODE/v4                           id=<REDACTED> addr=<REDACTED>  err=nil
bootnode  | TRACE[10-29|03:28:44.657] >> NEIGHBORS/v4                          id=<REDACTED> addr=<REDACTED>  err=nil

in the other servers, you should see:

geth  | INFO [10-29|00:32:41.507] Looking for peers                        peercount=1 tried=0 static=0
geth  | INFO [10-29|00:32:43.326] Successfully sealed new block            number=42 sealhash=<REDACTED> hash=<REDACTED> elapsed=14.483s
geth  | INFO [10-29|00:32:43.326] 🔨 mined potential block                  number=42 hash=<REDACTED>
geth  | INFO [10-29|00:32:43.327] Commit new sealing work                  number=43 sealhash=<REDACTED> uncles=0 txs=0 gas=0 fees=0 elapsed="269.928µs"

you can also run:

docker run -it --rm -v /root:/root ethereum/client-go:alltools-latest geth attach
> eth.blockNumber

and you will see the blockNumber increasing.

congrats on spinning up your own EVM chain!

References:

• Setup your own private Proof-of-Authority Ethereum network with Geth

• Operating a private network

• Go Ethereum: Private Networks