Running an operator

CURRENT VERSION: Aligned Operator v0.3.0

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

Supported Verifiers

The following is the list of the verifiers currently supported by Aligned:

The following proof systems are going to be added soon:

  • 🔲 Kimchi

  • 🔲 Halo2 - Plonk/KZG

  • 🔲 Halo2 - Plonk/IPA

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

Step 1 - Clone the repo

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

git clone https://github.com/yetanotherco/aligned_layer.git --branch v0.3.0
cd aligned_layer

Step 2 - Building the Operator

We recommend building from source whenever possible. If using the docker image, these steps can be skipped.

Ensure you have the following installed:

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

  • pkg-config

  • libssl-dev

To install foundry, run:

make install_foundry
foundryup

To build the operator binary, run:

make build_operator

Upgrading the Operator

If you want to upgrade the operator, run:

make update_operator

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:

./operator/build/aligned-operator --version

This will display the current version of the operator binary.

Step 3 - Update the configuration for your specific Operator

Update the following placeholders in ./config-files/config-operator.yaml:

  • "<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.

Step 4 - Deposit Strategy Tokens

We are using WETH as the strategy token.

To do so there are 2 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 a 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 guide can be found here.

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 installed. Change the parameter in ---value if you want to wrap a different amount:

cast send 0x94373a4919B3240D86eA41593D5eBa789FEF3848 --rpc-url https://ethereum-holesky-rpc.publicnode.com --private-key <private_key> --value 1ether

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 (only when running without docker)

Run the following command to deposit one WETH

./operator/build/aligned-operator deposit-into-strategy --config ./config-files/config-operator.yaml --strategy-address 0x80528D6e9A2BAbFc766965E0E26d5aB08D9CFaF9 --amount 1000000000000000000

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

Step 5 - Start the operator

./operator/build/aligned-operator start --config ./config-files/config-operator.yaml

Unregistering the operator

To unregister the Aligned operator, run:

cast send --rpc-url https://ethereum-holesky-rpc.publicnode.com --private-key <private_key> 0x3aD77134c986193c9ef98e55e800B71e72835b62 'deregisterOperator(bytes)' 0x00

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

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