Migrate to Hyperledger Besu
Switch from OpenEthereum or Multi-Geth
Why are nodes important?
Nodes make up the backbone of blockchain networks. The health and resilience of a blockchain rely on having many independently operated and geographically deployed full nodes. These nodes verify transactions and help propagate blocks across the network. Simply put, a node is just a piece of software running on a computer. Any service that uses the ETC network, from Dapps to mining pools and even exchanges, depends on node infrastructure.
Why migrate to Besu now?
The development team behind OpenEthereum (formerly Parity-Ethereum) and the core developer behind Multi-Geth, Wei Tang, recently announced they’ve both discontinued support for the ETC network. As such, those node clients will no longer support any future hard fork upgrades. According to the Ethereum Classic node statistics site, ETCNodes.org, the two clients mentioned above make up ~23% of live network nodes. We recommend that all ETC node operators migrate to Hyperledger Besu, and recommend miners use Core Geth until mining capability is optimized in Besu. It’s highly recommend to use node client software that offers long term support (LTS), of which both Hyperledger-Besu and Core-Geth are developed and maintained by dedicated and full-time core teams. If you are currently running ETC on Open Ethereum or Multi-Geth you will be unable to connect to the chain once ETC undergoes the next network upgrade.
How to migrate?
Migrating node clients on a live network while minimizing disruption isn’t too tricky. Below, Geth-Ethereum developer, Kunal Roy, has created a simple set of 8 steps to make the switch which you can follow below.
1. Remove dependence on running Parity, OpenEthereum, or Multi-Geth specific namespace methods
2. Remove reliance on Parity, OpenEthereum, or Multi-Geth specific response fields
3. Remove reliance on API specific responses for bad requests
4. Remove dependence on Parity, OpenEthereum, or Multi-Geth specific error codes
5. Prepare Hyperledger Besu hardware
6. Set up Besu client software
7. Run application-specific traffic tests and simulations on nodes
8. Switch traffic over to Besu and monitor the service
Why use Besu?
Hyperledger Besu is an open-source Ethereum client written in Java, developed under the Apache 2.0 license. Besu is developed and maintained by a group of experienced, enterprise-level developers. As such, Besu supports enterprise-grade features such as permissioning and privacy and typical ones like a command-line interface and JSON-RPC API for interacting with the software. Its modular design supports both Proof-of-Work (ethash) and Proof of Authority (IBFT, Clique) consensus mechanisms.
More features will be added that make the node client more robust. Once ready, Besu will likely implement MESS (Modified Exponential Subjective Scoring) to prevent large reoganizations. Also, developers are working to implement more sophisticated mining functionality to make Besu an all-in-one node client. Besu is the only enterprise-level ETC node software of its kind, offering more features than other ETC node software, and backed by an experienced team of developers. We highly recommend switching to Besu as soon as possible.
By Kevin Lord — ETC Cooperative Community Manager
Sources:
https://besu.hyperledger.org/en/stable/HowTo/Get-Started/Install-Binaries
https://github.com/etclabscore/core-geth
https://blog.alchemyapi.io/authors/kunal-roy
https://github.com/openethereum/openethereum
https://www.coindesk.com/openethereum-supported-50-of-ethereum-classic-now-its-leaving-the-project
