Run Citrea Full Node

Running a Citrea node is permissionless - anyone can run a full node for development & security purposes.

The easiest way to run a Citrea Full Node is to use the docker-compose.yml that we prepared for you:

Step 1: Install Docker

Follow instructions to install Docker here.

Step 2: Run using Docker Compose

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/chainwayxyz/citrea/refs/heads/main/docker-compose.yml --output docker-compose.yml
docker compose -f docker-compose.yml up

This spins up a Bitcoin Testnet4 and Citrea Full Node for you to use quickly.

Please note that there are no financial incentives to run a Citrea Full Node. It's for your own development setup and security practices.

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We've combined these two methods using a Docker Compose file above. However, if you do not want to use Docker Compose & do your own modifications, please proceed with the rest of this section.

To sync with Citrea Testnet, you essentially need to:

1. Run a Bitcoin Testnet4 Node

2. Run a Citrea Full Node

Step 3: Check the sync status

You can check the status with the following command (you may need to arrange the URL at the end based on your setup):

curl -X POST --header "Content-Type: application/json" --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"citrea_syncStatus","params":[], "id":31}' http://0.0.0.0:8080

A sample response (fields may vary based on the sync status):

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 31,
  "result": {
    "l1Status": {
      "Synced": 46916
    },
    "l2Status": {
      "Syncing": {
        "headBlockNumber": 252441,
        "syncedBlockNumber": 123425
      }
    }
  }
}

Hardware Requirements for running a node

A Linux/Mac/Windows system with a configuration of

• 8 GB Ram

• 256 GB SSD (NVMe recommended)

• 4 core CPU

• 25+ Mbps network connection

should satisfy the minimum requirements to run a Citrea node.

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If you encounter any problems during the node running even though you have a system that fits the requirements, please visit our Discord and let us now by opening a ticket.