Syncing Geth to the Ethereum Blockchain
(Updated, 29th May 2018: I have written an update to this article. Consider reading Ethereum Geth Syncing 101 in 2018 instead.)
I run geth on my cloud server to sync with the Ethereum Blockchain. I start geth whenever I code and it goes into a round of resynchronization with the Blockchain. This takes anything from minutes (that’s if the last time I code is yesterday), or hours (if the last time I did this was months ago).
As of the time of writing, Ropsten (which I work on because ETHs are free here) is in block 1,911,915 and the main ethereum has reached block 4,399,227. If you do complete sync, it will take you 2 to 3 days or more.
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I took a break from Ethereum for more than a month after developing Go-Dutch and had the most painful experience restarting my work. The first reason is that Ropsten did a hard fork at around block 1.7m and whatever I have synced previously wouldn’t sync anymore. Then my version of geth at 1.6.7 wouldn’t sync after Ropster’s hard fork; it still runs but just keeps failing. So I had to upgrade to 1.7.2.
I will like to document what I have learnt so that others could benefit from my ordeal.
Fast Sync
