Snapshots

Restoring from a snapshot drastically reduces initial Base node sync time. Snapshots are refreshed regularly.

Restoring from a snapshot

These steps assume you are inside the cloned node directory (the one containing docker-compose.yml).

1. Prepare the data directory.

   • Before launching Docker for the first time, create the host directory that will be mapped into the container. The path must match the volumes entry in docker-compose.yml:

     mkdir ./reth-data

   • If a previous run left an existing data directory, stop the node first (docker compose down), wipe the contents (for example, rm -rf ./reth-data/*), then continue.

2. Download the snapshot. Pick the row that matches your network and client, and download into the node directory using wget or equivalent.

   Network	Snapshot type	Download command (wget …)
   Testnet	Archive (recommended)	wget -c https://sepolia-reth-archive-snapshots.base.org/$(curl https://sepolia-reth-archive-snapshots.base.org/latest)
   Testnet	Pruned	wget -c https://sepolia-reth-pruned-snapshots.base.org/$(curl https://sepolia-reth-pruned-snapshots.base.org/latest)
   Mainnet	Archive (recommended)	wget -c https://mainnet-reth-archive-snapshots.base.org/$(curl https://mainnet-reth-archive-snapshots.base.org/latest)
   Mainnet	Pruned	wget -c https://mainnet-reth-pruned-snapshots.base.org/$(curl https://mainnet-reth-pruned-snapshots.base.org/latest)

   Note

   Make sure you have enough free disk space for both the archive (.tar.gz / .tar.zst) and the extracted contents — extraction yields significantly more data than the archive itself.

3. Extract the snapshot. Replace snapshot-filename with the actual download:

   tar -xzvf <snapshot-filename.tar.gz>
   
   # For .tar.zst
   tar -I zstd -xvf <snapshot-filename.tar.zst>

4. Move the data into place. Extraction typically produces a reth/ directory.

   • Move its contents into the data directory created in step 1:

     mv ./reth/* ./reth-data/
     rm -rf ./reth    # remove the now-empty extracted folder

   • The chain data subdirectories (chaindata, nodes, segments, etc.) must sit directly under ./reth-data — not in a nested folder.

5. Start the node. Return to the root of your Base node folder and bring it up:

   cd ..
   docker compose up --build

   The node should pick up syncing from the last block recorded in the snapshot.

6. Verify and clean up. Tail the logs (docker compose logs -f <service_name>) or use the sync monitoring command to confirm the node starts at the snapshot’s block height. Once verified, delete the downloaded archive (.tar.gz) to reclaim disk space.

Proofs snapshots

If you run the historical proofs ExEx, proof database snapshots are available so you can skip the 24–48 hour backfill.

Network	Download command (wget …)
Testnet	wget -c https://sepolia-reth-proofs-snapshots.base.org/$(curl https://sepolia-reth-proofs-snapshots.base.org/latest)
Mainnet	wget -c https://mainnet-reth-proofs-snapshots.base.org/$(curl https://mainnet-reth-proofs-snapshots.base.org/latest)

The restore process matches the steps above — follow Restoring from a snapshot using this archive.