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Change the validator hardware requirements and add CPU features

Open rach-id opened this issue 2 months ago • 5 comments

Similar to https://github.com/celestiaorg/celestia-app/issues/5932, we need to update the docs to reflect the new hardware changes

rach-id avatar Oct 07 '25 03:10 rach-id

In order to deliver 128mb/6s blocks, we need to increase our validator's hardware requirements. These requirements are mainly for CPU, which should support GFNI instructions and optionally support SHA_NI instructions.

These requirements are not necessary for 32mb/6s, but it would be good to have validators think about upgrading their hardware beforehand.

Intel CPUs that support GFNI

Most new CPUs from intel, starting from Ice lake support GFNI. However, some series don't, so node operators need to run the check below to double check.

AMD CPUs that support GFNI

AMD CPUs support GFNI starting Zen4.

How to check

In order to check whether the CPU supports GFNI or SHA_NI, on linux, you can run:

grep -o -E 'sha_ni|gfni' /proc/cpuinfo

And if the CPU supports them, they will be printed:

sha_ni
gfni

i looked at the issue, are the above the new requirements? we recently updated spec requirements: https://github.com/celestiaorg/docs/commit/8451e43056d61252dafd096c0a6b90f18117f51a

jcstein avatar Oct 07 '25 14:10 jcstein

Yes, we want to bump the requirements for consensus validator nodes to 32 CPU supporting GFNI and optionally SHA_NI.

However, we don't want to include this change for 32mb/6s, but for 128mb/6s. That's why we should wait until we're done with the v6 upgrade not to confuse validators.

rach-id avatar Oct 07 '25 14:10 rach-id

should we change archival requirements?

https://docs.celestia.org/how-to-guides/nodes-overview#archival-consensus-nodes

jcstein avatar Oct 16 '25 14:10 jcstein

*Archival disk requirement is based on the current v6 32MB/6s throughput at maximum capacity. In reality the requirement can be much lower and we advise regularly checking disk usage and having at least 1 month worth of max throughput of extra disk space (8TiB).

jcstein avatar Oct 16 '25 14:10 jcstein

tracking here: https://github.com/celestiaorg/celestia-app/issues/6046

jcstein avatar Oct 21 '25 14:10 jcstein

do we have hardware recs in the docs? if so can we update here @jcstein ?

evan-forbes avatar Nov 10 '25 13:11 evan-forbes

I will prepare some document and link it here

rach-id avatar Nov 10 '25 15:11 rach-id

they were updated recently. can you please double check? https://docs.celestia.org/how-to-guides/nodes-overview#recommended-celestia-node-requirements

jcstein avatar Nov 11 '25 15:11 jcstein

Yes, these are for 32mb/6s. We will need new ones for 128mb/6s. Created for more information: https://github.com/celestiaorg/celestia-app/pull/6172

rach-id avatar Nov 11 '25 15:11 rach-id

should this only be done once it's live on mainnet?

jcstein avatar Nov 11 '25 16:11 jcstein

yes, I don't want to confuse validators

rach-id avatar Nov 11 '25 17:11 rach-id