Running a Gatelayer Node

For production apps requiring reliable, unlimited RPC access.

Security

• Restrict RPC access — bind to 127.0.0.1 or a private interface, never expose RPC ports (8545/8546) to the public internet without authentication
• Firewall rules — only open ports 9222 (Discovery v5) and 30303 (P2P) to the public; block all other inbound traffic
• Run as a non-root user with minimal filesystem permissions
• Use TLS termination (reverse proxy with nginx/caddy) if exposing the RPC endpoint to remote clients
• Monitor for unauthorized access — log and alert on unexpected RPC calls or connection spikes

Hardware Requirements

• CPU: 8-Core minimum
• RAM: 16 GB minimum
• Storage: NVMe SSD, formula: (2 × chain_size) + snapshot_size + 20% buffer

Networking

Required Ports:

• Port 9222: Critical for geth Discovery v5
• Port 30303: P2P Discovery & RLPx

If these ports are blocked, the node will have difficulty finding peers and syncing.

Client Selection

Use Geth for Gatelayer nodes.

Geth provides:

• Better performance for high-throughput L2
• Built-in archive node support

Syncing

• Initial sync takes days
• Consumes significant RPC quota if using external providers
• Use snapshots to accelerate (check Gatelayer docs for URLs)

Sync Status

Incomplete sync indicator: Error: nonce has already been used when deploying.

Verify sync:

• Compare latest block with explorer
• Check peer connections
• Monitor logs for progress