Validator Manager

Introduction

The lighthouse validator-manager tool provides utilities for managing validators on a running Lighthouse Validator Client. The validator manager performs operations via the HTTP API of the validator client (VC). Due to limitations of the keymanager-APIs, only Lighthouse VCs are fully supported by this command.

The validator manager tool is similar to the lighthouse account-manager tool, except the latter creates files that will be read by the VC next time it starts whilst the former makes instant changes to a live VC.

The account-manager is ideal for importing keys created with the ethstaker-deposit-cli. On the other hand, the validator-manager is ideal for moving existing validators between two VCs or for advanced users to create validators at scale with less downtime.

The validator-manager boasts the following features:

• One-line command to arbitrarily move validators between two VCs, maintaining the slashing protection database.
• Generates deposit files compatible with the Ethereum Staking Launchpad.
• Generally involves zero or very little downtime.
• The "key cache" is preserved whenever a validator is added with the validator manager, preventing long waits at start up when a new validator is added.

Guides

• Creating and importing validators using the create and import commands.
• Moving validators between two VCs using the move command.
• Managing validators such as exit, delete, import and list validators.