Add PPA installation method for lighthouse packages

[superphiz]

Description

Installing and updating lighthouse is currently a manual process requiring extensive communication networks to ensure updates are pushed in a timely fashion. Providing updates through the debian/ubuntu personal package archive (PPA) system can vastly improve the installation experience and increase the security of the network by expediting client upgrades.

Version

N/A

Present Behaviour

Users download the release from github and install it manually, or build from source. This manual method increases downtime and is error-prone.

Expected Behaviour

Users should be able to add the lighthouse ppa and install lighthouse with the following command: sudo apt install -y lighthouse and use the standard apt update/upgrade system to maintain this package.

Steps to resolve

Set up a PPA for sigmp lighthouse and maintain it for the forseeable future.

[realbigsean]

I'm happy to add this + a publish to hombrew in #2077

[m0n5t3r]

I came up with this to do the manual updates and have https://github.com/sigp/lighthouse/releases.atom in my tt-rss to see when releases happen, but yeah, a PPA / snap would be nice

However, switching to a package may or may not be easy (not sure where you'd discuss the scope of this), because generally with a package that implements network services you get:

• a user (so you'd have to migrate existing data to somewhere in /var/lib)
• system service(s) (so extra parameters need to go in /etc/default/<servicename> in Debian / Ubuntu land, somewhere else in other distros)
• automatic service restarts on update (can cause missed attestations)

If this goes the way of geth (just provide the binary, user is responsible for how it runs), you still need to follow the github releases feed / something similar to know when to update / restart lighthouse (maybe you could use a combination of unattended-upgrades and a clever script that detects the version change, watches the log and restarts 1-2 slots after an attestation - might not be foolproof, but then again an ISP IP change seems to cause 3 missed attestations, missing one is not a tragedy right now)

[realbigsean]

It seems like Polkadot has a pretty good framework for how we could set this up: https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot/pull/1676/files

you still need to follow the github releases feed / something similar to know when to update / restart lighthouse

I think this is a reasonable and if and if users want to implement something more complicated, like you described, they can. But something more complicated might be risky to include in this repo, so a mistake doesn't take down a large portion of the network

[newearthmartin]

Hi, I just want to add to this conversation that I read this post https://lighthouse.sigmaprime.io/switch-to-lighthouse.html encouraging users to switch to lighthouse. I believe all the advantages mentioned in the article are true but if distribution packages are not present, it's a huge obstacle for adoption. All tutorials on setting up Lighthouse involve building it yourself (which I tried, and got compilation errors!) which is a great deterrent.

[paulhauner]

All tutorials on setting up Lighthouse involve building it yourself (which I tried, and got compilation errors!) which is a great deterrent.

There's also the option of downloading a pre-built binary, which completely avoids building from source: https://lighthouse-book.sigmaprime.io/installation-binaries.html

I'm also in support of distributing packages, just pointing that out.

[newearthmartin]

We are on the same page. I just wanted to link it to the article from Sigma trying to get people to adopt Lighthouse, so I believe that binary distribution will drive adoption. I know about the binary downloads, but all tutorials I saw are speaking of building it yourself.

[newearthmartin]

And then there is the issue that if you want to upgrade you need to manually download the binaries again.

[paulhauner]

And then there is the issue that if you want to upgrade you need to manually download the binaries again.

Are you contrasting this to the prysm.sh script on Prysm?

[newearthmartin]

that or geth which is installed via APT. In both cases you can program it to have the latest version automatically

[torfbolt]

Any news on this? geth, nimbus, nethermind all have binary packages available by now, just for lighthouse you still need to manually download a binary, 1990s style.

[michaelsproul]

@torfbolt I met someone who is working on Debian packages for all Eth nodes at the moment! Unfortunately it is extremely tedious and difficult to do correctly (in line with Debian packaging standards). You can keep track of their progress here: https://github.com/eenagy/eth-deb

If that doesn't pan out we can revisit this issue and try to hack together a dodgy PPA.