Run a tracing node

Geth's debug and txpool APIs and OpenEthereum's trace module provide non-standard RPC methods for getting a deeper insight into transaction processing. As part of Moonbeam's goal of providing a seamless Ethereum experience for developers, there is support for some of these non-standard RPC methods. Supporting these RPC methods is an important milestone because many projects, such as The Graph (opens new window)or Blockscout (opens new window), rely on them to index blockchain data.

To use the supported RPC methods, you need to run a tracing node, which is slightly different than running a full node. There is a different Docker image, called purestake/moonbeam-tracing that needs to be used for tracing. Additional flags will also need to be used to tell the node which of the non-standard features to support.

This guide will show you how to get started running a tracing node on Moonbeam with the debug, txpool, and tracing flags enabled.