# Adding Ephemery to Lodestar: running with Geth

**tldr;**
This time when Lodestar launches on ephemery and looks for the EL client, I want it to find Geth.

pk910's initial Lodestar configuration essentially downloads the latest ephemery settings based on whatever is saved at https://ephemery.dev/latest/genesis.ssz and https://ephemery.dev/latest/bootstrap_nodes.txt.

export const depositContractDeployBlock = 0;
export const genesisFileUrl = "https://ephemery.dev/latest/genesis.ssz";
export const bootnodesFileUrl = "https://ephemery.dev/latest/bootstrap_nodes.txt";

First up, I want to check I can use this approach to sync with Geth.
Then, when I am sure that my Lodestar launch command correctly gathers the latest ephemery settings, my plan is to replace the ephemery downloads with the genesis included inside the Lodestar executable.

**Syncing with Geth**

* Get the latest ephemery version
https://github.com/ephemery-testnet/ephemery-genesis/releases
* Delete geth datadir and make sure that Geth is initialized with the latest ephemery version
`./geth --datadir ../gethData init ../ephemery/genesis.json`

* Launch Geth
`./geth --datadir ../gethData --port 30303 --http --http.addr 0.0.0.0 --http.port 8545 --http.api eth,net,personal,web3 --ws --ws.addr 0.0.0.0 --ws.port 8546 --ws.api eth,net,personal,web3 --authrpc.jwtsecret=/tmp/jwtsecret --syncmode=full --bootnodes "enode://0f2c301a9a3f9fa2ccfa362b79552c052905d8c2982f707f46cd29ece5a9e1c14ecd06f4ac951b228f059a43c6284a1a14fce709e8976cac93b50345218bf2e9@135.181.140.168:30343" --networkid 39438090`

* Launch Lodestar `./lodestar beacon --network ephemery`

**Troubleshooting Lodestar error**

`ECONNREFUSED ::1:8551`

Lodestar won't connect to port 8551, whether Geth is running or not.

Checking the logs, the Lodestar root isn't the latest genesis state root that I can see in the ephemery settings.

The datadir path can be seen in the logs
`Connected to LevelDB database path=/Users/hollyatkinson/.local/share/lodestar/ephemery/chain-db`

- [x] Deleted datadir and tried again.

Lodestar logs:
`stateRoot=0xc37ddf2675dc311def8a4011fb1e066b11960c99b2b5a64cc5826730764b9e91`

State root is still incorrect;
- [x] Check link refers to latest genesis ssz (server run by pk910, he is pushing the latest files there automatically with a script)
- [x] Check jwt path

**Solution**: currently still need to pass Lodestar the jwt flag:
`./lodestar beacon --network ephemery --jwt-secret=/tmp/jwtsecret`

**Creating ephemery package in Lodestar**

- [x] Added ephemery package

**Additional reading**
- [ ] https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/data-structures-and-encoding/ssz/
- [x] https://github.com/ChainSafe/ssz/tree/master/packages/ssz
- [x] https://www.ssz.dev/overview
- [ ] https://eth2book.info/capella/part2/building_blocks/ssz/