nimbus-eth2/docs/the_nimbus_book/src/attestation-performance.md

Attestation performance

ncli_db validatorPerf is an advanced tool that helps you analyze the performance of your validator over time.

The tool requires that you built nimbus from source.

Steps

Make sure you're in the nimbus-eth2 repository.

1. Build ncli_db

The first step is to build ncli_db:

make ncli_db

2. View options

To view the options available to you, run:

build/ncli_db --help

At the top you should see

ncli_db [OPTIONS]... command

The following options are available:

 --db           Directory where `nbc.sqlite` is stored.
 --network      The Eth2 network preset to use.

Where:

• The network can be mainnet, prater, or sepolia

• The default location of the db is build/data/shared_mainnet_0/db for mainnet, build/data/shared_prater_0/db for prater, etc.

Near the bottom, you should see

ncli_db validatorPerf [OPTIONS]...

The following options are available:

 --start-slot   Starting slot, negative = backwards from head [=-128 * SLOTS_PER_EPOCH.int64].
 --slots        Number of slots to run benchmark for, 0 = all the way to head [=0].

Use start-slot and slots to restrict the analysis on a specific block range.

3. Run

To view the performance of all validators on Prater so far across the entire block range stored in your database, run:

build/ncli_db validatorPerf \
--network=prater \
--db=build/data/shared_prater_0/db

You should see output that looks like to the following:

validator_index,attestation_hits,attestation_misses,head_attestation_hits,head_attestation_misses,target_attestation_hits,target_attestation_misses,delay_avg,first_slot_head_attester_when_first_slot_empty,first_slot_head_attester_when_first_slot_not_empty
0,128,0,127,1,128,0,1.0078125,0,3
1,128,0,125,3,127,1,1.0078125,0,2
2,128,0,127,1,127,1,1.0078125,0,5
...

4. Adjust to target a specific block range

To restrict the analysis to the performance between slots 0 and 128, say, run:

build/ncli_db validatorPerf \
--network=prater \
--db=build/data/shared_prater_0/db \
--start-slot=0 \
--slots=128

5. Compare my validators to the global average

We'll use Paul Hauner's wonderful workbook as a template. This workbook consists of three inter-related spreadsheets - Summary, My Validators, and datasource.

1. Make a copy of the document

2. Remove the table entries in My Validators and delete everything in the datasource sheet

3. Import the output from validatorPerf to datasource - the easiest way to do this is to pipe the output to a csv, remove the first few lines, and import the csv into datasource

4. Manually copy over your validator(s) to the My Validators sheet - the easiest way to find your validator's validator_index is to search for it by its public key on beaconcha.in (for example, this validator's index is 115733)

5. Go to the Summary page and view your results

Resources

The workbook's method is explained here.