​
Overview

Welcome to the first installment of the Help secure Starknet guide! 🛡️ By operating your own full node, you become part of the distributed network that validates transactions, preserves blockchain history, and ensures Starknet remains decentralized and censorship-resistant. This installment of the series will thereforewalk you though downloading a data snapshot and using it to run your own Pathfinder node.
To run a Juno node, see the Juno documentation.

​
Prerequisites

​
Installing docker

The easiest option to run a Starknet full node is using Docker. To install Docker, simply visit docs.docker.com/get-started/get-docker and choose whatever OS you’re using.

​
Exporting an Ethereum URL

Running a Starknet full node requires an Ethereum websocket RPC URL. You can get your free Ethereum websocket RPC URL by creating an account with Alchemy, Infura, or Quicknode. Afterwhich, you can export it by running: 
export ETHEREUM_URL=<YOUR_URL>

​
Downloading a snapshot

Running a full node involves using your local machine’s storage to maintain a full database of the blockchain, all the way from the genesis block. Database snapshots let you quickly start your node without having to download all blocks from the very beginning, and instead use a pre-made version of the database that’s already in sync up to a certain block. To download Pathfinder’s snapshot, you first need to download the rclone file manager by running: 
sudo -v ; curl https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash
This installation script can be used to install rclone on Linux/macOS/BSD systems. For other installation methods, see rclone.org/install.
Once rclone is downloaded, create a new rclone configuration file: 
touch $HOME/.config/rclone/rclone.conf
and add the following content: 
[pathfinder-snapshots]
type = s3
provider = Cloudflare
env_auth = false
access_key_id = 7635ce5752c94f802d97a28186e0c96d
secret_access_key = 529f8db483aae4df4e2a781b9db0c8a3a7c75c82ff70787ba2620310791c7821
endpoint = https://cbf011119e7864a873158d83f3304e27.r2.cloudflarestorage.com
acl = private
Next, create a new $HOME/pathfinder directory, navigate into it, and use rclone to copy Pathfinder’s latest database snapshot to your local directory by running: 
mkdir $HOME/pathfinder
cd $HOME/pathfinder
rclone copy -P pathfinder-snapshots:pathfinder-snapshots/<FILENAME> snapshot.sqlite.zst
Once the database snapshot is downloaded, compare the file’s checksum value with the one shown at rpc.pathfinder.equilibrium.co/snapshots/latest by running: 
sha256sum snapshot.sqlite.zst
If the checksum values match, extract the downloaded database snapshot by running: 
zstd -T0 -d snapshot.sqlite.zst -o snapshot.sqlite

​
Using the snapshot

Now that the database snapshot is extracted, you can start your node by running: 
docker run \
  --name pathfinder \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  --detach \
  -p 9545:9545 \
  --user "$(id -u):$(id -g)" \
  -e RUST_LOG=info \
  -e PATHFINDER_ETHEREUM_API_URL=$ETHEREUM_URL \
  -v $HOME/pathfinder:/usr/share/pathfinder/data \
  eqlabs/pathfinder
Once the docker container is up and running, you can check the docker image’s logs by running: 
docker logs -f pathfinder
If successful, the result should resemble the following: 
2025-05-12T18:29:45  INFO Downloading block 766533
2025-05-12T18:30:36  INFO Updated Starknet state with block 766534
2025-05-12T18:31:07  INFO Updated Starknet state with block 766535
2025-05-12T18:31:35  INFO Updated Starknet state with block 766536
2025-05-12T18:32:12  INFO Downloading block 766537
To stop the node’s execution, run:
docker stop pathfinder