After building Parity from source:
- On Windows run:
target/release/parity.exe - On MacOS and Linux run:
target/release/parity
After installing Parity, just run parity from command line. See also how do I configure Parity below.
You can configure your Parity client by passing command-line flags to the executable. For usage instructions, see parity --usage and for a list of available flags, see parity --help or check out the CLI Options here.
In additoin, Parity can be configured using a TOML file. The file can be generated using the Parity Config Generator. To start parity with a config file, the file needs to be located in:
- Windows:
%UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Parity\Ethereum\config.toml - Linux:
~/.local/share/io.parity.ethereum/config.toml - macOS:
$HOME/Library/Application Support/io.parity.ethereum/config.toml
To use a custom path run $ parity --config path/to/config.toml. Read more on Parity config file here.
Install the following windows update: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2999226
Parity needs high amount of disk usage, and by default your system will allow it to block other programs to access the disk while it's reading and writing. On Linux you can use ionice, and newer versions of Windows should allow you to navigate to the process (named "parity.exe") in Task Manager, right click, open the "Process priority" sub-menu and select "Background". If this menu doesn't appear, you may need to select "More details" at the bottom of the window. A WikiHow article with a description of this process on Windows 7 can be found here, and the process is much the same for newer versions of Windows.
Since Parity 1.2 state-trie pruning is enabled by default (--pruning fast). You can disable it by setting the pruning method to archive which keeps all state trie data:
--pruning METHOD Configure pruning of the state/storage trie. METHOD
may be one of auto, archive, fast:
archive - keep all state trie data. No pruning.
fast - maintain journal overlay. Fast but 50MB used.
auto - use the method most recently synced or
default to fast if none synced (default: auto).
To reduce the size of the kept pruning history, you can set the minimum number of recent states with the --pruning-history flag:
--pruning-history NUM Set a minimum number of recent states to keep when pruning
is active. (default: 64).
--pruning-memory MB The ideal amount of memory in megabytes to use to store
recent states. As many states as possible will be kept
within this limit, and at least --pruning-history states
will always be kept. (default: 32)
By default, 64 states are kept.
Warp sync extends previous versions of the protocol with full state snapshots. These snapshots can be used to quickly get a full copy of the state at a given block. Every 30,000 blocks, nodes will take a consensus-critical snapshot of that block's state. Any node can fetch these snapshots over the network, enabling a fast sync. These snapshots have been designed with out-of-order restoration in mind -- it isn't required to get any given chunk before another.
See also what is Parity's “warp” sync at Ethereum Stack Exchange and read the full specification at the Wiki here.
To check whether Parity is currently synchronizing the chain, you can open the Web3 console and type:
web3.eth.syncingReturning true means the client is still busy fetching the chain. To get the latest block number, you can type:
web3.eth.getBlock('latest').numberThe Parity/Web3 console can be accessed via the UI in the 'Applications' tab.
Parity is running but seems to remain at the same block for a long time.
-
Make sure you have up to date version of Parity.
-
Go to http://time.is/ and ensure it says "Your time is exact":
If it isn't get it synced. Your machine will not automatically do this; my machine is routinely 1-2 seconds out of sync which is enough to disrupt peer discovery.
-
Make sure your network does not block UDP traffic.
-
Remove your nodes file (
$HOME/.local/share/io.parity.ethereum/network/nodes.json) while Parity is not running. -
Wait a bit longer.
If the problem persists, please run Parity with -l sync=trace option for a while and post the output here.
These blocks are quite heavy on the IO and take a long time to import, especially on machines with HDD. Consider using --warp or switching to SSD drive.
The light client is not finished yet, but on the road map for upcoming releases.
Transaction tracing, available in Parity 1.1 and above, enables all CALL/CREATE information (i.e. "internal transactions") to be efficiently searched and filtered. More information can be found on the dedicated Wiki page.
Either by enabling the personal web3 API and typing
web3.personal.newAccount()in the Web3 console, or by using the Parity Wallet UI to create or import accounts:
Docker images for Parity are available via Docker Hub, i.e.:
docker pull ethcore/parity:betaYou can view the Dockerfile here.
The versions installed with the Windows and MacOS X installers automatically configure and enable a system service.
To manually enable the system service for Parity installed with Homebrew, run:
sudo launchctl enable io.parity.ethereum
sudo launchctl start io.parity.ethereumTo manually enable the system service for Parity installed on Linux, get the parity.service file from GitHub.
sudo wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paritytech/parity/master/scripts/parity.service -O /etc/systemd/system/parity.service
sudo chmod +x /etc/systemd/system/parity.service
sudo systemctl enable parity
sudo systemctl start parityTo manually run Parity in daemon mode in background, run parity daemon.
If you run Parity in a terminal, hitting CTRL+C will cleanly exit it. Make sure to wait a couple of seconds.
To stop Parity started as system service, try to stop it with systemctl (Linux) or launchctl (MacOS):
sudo launchctl stop io.parity.ethereumAnother way, is to issue a hang-up (HUP) call for the Parity client, i.e.:
killall -HUP parity