description: Introduction to tracing EVM transactions using Geth
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title: EVM Tracing
sort-key: A
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Tracing allows users to examine precisely what was executed by the EVM during some specific transaction or set of transactions. There are two different types of [transactions](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/transactions) in Ethereum: value transfers and contract executions. A value transfer just moves ETH from one account to another. A contract interaction executes some code stored at a contract address which can include altering stored data and transacting multiple times with other contracts and externally-owned accounts. A contract execution transaction can therefore be a complicated web of interactions that can be difficult to unpick. The transaction receipt contains a status code that shows whether the transaction succeeded or failed, but more detailed information is not readily available, meaning it is very difficult to know what a contract execution actually did, what data was modified and which addresses were touched. This is the problem that EVM tracing solves. Geth traces transactions by re-running them locally and collecting data about precisely what was executed by the EVM.
Also see this [Devcon 2022 talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8RdmGsilfU) on tracing in Geth.
@ -17,9 +22,6 @@ In its simplest form, tracing a transaction entails requesting the Ethereum node
This means there are limits on the transactions that can be traced imposed by the synchronization and pruning configuration of a node:
- An **archive** node retains **all historical data** back to genesis. It can therefore trace arbitrary transactions at any point in the history of the chain. Tracing a single transaction requires reexecuting all preceding transactions in the same block.
- A **node synced from genesis** node only retains the most recent 128 block states in memory. Older states are represented by a sequence of occasional checkpoints that intermediate states can be regenerated from. This means that states within the msot recent 128 blocks are immediately available, older states have to be regenerated from snapshots "on-the-fly". If the distance between the requested transaction and the most recent checkpoint is large, rebuilding the state can take a long time. Tracing a single transaction requires reexecuting all preceding transactions in the same block **and** all preceding blocks until the previous stored snapshot.
@ -30,6 +32,11 @@ This means there are limits on the transactions that can be traced imposed by th
- A **light synced** node retrieving data **on demand** can in theory trace transactions for which all required historical state is readily available in the network. This is because the data required to generate the trace is requested from an les-serving full node. In practice, data
*This image shows the state stored by each sync-mode - red indicates stored state. The full width of each line represents origin to present head*
More detailed information about syncing is available on the [sync modes page](/pages/docs/fundamentals/sync-modes.md).
When a trace of a specific transaction is executed, the state is prepared by fetching the state of the parent block from the database. If it is not available, Geth will crawl backwards in time to find the next available state but only up to a limit defined in the `reexec` parameter which defaults to 128 blocks. If no state is available within the `reexec` window then the trace fails with `Error: required historical state unavailable` and the `reexec` parameter must be increased. If a valid state *is* found in the `reexec` window, then Geth sequentially re-executes the transcations in each block between the last available state and the target block. The greater the value of `reexec` the longer the tracing will take because more blocks have to be re-executed to regenerate the target state.
@ -44,18 +51,20 @@ _There are exceptions to the above rules when running batch traces of entire blo
### Built-in tracers
The tracing API accepts an optional `tracer` parameter that defines how the data returned to the API call should be processed. If this parameter is ommitted the default tracer is used. The default is the struct (or 'opcode') logger. These raw opcode traces are sometimes useful, but the returned data is very low level and can be too extensive and awkward to read for many use-cases. A full opcode trace can easily go into the hundreds of megabytes, making them very resource intensive to get out of the node and process externally. For these reasons, there are a set of non-default built-in tracers that can be named in the API call to return different data from the method. Under the hood, these tracers are Go or Javascript functions that do some specific preprocessing on the trace data before it is returned.
The tracing API accepts an optional `tracer` parameter that defines how the data returned to the API call should be processed. If this parameter is ommitted the default tracer is used. The default is the struct (or 'opcode') logger. These raw opcode traces are sometimes useful, but the returned data is very low level and can be too extensive and awkward to read for many use-cases. A full opcode trace can easily go into the hundreds of megabytes, making them very resource intensive to get out of the node and process externally. For these reasons, there are a set of non-default built-in tracers that can be named in the API call to return different data from the method. Under the hood, these tracers are Go or Javascript
functions that do some specific preprocessing on the trace data before it is returned.
More information about Geth's built-in tracers is available on the [built-in tracers](/pages/docs/developers/dapp-developer/evm-tracing/built-in-tracers.md) page.
More information about Geth's built-in tracers is available on the
In addition to built-in tracers, it is possible to provide custom code that hooks to events in the EVM to process and return data in a consumable format. Custom tracers can be written either in Javascript or Go. JS tracers are good for quick prototyping and experimentation as well as for less intensive applications. Go tracers are performant but require the tracer to be compiled together with the Geth source code. This means developers only have to gather the data they actually need, and do any processing at the source.
More information about custom tracers is available on the [custom tracers](/pages/docs/developers/dapp-developer/evm-tracing/custom-tracers.md) page.
More information about custom tracers is available on the [custom tracers](/pages/docs/developers/evm-tracing/custom-tracers.md) page.
## Summary
This page gave an introduction to the concept of tracing and explained issues around state availability. More detailed information on Geth's built-in and custom tracers can be found on their dedicated pages.
This page gave an introduction to the concept of tracing and explained issues around state availability. More detailed information on Geth's built-in and custom tracers can be found on their dedicated pages. on their dedicated pages.
Joe
2 years ago