Configure RPC Trust

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Trust Modes

• No additional block hash verification is performed
• Optimized for performance
• Suitable for local nodes and trusted infrastructure
• Assumes the RPC provider is reliable and honest

• All fetched blocks have their hashes verified against the requested hashes
• Protects against malicious RPC providers returning incorrect blocks
• Recommended for public or third-party RPC endpoints
• Small performance overhead due to hash verification

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Examples

kona-node node \
  --l1-eth-rpc http://localhost:8545 \
  --l2-engine-rpc http://localhost:8551 \
  # trust-rpc defaults to true, no need to specify

kona-node node \
  --l1-eth-rpc https://public-eth-rpc.com \
  --l1-trust-rpc false \
  --l2-engine-rpc https://public-l2-rpc.com \
  --l2-trust-rpc false

kona-node node \
  --l1-eth-rpc https://public-eth-rpc.com \
  --l1-trust-rpc false \
  --l2-engine-rpc http://localhost:8551 \
  # L2 trust-rpc defaults to true for local engine

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Security Recommendations

1. Local Infrastructure: Keep the default true setting for RPCs you control
2. Public RPCs: Always set --trust-rpc false when using third-party endpoints
3. Shared Infrastructure: Consider setting --trust-rpc false as a precaution
4. Performance Testing: The verification overhead is minimal but can be measured in high-throughput scenarios

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Next Steps

• Both flags are catalogued with the rest of the node’s options in the Kona node CLI reference.
• To get a node running end to end, follow the binary guide or the Docker guide.