Ethereum Test network

Ethereum Test network

Ethereum has three test network for developer to develop and to do testing, namely ROPSTEN, KOVAN and RINKEBY.

Ropsten (deprecated on October 5th, 2022.)

  • PoW testnet
  • Network id: 3
  • Block time: sub-30 seconds
  • Commands:
  • geth --testnet or geth --networkid 3
  • parity --chain ropsten
  • Explorer https://ropsten.etherscan.io/
  • Github https://github.com/ethereum/ropsten

History:

  • Started in November 2016. Named after a subway station in Stockholm.
  • Was DoS attacked in February 2017 which made synching slow and made clients consume a lot of disk space.
  • Was revived in March 2017 and became usable again.

Pros:

  • Best reproduces the current production environment, i.e. system and network conditions on the live Ethereum mainnet, because it’s PoW net.
  • Can be used with both geth and parity.
  • Ether can be mined. Or requested from a faucet:
  • https://faucet.metamask.io/
  • http://faucet.ropsten.be:3001
  • https://faucet.bitfwd.xyz/
  • What public test-networks and faucets exist?

Cons:

  • Not immune to spam attacks. Because of this it’s less stable.

Kovan

  • PoA testnet started by the Parity team
  • Network id: 42
  • Block time: 4 seconds
  • Command: parity --chain kovan
  • Explorer https://kovan.etherscan.io/
  • Github https://github.com/kovan-testnet/proposal

History:

  • Started in March 2017. Named after a subway station in Singapore.

Pros:

  • Immune to spam attacks (as Ether supply is controlled by trusted parties)

Cons:

  • Not supported in geth.
  • Doesn’t fully reproduce the current production environment as it uses PoA.
  • Ether can’t be mined. It has to be requested from the faucet.

Rinkeby (deprecated on October 5th, 2022.)

  • PoA testnet started by the Ethereum team. Uses Clique PoA consensus protocol.
  • Network id: 4
  • Block time: 15 seconds
  • Command: geth --rinkeby or geth --networkid 4
  • Explorer https://rinkeby.etherscan.io/
  • Github https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/225
  • Website https://www.rinkeby.io

History:

  • Started in April 2017. Named after a metro station in Stockholm.

Pros:

  • Immune to spam attacks (as Ether supply is controlled by trusted parties)

Cons:

  • Supported by geth only
  • Doesn’t fully reproduce the current production environment as it uses PoA.
  • Ether can’t be mined. It has to be requested from a faucet:
  • https://faucet.rinkeby.io/

Görli

Work on the testnet began at the ETHBerlin hackathon in early September, when Parity’s Afri Scohedon banded together with Chainsafe Systems in a bid to create a “next-generation public Ethereum test network”.

  • PoA testnet
  • Explorer https://goerli.etherscan.io/
  • Github https://github.com/goerli/testnet
  • Website https://www.rinkeby.io
  • Faucet: https://goerli-faucet.slock.it/

Other:

  • 0: Olympic, Ethereum public pre-release testnet
  • 1: Frontier, Homestead, Metropolis, the Ethereum public main network
  • 1: Classic, the (un)forked public Ethereum Classic main network, chain ID 61
  • 1: Expanse, an alternative Ethereum implementation, chain ID 2
  • 2: Morden, the public Ethereum testnet, now Ethereum Classic testnet
  • 3: Ropsten, the public cross-client Ethereum testnet
  • 4: Rinkeby, the public Geth PoA testnet
  • 8: Ubiq, the public Gubiq main network with flux difficulty chain ID 8
  • 42: Kovan, the public Parity PoA testnet
  • 77: Sokol, the public POA Network testnet
  • 99: Core, the public POA Network main network
  • 100: xDai, the public MakerDAO/POA Network main network
  • 401697: Tobalaba, the public Energy Web Foundation testnet
  • 7762959: Musicoin, the music blockchain
  • 61717561: Aquachain, ASIC resistant chain
  • [Other]: Could indicate that your connected to a local development test network.

Source : https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/27048/comparison-of-the-different-testnets/30072#30072

https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/17051/how-to-select-a-network-id-or-is-there-a-list-of-network-ids/17101#17101

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