Erigon Mdbx Compact

MDBX Database Compaction

erigon db compact rewrites every mdbx database of a datadir without its free pages, producing smaller files. MDBX reuses free pages instead of returning them to the filesystem, so mdbx.dat never shrinks on its own.

The user provides a datadir path. The command finds every database under it (chaindata, txpool, downloader, migrations, nodes/*, caplin/*, ...), not only chaindata.

When to Use

• mdbx_stat -ef shows a high "Reclaimable" percentage
• The database hit MDBX_MAP_FULL
• The user wants to shrink the on-disk size of mdbx.dat

Prerequisites

• Erigon and rpcdaemon must be stopped. The command takes the datadir lock and opens each database exclusively, so it fails cleanly rather than corrupting a database in use. Still confirm with the user first.
• Free space for a second copy of each database, on the volume that database already lives on. The copy is written to a <db>/compacting/ subdirectory, then moved back over the original.

Procedure

1. Report Size and Check Disk Space

1. Run du -sh <datadir>/chaindata/mdbx.dat and report the size to the user.
2. Check free space per database, not once for the datadir: a database may sit on its own volume through a symlink or mount, and its copy is staged next to it. Run find <datadir> -name mdbx.dat -not -path '*/compacting/*' -print0 | while IFS= read -r -d '' f; do du -sh "$f"; df -h "$(dirname "$f")" | tail -1; done and compare each database against the free space on its own volume. If any has less free space than its own mdbx.dat, abort and tell the user.

2. Diagnose (Optional)

If the user wants to see whether compaction is worthwhile before proceeding:

make db-tools
./build/bin/mdbx_stat -ef <datadir>/chaindata

Look at the Reclaimable line to estimate the space savings.

3. Run Compaction

make erigon
./build/bin/erigon db compact --datadir=<datadir>

This can take hours for large databases. Run in background.

Each database logs [compact] compacting with its label, then [compact] compacted with the before/after sizes. Mode and owner of the original file are preserved, and the stale mdbx.lck is removed.

4. Verify

Run du -sh <datadir>/chaindata/mdbx.dat and report the new size compared to the original.

The user can now restart erigon.

Notes

• A crashed run can leave a <db>/compacting/ directory behind. The next run deletes it, so no cleanup is needed.
• To change --db.pagesize you need a copy, not a compaction: the destination keeps whatever page size it was created with, and mdbx_to_mdbx passes a targetPageSize of 0, so it inherits the source's. Pre-create the new db with ONLY_CREATE_DB=true erigon --datadir=<new> --chain=<chain> --db.pagesize=8kb, then integration mdbx_to_mdbx --datadir=<old> --chaindata=<old>/chaindata --chaindata.to=<new>/chaindata. Both --chaindata flags name a database directory, not a datadir root, and --datadir is required even though the copy does not read it — the full recipe is in cmd/integration/Readme.md.