What public test-networks exist and what are their conditions?

  1. What are the connection data?
  2. How often (if so) are they reset?
  3. Does a public faucet exist for this test network?
  4. Does a block explorer exist for this test network?
  5. How frequent/ reliable are new blocks mined?
  6. Any thing else user should know about this test network?
  • It is preferred if you can post separate questions instead of combining your questions into one. That way, it helps the people answering your question and also others hunting for at least one of your questions. Thanks! – soc1c May 16 '16 at 21:44

As of November 20 2016, the "official" testnet is now Ropsten.

  1. Geth 1.5.3 has been released. Simply run geth --testnet:

With 1.5.3 --testnet now selects the Ropsten network. If you have a blockchain database for the Morden network, run geth --testnet removedb to remove it

  1. There is no fixed schedule when they are reset.

  2. Some faucets are:

  3. Ropsten explorer here or here

  4. New blocks are currently reliable, without much chain reorganizations. But since it is testnet, anyone can may "attack" it since the hashrate on it is small.

  5. The ENS, Ethereum Name Service, was just deployed on Ropsten.

  6. Took ~2 days to synch (slow connection) 16/08/2017

See the ENS wiki for a quickstart and other details. Here's an introduction:

ENS is the Ethereum Name Service, a distributed, extensible naming system based on the Ethereum blockchain.

ENS can be used to resolve a wide variety of resources. The initial standard for ENS defines resolution for Ethereum addresses, but the system is extensible by design, allowing more resource types to be resolved in future without the core components of ENS requiring upgrades.

ENS is deployed on the Ropsten testnet at 0x112234455c3a32fd11230c42e7bccd4a84e02010.

Initial discussion here.

This is a Community Wiki, making it easier to edit by anyone.

  • 2
    4. testnet.etherscan.io – caktux Jan 20 '16 at 21:13
  • 2
    ropsten.etherscan.io – roman-roman May 7 '17 at 15:27
  • I think the above both faucets don't work now. – zono Jul 16 '17 at 5:49
  • 1
    @zono I'm not sure about the latest information and maybe making it a wiki will help get some updates. – eth Jul 16 '17 at 8:41

B9lab's IPFS faucet with command line access

B9lab have one deployed via IPFS. this is pretty neat. long description below, here is the one-liner for rushed users:

curl -X POST  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"toWhom":"0xdcf407eae88d480e280db2d0deaa3a11c82eaa9b"}' https://ropsten.faucet.b9lab.com/tap

Replace 0xdcf407... with your testnet account. It will send 1 ETH by default. If you need more, you need to go to the IPFS interface:

$ geth --testnet --rpc --rpcport 8545 --rpcaddr --rpccorsdomain "*" --rpcapi "eth,web3"

# in another terminal
$ ipfs daemon

And [visit localhost][2]. There is also an [IPFS gateway available][3] for the lazy.

Ether camp ropsten faucet

Navigating to ropsten.ether.camp shows a huge button GET FREE ETHER at the top of the explorer. Click it, enter your address and recieve 5 test ETH.

[2]: http://localhost:8080/ipfs/QmVAwVKys271P5EQyEfVSxm7BJDKWt42A2gHvNmxLjZMps [3]: http://ipfs.b9lab.com:8080/ipfs/QmVAwVKys271P5EQyEfVSxm7BJDKWt42A2gHvNmxLjZMps

  • 3
    As of May 13th neither of these work any more. – Thomas Clowes May 13 '17 at 21:56
  • Yeah, ropsten is a moving target, hard to keep track of the changes. – soc1c May 15 '17 at 9:10
  • 1
    The B9lab faucet does work. You are in competition with other people because it yields 1 Ether per minute. Not 1 Ether per minute per person. It also has some simple measures against abuse. – Xavier Leprêtre B9lab Jul 19 '17 at 10:38
  • BTW, if someone has a lot of Ropsten Ethers lying around, feel free to send some to this faucet as it is getting harder to mine them. – Xavier Leprêtre B9lab Aug 1 '17 at 10:16
  • @XavierLeprêtreB9lab sent 10k, please ping me on Gitter if you need more. – soc1c Aug 2 '17 at 15:22

(Adding another answer rather than updating the community wiki answer, as it would involve changing most of what's there, and it may well be historically useful.)

What public test-networks exist and what are their conditions?

  1. ROPSTEN (Revived, following spam attacks) - Proof Of Work
  2. KOVAN - Proof Of Authority (Parity only)
  3. RINKEBY - Clique Consensus (Geth only)

What are the connection data?

Geth: (Ropsten/Rinkeby)

Either specify the network using the ID (3 = Ropsten, 4 = Rinkeby) or using the --testnet or --rinkeby flags.

 --networkid value                    Network identifier (integer, 1=Frontier, 2=Morden (disused), 3=Ropsten, 4=Rinkeby) (default: 1)
  --testnet                            Ropsten network: pre-configured proof-of-work test network

Parity: (Ropsten/Kovan)

Use the --chain flag.

 --chain CHAIN                  Specify the blockchain type. CHAIN may be either a
                                 JSON chain specification file or olympic, frontier,
                                 homestead, mainnet, morden, ropsten, classic, expanse,
                                 testnet, kovan or dev (default: homestead).

How often (if so) are they reset?

  • Ropsten has been live for 241 days (as of 19 Jul 2017).
  • Kovan has been live for 139 days.
  • Rinkeby has been live for 98 days.

Does a public faucet exist for this test network?

Does a block explorer exist for this test network?

How frequent/ reliable are new blocks mined?

  • Ropsten block time = usually sub-30 seconds
  • Kovan block time = seems to be sub-10 seconds
  • Rinkeby block time = 15 seconds (by definition?)

Any thing else user should know about this test network?

Don't assign value to test ether.


Just a heads up, we have created a universal Faucet here

The idea is to put as many networks together (and tokens) to make the experience smoother for developers.

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