erigon-test-race

name	erigon-test-race
description	Run Erigon tests with Go race detector to find data races and concurrency bugs. Use this for concurrency-sensitive changes (parallel executor, p2p, txpool). Takes 30-60 minutes.

Erigon Race Detector Tests

Runs the full test suite with Go's -race flag. Catches concurrency bugs that normal tests miss. Takes 30–60 minutes.

Prerequisite: Test fixtures

make test-all-race no longer downloads any fixture tarballs. EEST spec tests (state/blockchain/engine-x) moved out of go test ./... and into the dedicated eest-spec-* Makefile targets driven by the EEST spec tests workflow (test-eest-spec.yml); the consensus spec test (cl/spectest) is skipped here via ERIGON_SKIP_CL_SPECTEST=true (set automatically by the Makefile) and runs only in test-integration-caplin.yml.

If you want race coverage on the EEST blocktests, use the dedicated race shards — make eest-spec-blocktests-stable-race-{pre-cancun,cancun,prague,osaka}-{sequential,parallel} and make eest-spec-blocktests-devnet-race-amsterdam. These build a race-instrumented evm.race binary automatically (see EEST_SPEC_RACE_SHARDS in the root Makefile); the -sequential / -parallel split pins ERIGON_EXEC3_PARALLEL so race coverage hits both modes. For the consensus spec suite or other Go packages, pass GOFLAGS='-race' or invoke go test -race against the relevant package directly.

Pitfall: stale evm.race binary. make eest-spec-<race-shard> lists evm.race as a prereq and go build is cache-aware, so a stale binary gets rebuilt. Calling bash tools/run-eest-spec-test.sh <shard> directly with EVM_BIN=build/bin/evm.race bypasses the rebuild and silently runs an old race-instrumented binary against current fixtures — race reports against code that no longer exists, missed races against code that does. After pulling or switching branches: rm -f build/bin/evm.race && make evm.race before re-running.

One side prerequisite still applies for tests make test-all-race does run:

git submodule update --init --recursive --force            # only for legacy-tests (TestLegacyCancunState)

The CI workflow handles this in setup-erigon; locally you must do it yourself.

Prerequisite: Create RAM Disk

Before running make test-all-race, create a RAM disk and export its path as ERIGON_EXECUTION_TESTS_TMPDIR:

path=$(bash tools/create-ramdisk)

Then prepend ERIGON_EXECUTION_TESTS_TMPDIR=$path to the test command (see below). The execution/tests suite does heavy temp-file I/O; backing that with tmpfs avoids disk bottlenecks and matches how CI runs the same workflow (ramdisk: true in test-all-erigon-race.yml, which invokes the same tools/create-ramdisk script via setup-erigon).

The script is cross-platform (Linux tmpfs, macOS hdiutil, Windows ImDisk). Linux requires sudo to mount tmpfs at /mnt/erigon-ramdisk. Override size with RAMDISK_SIZE_MB (default 2048).

Command

ERIGON_EXECUTION_TESTS_TMPDIR=$path make test-all-race

When Tests Fail — Drill Down

Race detector output includes the goroutine stack traces that caused the race:

==================
WARNING: DATA RACE
Read at 0x00c0001a2b40 by goroutine 45:
  github.com/erigontech/erigon/execution/exec3.(*parallelExecutor).applyLoop()
      /path/to/exec3_parallel.go:123 +0x4f8

Previous write at 0x00c0001a2b40 by goroutine 23:
  github.com/erigontech/erigon/execution/exec3.(*parallelExecutor).executeBlocks()
      /path/to/exec3.go:456 +0x2a0
==================

Re-run just the failing package with race:

go test -race --timeout 60m ./execution/exec3/...
go test -race --timeout 60m -run TestName ./path/to/package/...

Run without race first to confirm the test passes normally, then add -race:

# 1. Confirm test logic is correct (fast)
go test -short -run TestName ./path/to/package/...

# 2. Check for races (slower)
go test -race -run TestName ./path/to/package/...

Known Race-Prone Areas

Areas historically susceptible to races in Erigon:

• execution/exec3/ — parallel executor, SharedDomains, AsyncTx
• p2p/ — sentry, peer manager
• txpool/ — concurrent transaction pool
• cl/ — caplin consensus layer goroutines

When to Use

• After changes to the parallel executor or concurrent code paths
• For concurrency-sensitive fixes before merging
• Race check gate: git submodule update --init --recursive --force && path=$(bash tools/create-ramdisk) && make lint && ERIGON_EXECUTION_TESTS_TMPDIR=$path make test-all-race

CI Equivalent

There is no dedicated race CI workflow — the "All tests" workflow does not run with -race by default. This is a local-only check.

To run a subset with race via CI, consider running locally or using:

go test -race --timeout 60m ./execution/exec3/... ./execution/stagedsync/...