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**WORK IN PROGRESS - instructions only work for 24.3.0 onwards (and the former 24.2.0-RC4 which is still going through testing RC)**

Step by Step Guide

IMPORTANT: we strongly recommend reading the rest of this documentation before running these commands because your node’s configuration may require changes to these commands…
(Targeting 24.2.0 release, but currently you must be on 24.2.0-RC4 or the besu main branch for this to work)

1. Update besu config to add --Xbonsai-limit-trie-logs-enabled but don’t restart yet

2. Stop besu

3. (optional) Run:
   sudo /usr/local/bin/besu/bin/besu --data-storage-format=BONSAI --data-path=/var/lib/besu --sync-mode=X_SNAP storage x-trie-log prune

4. Start besu (remembering to run sudo systemctl daemon-reload if you use a systemd service file as per CoinCashew and Somer)

5. Look out for Limit trie logs enabled: retention: 512; prune window: 30000 in your besu config printout during startup

6. Enjoy more GBs

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In reality, whilst the Merkle Patricia Trie is implicitly pruned, the BONSAI feature did introduce an extra data structure: the Trie Log (more detail about BONSAI and trie logs here: https://consensys.io/blog/bonsai-tries-guide)

The Trie Logs are retained in order to cope with chain reorgs. After each block is finalized, Trie Logs older than that are no longer required so it is safe to remove them from both the node's and the network's point of view.

How?

If you want to use this feature before it is enabled by default, simply add this option to your besu command: --Xbonsai-limit-trie-logs-enabled
When you restart besu it will begin pruning, block by block (and a cheeky bit during besu startup).

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