Test networks
The Ethereum Go client (https://geth.ethereum.org), Geth, can be connected to the test network using the following command:
$ geth --testnet
This command will connect to the Ropsten network, which is a pre-configured proof of work (PoW) test network.
Geth installation was described in Chapter 12, Further Ethereum. Please refer back to this chapter for more detail.
A sample output is shown in the following screenshot. The screenshot shows the type of the network chosen and various other pieces of information regarding the blockchain download:
Figure 13.1: The output of the geth command connecting to Ethereum testnet Ropsten
A blockchain explorer for testnet is located at https://ropsten.etherscan.io and can be used to trace transactions and blocks on the Ethereum test network.
There are other test networks available too, such as Rinkeby and Görli (also referred to as Goerli). Geth can be issued with a command-line flag...