@requestnetwork/request-node v0.29.0

@requestnetwork/request-node

@requestnetwork/request-node is a package part of the Request Network protocol. This package allows you to run a full Request Node.

Request Nodes are the basic servers used to allow any user to communicate with the Request Network protocol, these servers abstract the complexity of the storage layer for the users. The users can easily create a request or execute an action on a request by sending messages to the Node.

The Request Node runs the two bottom layers of the Request Network protocol:

• Data-access layer: Indexes request transactions and batches them into blocks.
• Storage layers: Persists data from Data-access layer.

Therefore, the Node receives request transactions from users, batches them into blocks and persists them into the storage.

Once received by the Node, other request actors connecting to this Node can directly read the request transaction before it is persisted into the storage layer.

To use Infura to connect to an Ethereum node, get an infura token on infura.io and use as provider "NETWORK_YOU_WANT.infura.io/v3/YOUR_INFURA_TOKEN".

Usage

The users can interact with a Request Node either by using the official Client-side Library or by sending manual HTTP requests to the API exposed by the server.

API

The API has the following endpoints:

persistTransaction

Persists a request transaction and make it available for the other actors of the request.

POST /persistTransaction {BODY}

Body

Example

curl \
	-d '{"channelId": "channelExample", "topics":["topicExample"], "transactionData":{"data": "someData"}}' \
	-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
	-X POST http://localhost:3000/persistTransaction

Success 200

Error

getTransactionsByChannelId

Get list of transactions corresponding to a specified channel id.

GET /getTransactionsByChannelId?{PARAMETER}

Parameter

Example

curl -i "http://localhost:3000/getTransactionsByChannelId?channelId=channelExample"

Success 200

Error

Note

Since the Node doesn't implement a cache yet, all transactions have to be retrieved directly on IPFS. As a consequence, this request can take a long time if the topic requested indexes many transactions. This delay will be optimized with the implementation of a cache.

getChannelsByTopic

Get transactions from channels indexed by a specified topic.

GET /getChannelsByTopic?{PARAMETER}

Parameter

Example

curl -i "http://localhost:3000/getChannelsByTopic?topic=topicExample"

Success 200

Error

Deployment

A Node can be deployed by anyone. Users interested by running their own node can do it with the following instructions:

Installation

Through the npm executable

npm install -g @requestnetwork/request-node

This will allow you to run the node with

request-node start

Through the sources

The Request Node source must be downloaded from Github and executed with Node.js.

git clone https://github.com/RequestNetwork/requestNetwork.git
cd packages/request-node
npm install
npm run build

Setup

IPFS private network

The Request Node uses IPFS to store and share transactions in a private network. We use a private network to allow all nodes to connect to each other directly, instead of having to navigate through the public IPFS network.

To setup your IPFS node to the private network, you can run the following utility script:

yarn init-ipfs

Launch

Command line

A Request Node can be started locally with the following command:

npm run start <options>

or

request-node start <options>

All command line options are optional.

The options used to run the server are defined as follows:

1. The option is defined in the command line
2. If the option is not defined in the command line, it is defined by the value of its corresponding environment variable
3. If the environment variable is not defined, default value is used

Default values correspond to the basic configuration used to run a server in a test environment.

Options:

• --port Port for the server to listen for API requests
  • Default value: 3000
  • Environment variable name: $PORT
• --networkId Id of the Ethereum network used
  • Default value: 0
  • Environment variable name: $ETHEREUM_NETWORK_ID
• --providerUrl URL of the web3 provider for Ethereum
  • Default value: http://localhost:8545
  • Environment variable name: $WEB3_PROVIDER_URL
• --ipfsHost Host of the IPFS gateway
  • Default value: localhost
  • Environment variable name: $IPFS_HOST
• --ipfsPort Port of the IPFS gateway
  • Default value: 5001
  • Environment variable name: $IPFS_PORT
• --ipfsProtocol Protocol used to connect to the IPFS gateway
  • Default value: http
  • Environment variable name: $IPFS_PROTOCOL
• --ipfsTimeout Timeout threshold to connect to the IPFS gateway
  • Default value: 10000
  • Environment variable name: $IPFS_TIMEOUT
• --headers Custom headers to send with the API responses (as a stringified JSON object)
  • Default value: '{}'
  • Environment variable name: $HEADERS
• --lastBlockNumberDelay The minimum delay between getLastBlockNumber calls to ethereum network
  • Default value: '10000'
  • Environment variable name: $LAST_BLOCK_NUMBER_DELAY
• --storageConcurrency Maximum number of concurrent calls to Ethereum or IPFS
  • Default value: '200'
  • Environment variable name: $STORAGE_MAX_CONCURRENCY
• --initializationStorageFilePath Path to a file to persist the ethereum metadata and transaction index for faster initialization
  • Environment variable name: $INITIALIZATION_STORAGE_FILE_PATH
• --logLevel The maximum level of messages we will log
  • Environment variable name: $LOG_LEVEL
  • Available levels: ERROR, WARN, INFO and DEBUG
• --logMode Defines the log format to use
  • Environment variable name: $LOG_MODE
  • Available modes:
    • human is a more human readable log to display during development
    • machine is better for parsing on CI or deployments
• --persistTransactionTimeout Defines the delay in seconds to wait before sending a timeout when creating or updating a request
  • Default value: 600
  • Environment variable name: $PERSIST_TRANSACTION_TIMEOUT

Mnemonic

The wallet used to append data into Ethereum blockchain is generated with a mnemonic.

The environment variable $MNEMONIC need to be set to the corresponding mnemonic.

If the environment variable is not set, the default mnemonic is:

candy maple cake sugar pudding cream honey rich smooth crumble sweet treat

This mnemonic should only be used for testing.

Docker

The Request Node can be deployed with Docker. For now, the user has to clone the repository to build the Docker and run it.

git clone https://github.com/RequestNetwork/requestNetwork.git
cd packages/request-node
docker build -t "request-node" .
docker run request-node

The environment variables used to configure the Node can be defined in the docker run command.

For example, the user can define custom parameters for IPFS connection with the following command:

docker run -e IPFS_HOST=<custom_ipfs_host> IPFS_PORT=<custom_ipfs_port>

If the user want the server to listen on a specific port, he has to expose that port as well:

docker run -e PORT=80 --expose 80

The user can connect to an IPFS node and Ethereum node (like ganache) on the local machine, using the following:

docker run -e IPFS_HOST=host.docker.internal -e WEB3_PROVIDER_URL=http://host.docker.internal:8545

The user can use the docker-compose tool to run an environment containing the Request Node and an instance of IPFS with the following command:

docker-compose up

The environment variables must be defined in the docker-compose.yml file in the environment section. $ETHEREUM_NETWORK_ID and $WEB3_PROVIDER_URL must be defined.

Running fully locally

To run a Request Node locally for tests, make sure you have the necessary IPFS and Ethereum nodes available.

You can run the following steps to launch a fully local test Request Node:

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/RequestNetwork/requestNetwork.git
cd requestNetwork

2. Install and build all the dependencies.

yarn install
yarn build

3. On a new terminal, launch a local IPFS node

ipfs daemon

4. On a new terminal, configure your IPFS node to connect to the private Request IPFS network

cd packages/request-node
yarn init-ipfs

5. Launch ganache with the default Request Node mnemonic

ganache-cli -l 90000000 -p 8545 -m \"candy maple cake sugar pudding cream honey rich smooth crumble sweet treat\"

6. Deploy the smart contracts on ganache

cd packages/ethereum-storage
yarn deploy

7. Run the Request Node

cd ../packages/request-node
yarn start

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change. Read the contributing guide

License

MIT