gcr-node

Tool that allows you creating, configuring and running gcr's complete networks or nodes to be sync with existing networks.

• gcr-node
• Key benefits:
• Concepts
• Intro
• Requirements
• Step-by-step
• Usage
• Enabling harvesting
• Command Topics

Key benefits:

• It's an installable cli tool. It's not a repo you need to clone and compile.
• The configuration is parametrized via CLI commands and presets instead of by changing properties files.
• The tools code is unique for any type of network, new networks or nodes in a network. It doesn't need to be copied and pasted in different projects or assemblies.
• The config command runs on the host machine, not via docker making it easier to debug or tune
• It's uses the TS SDK for key generation, vrf transactions, address generation.
• Easier to maintain, the properties files are reused for all nodes, assemblies and network types.
• Network setup (how many database, nodes, rest gateways to run) is defined in presets, users can provide their own ones.
• Docker-compose yaml files are generated based on the network setup/preset instead of being manually created/upgraded.
• The created network (config, nemesis and docker-compose) can be zipped and distributed for other host machines to run it.
• The used docker images versions can be changed via configuration/preset
• It uses the oclif framework. New commands are easy to add and document.
• It can be included as a npm dependency for clients' e2e testing.

Concepts

Preset:

Yaml files that define the configuration and layout of the network and nodes. It defines how many nodes, database, rest gateways, the modes, keys, etc.

Presets are defined at 4 levels from general to specific:

• Shared: Default configurations for all the networks.
• Network: It defines the main preset of a given network, example: mainnet or testnet.
• Assembly: It defines a modification of a network, example: testnet peer, tesnet dual, testnet api. Assembly is required for some networks (like testnet).
• Custom: A user provided yml file (--customPreset param) that could override some or all properties in the out-of-the-box presets.

Properties in each file override the previous values (by object deep merge).

Custom preset:

It's the way you can tune the network without modifying the code. It's a yml file (--customPreset param) that could override some or all properties in the out-of-the-box presets.

Custom presets give gcr Bootstrap its versatility. Check out the custom preset guides!

Target:

The folder where the generated config, docker files and data are stored. The folder structure is:

• ./preset.yml: the final generated preset.yml that it's used to configure bootstrap, the nodes, docker, etc.
• ./addresses.yml: randomly generated data that wasn't provided in the preset. e.g.: SSL keys, nodes' keys, nemesis accounts, generation hash seed, etc.
• ./nodes: it holds the configuration, data and logs for all the defined node instances.
• ./gateways: it holds the configuration and logs for all the defined node rest gateways.
• ./nemesis: The folder used to hold the nemesis block. Block 1 data is generated via nemgen tool for new networks. For existing network, it is copied over.
• ./databases: the location where the mongo data is stored for the different database instances.
• ./docker: the generated docker-compose.yml, mongo init scripts and server basic bash scripts.
• ./reports: the location of the generated reports.

Intro

• Tested well on Ubuntu 18.04 TLS
• Don't run under root, run under super user:

adduser powerusername
usermod -aG sudo powerusername
su powerusername
cd

Requirements

• Node 14
• Docker
• Docker Compose 1.29+ (better to use https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/)

Step-by-step

You may need NVM to manage node version

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.38.0/install.sh | bash

To use NVM, you may need to logout and login to your session Install Node 14:

nvm install 14
nvm use 14

Get the latest version of docker and docker compose:

sudo curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh 
sudo sh get-docker.sh
sudo curl -L "https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.29.0/docker-compose-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)" -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
sudo groupadd docker
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Validate your environment by running:

node -v
docker -v
docker-compose -v

Check your user can run docker without sudo:

docker run hello-world

If you see an error like:

Got permission denied while trying to connect to the Docker daemon socket at unix:///var/run/docker.sock

Try to logout and login, or please follow this guide.

Get gcr-node:

npm install -g @goldcoinreserve/gcr-node

Usage

It's recommended to run the commands from en empty working dir.

The network configuration, data and docker files will be created inside the target folder ('./target') by default.

mkdir node
cd node

Create node custom name:

cd ~/node`

NOTE: friendlyName will be displayed in GCR explorer node list

echo "nodes:
  -
    friendlyName: 'REPLACE_NODE_NAME_HERE'
" > name.yml

IMPORTANT: Before this step, please open 7900 and 3000 for communication with network

To deploy GCR node you need to execute these commmand:

gcr-node start -p testnet -a dual --customPreset name.yml -d

OR

gcr-node comfig -p testnet -a dual --customPreset name.yml
gcr-node compose
gcr-node run -d

Please wait until you node will be fully synched with GCR network. After few minutes check node health:

curl http://localhost:3000/node/health

If you need to start fresh node, you many need to sudo remove the target folder (docker volumes dirs may be created using sudo). Example:

sudo rm -rf ./target

Enabling harvesting

gcr-node creates peer nodes with remote harvesting enabled by default, but they still need to be registered by announcing the AccountKeyLink and VrfKeyLink transactions to the network.

This can be done by gcr-node too, but it needs to be a step separated from gcr-node start because funds are required to announce transactions.

1. Send tokens to your main account (You can find the main address to fund in the file located at node/target/addresses.yml)

If you want to export private keys first you have to decrypt by using following command:

gcr-node decrypt --source target/addresses.yml --destination plain-addresses.yml

The decrypted file with your private keys will be located at node/plain-addresses.yml

2. Link your account. Once the node is running with gcr-node start and you have funded its account, from a different terminal (but from the same folder), simply type:

gcr-node link

In case the node can't find any node to transmit transaction, you may set an external URL:

gcr-node link --url=http://mainnet-dual-1.gcr.superhow.net:3000

Command Topics

• gcr-node autocomplete - display autocomplete installation instructions
• gcr-node clean - It removes the target folder deleting the generated configuration and data
• gcr-node compose - It generates the docker-compose.yml file from the configured network.
• gcr-node config - Command used to set up the configuration files and the nemesis block for the current network
• gcr-node decrypt - It decrypts a yml file using the provided password. The source file can be a custom preset file, a preset.yml file or an addresses.yml.
• gcr-node encrypt - It encrypts a yml file using the provided password. The source files would be a custom preset file, a preset.yml file or an addresses.yml.
• gcr-node enrolRewardProgram - It enrols the nodes in the rewards program by announcing the enrol transaction to the registration address. You can also use this command to update the program registration when you change the node public key or server host.
• gcr-node healthCheck - It checks if the services created with docker compose are up and running.
• gcr-node help - display help for gcr-node
• gcr-node link - It announces VRF and Voting Link transactions to the network for each node with 'Peer' or 'Voting' roles. This command finalizes the node registration to an existing network.
• gcr-node report - it generates reStructuredText (.rst) reports describing the configuration of each node.
• gcr-node resetData - It removes the data keeping the generated configuration, certificates, keys and block 1.
• gcr-node run - It boots the network via docker using the generated docker-compose.yml file and configuration. The config and compose methods/commands need to be called before this method. This is just a wrapper for the docker-compose up bash call.
• gcr-node start - Single command that aggregates config, compose and run in one line!
• gcr-node stop - It stops the docker-compose network if running (gcr-node started with --detached). This is just a wrapper for the docker-compose down bash call.
• gcr-node updateVotingKeys - It updates the voting files containing the voting keys when required.
• gcr-node verify - It tests the installed software in the current computer reporting if there is any missing dependency, invalid version, or software related issue.