Forking and running a local simulated Ethereum environment is essential if you want to work with DeFi or do general Ethereum development.
You can use the Forkserver during the development cycle; This allows you to develop, deploy and test your dApps in a secure and deterministic environment. Smart contracts, once implemented on the blockchain, are immutable, so it is important to test and debug smart contracts before deploying them on the blockchain.
Therefore, it is important to have a local blockchain environment that can free developers from transaction fees and delays. The Forkserver was developed specifically for this. It is a local in-memory blockchain for development and testing, simulating a real Ethereum network, with multiple accounts funded with test Ether.
- Funding - Fund accounts with ETH or any ERC20 token
- Fast forwarding - Mine hundreds of blocks or change the block timestamp
- State management - Save the current state of the blockchain as a hex string which can be loaded into a fresh/restarted instance of the Forkserver to reattain the same state.
It's recommended to use docker for running locally by using the provided docker-compose.yml in this repository.
- docker-engine
- A JSON RPC Endpoint with archive capabilities like Infura, QuickNode or Alchemy
- Copy the provided docker-compose.yml in this repository
- Configure the environment variables as needed
- Run
docker compose up -d
With the default settings: the server should be running at port 3000, the forked RPC endpoint at port 8545 and the dashboard at port 8080
If you wish to customize or extend the functionality of the Forkserver to suit your needs.
- Install Rust
- Install Foundry
- Install Protocol Buffer Compiler
- Install Protocol buffers C++ library (development files) and proto files
- A JSON RPC Endpoint with archive capabilities like Infura, QuickNode or Alchemy
To run the webapp, cd into the dashboard directory and run yarn install to install dependencies then run yarn dev to start the NextJS application in development mode.
To run the server, run cargo run --bin server. It should build and generate the files needed by the server and run on port 3000 (default)
SERVER_PORT (Default: 3000) Determines where the GRPC Server will run.
FORK_PORT (Default: 8545) Determines where the JSON RPC will run.
FORK_CHAIN_ID (Default: 1337) Determines which chain id will be returned by the fork, important to set your metamask to this chain ID for use on the frontend
FORK_MNEMONIC (Default: test ... junk) Which accounts will be funded with Ether on startup
FORK_BLOCK_NUMBER (Default: 0) What block number the fork server will start at, use 0 to start on latest block
FORK_JSON_RPC_URL URL for the JSON RPC with archive functionality
FORK_BLOCK_TIME (Default: 13) How many seconds before a block is mined, set to 0 to use automine mode
When resetting or loading state, always remember to reset your nonce by resetting your account in Metamask.
Do this by going to Settings > Advanced > Reset Account
Distributed under the MIT License.
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