symbol-bootstrap

Symbol CLI tool that allows you creating, configuring and running Symbol blockchain complete networks or nodes to be sync with existing networks.

• symbol-bootstrap
• Key features:
• Concepts
• Requirements
• Installation
• Wizard
• Development
• Support
• Command Topics

Key features:

• It's an installable cli tool. It's not a repo you need to clone and compile.
• It provides a one liner command for testnet/mainnet node creation and upgrades.
• It provides a one liner command for local test network creation and upgrades.
• It includes a wizard for easy node and accounts creation.
• It includes a comprehensive list of commands for node administration.
• 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 uses the TS SDK for key generation, vrf transactions, voting files, and address generation instead of using catapult-tools (nemgen is still used to generate the nemesis block).
• 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 used for e2e testing.
• It works on Linux, Mac and Windows x86-64 arch.

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 configuration of a given network.
• Assembly: It defines a modification of a network selecting the services that the node will run.
• 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).

Network Presets:

• mainnet: Used to create nodes connected to Symbol's Mainnet network. The nemesis block is copied over.
• testnet: Used to create nodes connected to Symbol's Testnet network. The nemesis block is copied over.
• bootstrap: Used to create new private networks with dual currency configuration, network and harvest currencies. Nemesis block is generated.

Assemblies:

• peer: A standard peer-only node that contains 1 peer node.
• api: A standard API node that contains 1 Mongo database, 1 API node, 1 REST gateway, and 1 broker.
• dual: A standard dual node that contains 1 Mongo database, 1 API node, 1 REST gateway, 1 broker, and 1 peer node.
• demo: A dual node with an additional explorer and faucet for test and demonstration purposes.
• multinode: A special assembly that contains 1 API node and 2 peer-only nodes. This assembly is for testing, it showcases how a private network with 3 nodes runs.
• services: A special docker compose that includes the Explorer, Faucet and HTTPS proxy. This is an easy and quick way of running Symbol services when creating a new network. Note that the services are not HA, it's not for production environments.

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 Symbol 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.
• ./explorers: The generated explorer configuration.
• ./reports: The location of the generated reports.

Note: The target folder should not be manually modified. This tool may override any file in the target folder when doing upgrades. Any custom configuration should be provided via a custom preset. Check out the custom preset guides!

Requirements

• Node 12.0.0+
• Docker 18.3.0+
• Docker Compose 1.25.0+

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

Please follow this guide.

Installation

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 my-networks
cd my-networks

Once in the working dir:

$ npm install -g symbol-bootstrap
$ symbol-bootstrap COMMAND
running command...
$ symbol-bootstrap (-v|--version|version)
symbol-bootstrap/1.1.7 linux-x64 node-v12.22.10
$ symbol-bootstrap --help [COMMAND]
USAGE
  $ symbol-bootstrap COMMAND
...

Validate your environment by running:

symbol-bootstrap verify

The general usage would be:

symbol-bootstrap config -p testnet -a dual
symbol-bootstrap compose
symbol-bootstrap run

You can aggregate all these commands with this one liner:

symbol-bootstrap start -p testnet -a dual

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

sudo rm -rf ./target

Examples

Network presets and assemblies can be combined to generate different types of nodes. Some examples:

• $ symbol-bootstrap start -p mainnet -a dual -c customPreset.yml
• $ symbol-bootstrap start -p testnet -a peer -c customPreset.yml
• $ symbol-bootstrap start -p testnet -a demo -c customPreset.yml
• $ symbol-bootstrap start -p bootstrap -a multinode -c customPreset.yml
• $ symbol-bootstrap start -p bootstrap -a demo -c customPreset.yml
• $ symbol-bootstrap start -p bootstrap -a dual -c customPreset.yml
• $ symbol-bootstrap start -p testnet -a services -c customServicesPreset.yml

Although some combinations can be done, they may not be really useful. Examples that are NOT useful:

• $ symbol-bootstrap start -p mainnet -a multinode
• $ symbol-bootstrap start -p testnet -a multinode

A custom network preset file can also be provided. This is useful when you have your own custom Symbol network, and you want other nodes to join. For this case, you provide your own networkPreset.yml and nemesis feed folder. The node admin can then run:

• $ symbol-bootstrap start -p customNetworkPreset.yml -a dual -c customNodePreset.yml
• $ symbol-bootstrap start -p customNetworkPreset.yml -a services -c customServicesPreset.yml

The demo assemblies starts a local Explorer http://localhost:90 and Faucet http://localhost:100.

Wizard

If this is your first time creating a node, it's recommended to use the Wizard. Just follow the instructions:

symbol-bootstrap wizard

Development

If you want to contribute to this tool, clone this repo and run:

npm install -g

Then, symbol-bootstrap runs from the source code. You can now try your features after changing the code.

Pull Requests are appreciated! Please follow the contributing guidelines.

Note: cloning this repo is only for people that want to tune the tool in a way it cannot be configured. If this is your case, please provide a feature request. General users should install this tool like any other node module.

Code style

To format the source code, verify/fix lint issues, and generate the commands docs, run:

npm run style:fix

Support

Symbol Bootstrap is a personal project maintained on my free time.

If you like it, please consider supporting it by delegating your Symbol account to my node:

name: symbol-node-dual-1.tawa.solutions
publicKey: 6DB275B83F4839768821FF621DD90358F99A84EC61EB7DE1F6947E5B0926B9BB

If you don't like it, let me know by creating issues on GitHub. Pull Requests are welcome!

Command Topics

• symbol-bootstrap autocomplete - display autocomplete installation instructions
• symbol-bootstrap clean - It removes the target folder deleting the generated configuration and data
• symbol-bootstrap compose - It generates the docker-compose.yml file from the configured network.
• symbol-bootstrap config - Command used to set up the configuration files and the nemesis block for the current network
• symbol-bootstrap 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.
• symbol-bootstrap 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.
• symbol-bootstrap healthCheck - It checks if the services created with docker compose are up and running.
• symbol-bootstrap help - display help for symbol-bootstrap
• symbol-bootstrap 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.
• symbol-bootstrap modifyMultisig - Create or modify a multisig account
• symbol-bootstrap pack - It configures and packages your node into a zip file that can be uploaded to the final node machine.
• symbol-bootstrap renewCertificates - It renews the SSL certificates of the node regenerating the node.csr.pem files but reusing the current private keys.
• symbol-bootstrap report - it generates reStructuredText (.rst) reports describing the configuration of each node.
• symbol-bootstrap resetData - It removes the data keeping the generated configuration, certificates, keys and block 1.
• symbol-bootstrap 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.
• symbol-bootstrap start - Single command that aggregates config, compose and run in one line!
• symbol-bootstrap stop - It stops the docker-compose network if running (symbol-bootstrap started with --detached). This is just a wrapper for the docker-compose down bash call.
• symbol-bootstrap updateVotingKeys - It updates the voting files containing the voting keys when required.
• symbol-bootstrap verify - It tests the installed software in the current computer reporting if there is any missing dependency, invalid version, or software related issue.
• symbol-bootstrap wizard - An utility command that will help you configuring node!