iota-docker

This setup creates an IOTA full node with Docker based images. Other useful tools like Nelson and IPM are installed as well, but can be skipped.

At the moment the following docker images are used:

• IOTA Node Dockerhub Github
• IOTA Peermanager Dockerhub Github
• Nelson Dockerhub Github
• nginx alpine (official image) Dockerhub

Prerequisites

1. Setup a Server/VPS
   1. SSH daemon installed
   2. a non-privileged User
   3. Deny SSH root access
   4. Ensure that Python/Pip is installed
2. Create a SSH-Key and copy it to the server with ssh-copy-id
3. Installed version of Ansible DEV(!), cause of a bug with docker plugins in regular version See 30239

pip install git+https://github.com/ansible/ansible.git@devel

Run the playbook

• Adjust hosts.example, rename it to hosts and configure your servers.
• Resolve ansible dependencies

ansible-galaxy -f -r dependencies.yml

• Create the Passwordfile for nginx. Run ./create_password.sh
• Usage examples: Default Setup the node with defaults. Manual reboot is normally required after installing.

ansible-playbook -K -i hosts --vault-id="secret" site.yml

Reboot, behaves like default-setup, but reboots the machine if needed

ansible-playbook -K -i hosts --vault-id="secret" --extra-vars="reboot_for_upgrades=true" --extra-vars="iri_neighbors=<neighbors here>" --skip-tags "download_db" site.yml

Other useful run options

Set fixed intial neighbors: --extra-vars="iri_neighbors=tcp://xyz.example:15600 udp://127.0.0.1:14600"

Skip the download of the DB from iota.partners --skip-tags "download_db" The DB has a few GB and it is not necessary to download it each time the node is recreated.

The following Tags are defined:

• iri - Installation of IRI with download of DB by default.
• download_db - Download of the IRI db from iota.partners and extraction to IRI folder.
• ipm - Installs the IOTA Peermanager. It is bound to localhost by default.
• nginx - Installs nginx to reverse proxy IPM. TODO Implement htaccess. So not much function at the moment.
• nelson - Installs Nelson for automatic discovery and management of neighbors.

Tips & Tricks

IPM, IRI (API) is only bound to localhost for security reasons. Setup an SSH tunneling.

Host iota
        HostName <hostname>
        User <username>
        PreferredAuthentications publickey
        IdentityFile /Users/<localusername>/.ssh/<ssh_private_key>
        UseKeychain yes
        AddKeysToAgent yes
        LocalForward 127.0.0.1:8888 127.0.0.1:8888
        LocalForward 127.0.0.1:14265 127.0.0.1:14265

Then just run: ssh iota and point your browser to http://localhost:8888 and your curl/Postman to localhost:14265

How to setup IOTA without Docker

If Docker is not an option for you and want to install IOTA directly on bare metal or a VPS, then you should definitely checkout IRI Playbook.