Proxy Node

This repository is the implementation of the proxy node from our paper "Hierarchical Multi-Blockchain Architecture for Scalable Internet of Things Environment", which is published here. To run the proxy nodes, you also need to run all of core engines in the Notary Node, which is available here.

Installation

You need vagrant and virtualbox for this project. So install them first if you do not have it yet in your machine. You can download them here and here. All of the required softwares and tools has been included in the Vagrantfile and it will be installed during the vagrant up using shell provisioning scripts in ./shell directory.

To clone and setup the node.

foo@ubuntu:~$ cd ~/
foo@ubuntu:~$ git clone https://github.com/mrkazawa/proxy_node.git
foo@ubuntu:~$ cd ~/proxy_node

Note! Make sure to change the CPU and RAM information to match your needs. They will determine the CPU and RAM of your VMs. The number of CPU and RAM allowed per VM are bound to the resource in your host machine. You can change this setting in Vagrantfile.

BOX_MEMORY = "8192"
BOX_CPU = 4

To install and run the node, follow these steps.

foo@ubuntu:~$ vagrant up # if it is our first time, this will take some times
foo@ubuntu:~$ vagrant rsync-auto

foo@ubuntu:~$ cd ~/proxy_node # open new terminal for proxy1
foo@ubuntu:~$ cd vagrant ssh proxy1

foo@ubuntu:~$ cd ~/proxy_node # open new terminal for proxy2
foo@ubuntu:~$ cd vagrant ssh proxy2

foo@ubuntu:~$ cd ~/proxy_node # open new terminal for proxy3
foo@ubuntu:~$ cd vagrant ssh proxy3

foo@ubuntu:~$ cd ~/proxy_node # open new terminal for proxy4
foo@ubuntu:~$ cd vagrant ssh proxy4

Inside the SSH instances, we need to install all of the Node JS dependencies. Run this in all proxy nodes (proxy1 to proxy4).

vagrant@proxy1:~$ cd ~/src
vagrant@proxy1:~$ npm install

vagrant@proxy1:~$ npm run-script # show all available NPM commands

Other useful commands, run outside of the SSH instances,

foo@ubuntu:~$ cd ~/proxy_node
foo@ubuntu:~$ vagrant reload # to restart VM
foo@ubuntu:~$ vagrant halt # to shutdwon VM
foo@ubuntu:~$ vagrant destroy -f # to completely delete VM

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Running The Proxies

The proxy will relay messages from IoT agents to the notary node. Therefore, it depends on the notary node and it has to be run first. Here is the guide to run the notary node.

Choose between one of these proxy-default or proxy-priority.

• proxy-default will run the proxy node wihout priority feature. All the requests from the IoT agents will be processed equally.
• proxy-priority will run the proxy node with priority feature. It will consider the priority tag in the IoT requests and processed them according to the priority.

There are three options for priority tag.

• priority_id equals to 1 means it is HIGH_PRIORITY messages, such as "cross-blockchain messages".
• priority_id equals to 2 means it is MEDIUM_PRIORITY messages, such as "security-related application messages".
• priority_id equals to 3 means it is LOW_PRIORITY messages, such as "other application messages".

Inside the Vagrant VM of the respective proxy, run the following. Run this in all proxy nodes (proxy1 to proxy4).

vagrant@proxy1:~$ cd ~/src
vagrant@proxy1:~$ npm run proxy-default # without prority feature
vagrant@proxy1:~$ npm run proxy-priority # with priority feature

You can then start making request to the Proxy nodes by sending application data to these URLs.

http://proxy1.local:3001/relay_request
http://proxy2.local:3001/relay_request
http://proxy3.local:3001/relay_request
http://proxy4.local:3001/relay_request

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Benchmarking The Core Engine With Priority

The purpose of this benchmarking is to see the behaviour of the proxy node in prioritizing IoT requests from agents according to their priority_id tag. First, lets setup the Notay node. The core engine in the notary node need to have the following configuration in their ./src/core/config.js.

// How long the period of block generation (in milliseconds)
this.BLOCK_INTERVAL = 1000; // every 1 second

// Choose only one TRUE option below
this.EDDSA_FLAG = true;
this.HMAC_FLAG = false;
this.NO_SIG_FLAG = false;

this.BENCHMARK_FLAG = true; // set true during benchmarking
this.DEBUGGING_FLAG = false; // set true to display log
this.DYNAMIC_REQUEST_POOL_FLAG = true; // set true to enable dynamic request pool size

Then, we need to run the core engine in all four of the notary nodes.

vagrant@notary1:~$ cd ~/src
vagrant@notary1:~$ npm run core1

vagrant@notary2:~$ npm run core2
vagrant@notary3:~$ npm run core3
vagrant@notary4:~$ npm run core4

Once it is running, start the proxy node. Run this in all proxy nodes (proxy1 to proxy4). Choose between one of these proxy-default or proxy-priority.

vagrant@proxy1:~$ cd ~/src
vagrant@proxy1:~$ npm run proxy-default # without prority feature
vagrant@proxy1:~$ npm run proxy-priority # with priority feature

Then, open two new terminals, and run each of these commands in each terminal.

foo@ubuntu:~$ npm run bench-prioriy # run autocannon instance to send requests to proxies
foo@ubuntu:~$ npm run bench-count # background process that will record the number of Tx in block every 5 seconds

You can get the measurement results from ~/result_block_count.json and ~/result_autocannon.csv.

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Known Issues

If the node cannot ping to one another, perhaps it has the problem with the Avahi DNS. Try to ping to itself using the configured domain in all nodes. Then, try to ping one another.

vagrant@proxy1:~$ ping proxy1.local # run this in proxy #1
vagrant@proxy2:~$ ping proxy2.local # run this in proxy #2
vagrant@proxy3:~$ ping proxy3.local # run this in proxy #3
vagrant@proxy4:~$ ping proxy4.local # run this in proxy #4

# then try to ping one another, this should solves the issues

When address is already used, run the following to kill the existing application.

vagrant@proxy1:~$ sudo kill -9 `sudo lsof -t -i:3001` # kill app that use 3001
vagrant@proxy1:~$ sudo kill -9 $(sudo lsof -t -i:9001) # kill app that use 9001

If for some reason it is not possible, run the app using other port number. To run using 5001 port

vagrant@proxy1:~$ cd ~/src
vagrant@proxy1:~$ HTTP_PORT=5001 USING_PRIORITY=true node --experimental-worker app.js

Authors

• Yustus Oktian - Initial work

Acknowledgments

• Hat tip to anyone whose code was used
• Fellow researchers
• Korea Government for funding this project