LightChain (Java)

Reference implementation of the Lightchain blockchain protocol in Java. Note that this is still a work-in-progress with many features still missing. Also, although we aim a robust and safe implementation, this is a research project and should not be used in production either as a library or as a standalone application.

Building

$ make compile-lightchain 

Running the tests

$ make test

Linter and formatter

This project uses SpotBugs for static analysis and Checkstyle for code style checking. To have a clean codebase, we recommend running the following commands before submitting a pull request. The remote CI will also run these checks.

$ make lint

$ make sptbug-check

Local Testnet

Local testnet is still a work-in-progress. It eventually will allow you to run a local network of LightChain nodes each on a separate container. This network will be used for testing and development purposes. It also enables logging and metrics (Grafana + Prometheus) for monitoring the network.

At the moment, you can run a network of nodes using the following command. However, since Lightchain node is still under development, the local testnet spins up instances of a mock node ([Node.java](src%2Fmain%2Fjava%2Fbootstrap%2FNode. java)) that is capable of sending and receiving Hello messages.

To start first run:

make docker-build-lightchain

This bootstraps (Bootstrap.java) the network by creating public and private keys for each node and building the Docker images.

Then run the Cmd (Cmd.java) file in this package. It will start the network and open the Grafana dashboard in your browser. Grafana is available on localhost:3000 and Prometheus on localhost:9090. The default username and password for Grafana is admin:admin.

To stop the network kill the Cmd process and then run:

make docker-clean-lightchain

This will stop and remove all containers together with their volumes.

Finally, to stop the Prometheus and Grafana containers run:

make docker-stop-metrics

This stops the containers but does not remove them. We don't recommend removing them as it will remove all dashboards and data. If needed you can force remove them by docker commands.