Question

This tutorial will walk through setting up two OpenEthereum nodes locally and sending transactions between them. If you want to learn more about different parameters specified in this tutorial please refer to the Chain specification page.

Each node will act as an authority on the network issuing blocks when necessary, there will be also one additional user account with a high initial balance. All files produced in this tutorial can be found here.

1. Choose your chain

We will run a chain with Authority Round consensus engine. First we need to create a basic chain spec with all required fields.

{
    "name": "DemoPoA",
    "engine": {
        "authorityRound": {
            "params": {
                "stepDuration": "5",
                "validators" : {
                    "list": []
                }
            }
        }
    },
    "params": {
        "gasLimitBoundDivisor": "0x400",
        "maximumExtraDataSize": "0x20",
        "minGasLimit": "0x1388",
        "networkID" : "0x2323",
        "eip155Transition": 0,
        "validateChainIdTransition": 0,
        "eip140Transition": 0,
        "eip211Transition": 0,
        "eip214Transition": 0,
        "eip658Transition": 0
    },
    "genesis": {
        "seal": {
            "authorityRound": {
                "step": "0x0",
                "signature": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
            }
        },
        "difficulty": "0x20000",
        "gasLimit": "0x5B8D80"
    },
    "accounts": {
        "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000001": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "ecrecover", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 3000, "word": 0 } } } },
        "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000002": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "sha256", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 60, "word": 12 } } } },
        "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000003": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "ripemd160", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 600, "word": 120 } } } },
        "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000004": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "identity", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 15, "word": 3 } } } }
    }
}

"gasLimitBoundDivisor" which determines gas limit adjustment has the usual Ethereum value "stepDuration" is set to at least 5 second block times "validators" is empty right now since we are yet to create our authority accounts

"params" standard for most chains

"genesis" has some standard values for the Authority Round consensus

"accounts" contains the standard Ethereum builtin contracts, these should be included to use the Solidity contract writing language

Save the above under demo-spec.json.

2. Setting up the two nodes

Now that a bare bones chain specification is complete the two nodes can be set up. OpenEthereum stores accounts for each chain with a different genesis hash in a separate folder, so in order to create the accounts in the correct one we will need to run with the --chain option. Normally the two nodes would be started on separate machines, however since we are using the same one we will need to resolve some possible collisions:

• -d determines the directory that a OpenEthereum instance uses for data and keys
• --port determines the port via which OpenEthereum communicates with other nodes
• --jsonrpc-port is the RPC port
• --ws-port is the port used by the wallet to talk to the node We will also want to expose all RPC apis to make interacting with the nodes easier --jsonrpc-apis web3, eth, net, personal, parity, parity_set, traces, rpc, parity_accounts.

Putting it all together gives us the following command to start OpenEthereum:

openethereum  --chain demo-spec.json -d /tmp/parity0 --port 30300 --jsonrpc-port 8540 --ws-port 8450 --jsonrpc-apis web3,eth,net,personal,parity,parity_set,traces,rpc,parity_accounts

Since the command is becoming rather clunky we can use a config files instead, which are passed using --config option. Node 0 will have this config file saved under node0.toml:

[parity]
chain = "demo-spec.json"
base_path = "/tmp/parity0"
[network]
port = 30300
[rpc]
port = 8540
apis = ["web3", "eth", "net", "personal", "parity", "parity_set", "traces", "rpc", "parity_accounts"]
[websockets]
port = 8450

While node 1 will have config saved under node1.toml:

[parity]
chain = "demo-spec.json"
base_path = "/tmp/parity1"
[network]
port = 30301
[rpc]
port = 8541
apis = ["web3", "eth", "net", "personal", "parity", "parity_set", "traces", "rpc", "parity_accounts"]
[websockets]
port = 8451
[ipc]
disable = true

We will create three accounts: two authorities and one user account. There are different methods to create accounts, pick one that suits you best:

Method 1. Using RPC

Start the node 0 using openethereum --config node0.toml.

RPC can accessed via web3, parity.js or simply using curl. This will create the first authority address:

curl --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"parity_newAccountFromPhrase","params":["node0", "node0"],"id":0}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST localhost:8540

Returned address should be 0x00bd138abd70e2f00903268f3db08f2d25677c9e.

The user address:

curl --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"parity_newAccountFromPhrase","params":["user", "user"],"id":0}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST localhost:8540

Returned address should be 0x004ec07d2329997267ec62b4166639513386f32e.

Now start the other node with openethereum --config node1.toml and create the second authority account:

curl --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"parity_newAccountFromPhrase","params":["node1", "node1"],"id":0}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST localhost:8541

Returned address should be 0x00aa39d30f0d20ff03a22ccfc30b7efbfca597c2.

Method 2. Using command openethereum account new

You can also create an account without starting OpenEthereum using:

openethereum account new --config node0.toml

This does not give you control over what address will be created, so for the remainder of the tutorial we will stick with the accounts created by the previous methods.

3. Complete the chain specification

If the account were created from phrases we should have the following setup now:

• node 0 has the 0x00Bd138aBD70e2F00903268F3Db08f2D25677C9e authority account and 0x004ec07d2329997267Ec62b4166639513386F32E user account
• node 1 has the 0x00Aa39d30F0D20FF03a22cCfc30B7EfbFca597C2 authority account

The accounts can be now added to the spec file. Open demo-spec.json back up and add the authorities we have just created to the "validators" array:

"validators" : {
    "list": [
        "0x00Bd138aBD70e2F00903268F3Db08f2D25677C9e",
        "0x00Aa39d30F0D20FF03a22cCfc30B7EfbFca597C2"
    ]
}

Then add our user account to the genesis, so that we have some balance to send around:

"0x004ec07d2329997267Ec62b4166639513386F32E": { "balance": "10000000000000000000000" }

The complete demo-spec.json should look like this:

{
    "name": "DemoPoA",
    "engine": {
        "authorityRound": {
            "params": {
                "stepDuration": "5",
                "validators" : {
                    "list": [
                        "0x00Bd138aBD70e2F00903268F3Db08f2D25677C9e",
                        "0x00Aa39d30F0D20FF03a22cCfc30B7EfbFca597C2"
                    ]
                }
            }
        }
    },
    "params": {
        "gasLimitBoundDivisor": "0x400",
        "maximumExtraDataSize": "0x20",
        "minGasLimit": "0x1388",
        "networkID" : "0x2323",
        "eip155Transition": 0,
        "validateChainIdTransition": 0,
        "eip140Transition": 0,
        "eip211Transition": 0,
        "eip214Transition": 0,
        "eip658Transition": 0
    },
    "genesis": {
        "seal": {
            "authorityRound": {
                "step": "0x0",
                "signature": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
            }
        },
        "difficulty": "0x20000",
        "gasLimit": "0x5B8D80"
    },
    "accounts": {
        "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000001": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "ecrecover", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 3000, "word": 0 } } } },
        "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000002": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "sha256", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 60, "word": 12 } } } },
        "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000003": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "ripemd160", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 600, "word": 120 } } } },
        "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000004": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "identity", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 15, "word": 3 } } } },
        "0x004ec07d2329997267Ec62b4166639513386F32E": { "balance": "10000000000000000000000" }
    }
}

4. Run the authority nodes

Now that the spec is complete we can start the two nodes that will be running the chain. To run a node as an authority we will need to enable it to sign the consensus messages.

First lets create a file with the node passwords node.pwds. Each line will contain a password that we used when creating the authority accounts, contents to be stored in file named node.pwds are:

node0
node1

Now we can add engine-signer to our config files. node0.toml:

[parity]
chain = "demo-spec.json"
base_path = "/tmp/parity0"
[network]
port = 30300
[rpc]
port = 8540
apis = ["web3", "eth", "net", "personal", "parity", "parity_set", "traces", "rpc", "parity_accounts"]
[websockets]
port = 8450
[account]
password = ["node.pwds"]
[mining]
engine_signer = "0x00Bd138aBD70e2F00903268F3Db08f2D25677C9e"
reseal_on_txs = "none"

and node1.toml:

[parity]
chain = "demo-spec.json"
base_path = "/tmp/parity1"
[network]
port = 30301
[rpc]
port = 8541
apis = ["web3", "eth", "net", "personal", "parity", "parity_set", "traces", "rpc", "parity_accounts"]
[websockets]
port = 8451
[ipc]
disable = true
[account]
password = ["node.pwds"]
[mining]
engine_signer = "0x00Aa39d30F0D20FF03a22cCfc30B7EfbFca597C2"
reseal_on_txs = "none"

The two nodes can now be started. Node 0:

openethereum --config node0.toml

and node 1:

openethereum --config node1.toml

5. Connecting the nodes

In order to ensure the nodes are connected to each other we will need to know their enode addresses and inform the other node about it. There are two ways to obtain the enode:

• RPC
• startup console output

Once obtained they can be added either as boot nodes in the demo-spec.json or as reserved peers.

Here we will simply use curl. Obtain node 0 enode:

curl --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"parity_enode","params":[],"id":0}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST localhost:8540

Add the “result” to node 1 (replace enode://RESULT in the command):

curl --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"parity_addReservedPeer","params":["enode://RESULT"],"id":0}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST localhost:8541

Now the nodes should indicate 0/1/25 peers in the console, which means they are connected to each other.

6. Send transactions

Using RPC

Send some tokens from the user account to authority node0:

curl --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"personal_sendTransaction","params":[{"from":"0x004ec07d2329997267Ec62b4166639513386F32E","to":"0x00Bd138aBD70e2F00903268F3Db08f2D25677C9e","value":"0xde0b6b3a7640000"}, "user"],"id":0}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST localhost:8540

Once the request is submitted a block should be issued a few seconds later. You can check that the other account received the funds:

curl --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_getBalance","params":["0x00Bd138aBD70e2F00903268F3Db08f2D25677C9e", "latest"],"id":1}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST localhost:8540

We can also send some to the account that is on the other node:

curl --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"personal_sendTransaction","params":[{"from":"0x004ec07d2329997267Ec62b4166639513386F32E","to":"0x00Aa39d30F0D20FF03a22cCfc30B7EfbFca597C2","value":"0xde0b6b3a7640000"}, "user"],"id":0}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST localhost:8540

and check if it was received asking the other node:

curl --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_getBalance","params":["0x00Aa39d30F0D20FF03a22cCfc30B7EfbFca597C2", "latest"],"id":1}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST localhost:8541

7. Further development

You can now create more accounts, send value around, write contracts and deploy them. All the tools that are used to develop and use the Ethereum network can be also used in this network.

To deploy OpenEthereum on multiple machines you may find the docker builds useful.

To add a non-authority node this simpler config can be used:

[parity]
chain = "demo-spec.json"
base_path = "/tmp/parity2"
[network]
port = 30302
[rpc]
port = 8542
apis = ["web3", "eth", "net", "personal", "parity", "parity_set", "traces", "rpc", "parity_accounts"]
[websockets]
port = 8452
[ipc]
disable = true

Then the accounts and connecting the nodes can be done the same as for the authority nodes. To make sure that transactions are accepted, authorities can also run with usd_per_tx = "0" field under [mining]. Any node submitting a transaction will be then able to do so for free.

When running nodes on separate machines most of the fields will be redundant, so the basic config will only have the chain and possibly the RPC apis:

[parity]
chain = "demo-spec.json"
[rpc]
apis = ["web3", "eth", "net", "personal", "parity", "parity_set", "traces", "rpc", "parity_accounts"]

or simply running openethereum --chain demo-spec.json!