Lachesis

aBFT Consensus platform for distributed applications.

Build Details

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Building the source

Building lachesis requires both a Go (version 1.13 or later) and a C compiler. You can install them using your favourite package manager. Once the dependencies are installed, run

go build -o ./build/lachesis ./cmd/lachesis

The build output is build/lachesis executable.

Do not clone the project into $GOPATH, due to the Go Modules. Instead, use any other location.

Running lachesis

Going through all the possible command line flags is out of scope here, but we've enumerated a few common parameter combos to get you up to speed quickly on how you can run your own lachesis instance.

Mainnet

Launching lachesis for mainnet with default settings:

$ lachesis

Configuration

As an alternative to passing the numerous flags to the lachesis binary, you can also pass a configuration file via:

$ lachesis --config /path/to/your_config.toml

To get an idea how the file should look like you can use the dumpconfig subcommand to export your existing configuration:

$ lachesis --your-favourite-flags dumpconfig

Docker quick start

One of the quickest ways to get Lachesis up and running on your machine is by using Docker:

cd docker/
make
docker run -d --name lachesis-node -v /home/alice/lachesis:/root \
           -p 5050:5050 \
          "lachesis" \
          --port 5050 \
          --nat extip:YOUR_IP

This will start lachesis with --port 5050 --nat extip:YOUR_IP arguments, with DB files inside /home/alice/lachesis/.lachesis

Do not forget --rpcaddr 0.0.0.0, if you plan to access RPC from other containers and/or hosts. By default, lachesis binds to the local interface and RPC endpoints is not accessible from the outside.

To find out your enode ID, use:

docker exec -i lachesis-node /lachesis --exec "admin.nodeInfo.enode" attach

To get the logs:

docker logs lachesis-node

Validator

To launch a validator, you have to use --validator flag to enable events emitter. Also you have to either use --unlock / --password flags or unlock validator account manually. Validator account should be unlocked for signing events.

$ lachesis --nousb --validator 0xADDRESS --unlock 0xADDRESS --password /path/to/password

Participation in discovery

Optionally you can specify your public IP to straighten connectivity of the network. Ensure your TCP/UDP p2p port (5050 by default) isn't blocked by your firewall.

$ lachesis --nat extip:1.2.3.4

Dev

Running testnet

To run a testnet node, you have to add --testnet flag every time you use lachesis:

$ lachesis --testnet # launch node
$ lachesis --testnet attach # attach to IPC
$ lachesis --testnet account new # create new account

Testing

Lachesis has extensive unit-testing. Use the Go tool to run tests:

go test ./...

If everything goes well, it should output something along these lines:

?       github.com/Fantom-foundation/go-lachesis/event_check/basic_check    [no test files]
?       github.com/Fantom-foundation/go-lachesis/event_check/epoch_check    [no test files]
?       github.com/Fantom-foundation/go-lachesis/event_check/heavy_check    [no test files]
?       github.com/Fantom-foundation/go-lachesis/event_check/parents_check  [no test files]
ok      github.com/Fantom-foundation/go-lachesis/evm_core   (cached)
ok      github.com/Fantom-foundation/go-lachesis/gossip (cached)
?       github.com/Fantom-foundation/go-lachesis/gossip/fetcher [no test files]
?       github.com/Fantom-foundation/go-lachesis/gossip/occuredtxs [no test files]
ok      github.com/Fantom-foundation/go-lachesis/gossip/ordering    (cached)
ok      github.com/Fantom-foundation/go-lachesis/gossip/packsdownloader    (cached)

Operating a private network (fakenet)

Fakenet is a private network optimized for your private testing. It'll generate a genesis containing N validators with equal stakes. To launch a validator in this network, all you need to do is specify a validator ID you're willing to launch.

Pay attention that validator's private keys are deterministically generated in this network, so you must use it only for private testing.

Maintaining your own private network is more involved as a lot of configurations taken for granted in the official networks need to be manually set up.

To run the fakenet with just one validator (which will work practically as a PoA blockchain), use:

$ lachesis --fakenet 1/1

To run the fakenet with 5 validators, run the command for each validator:

$ lachesis --fakenet 1/5 # first node, use 2/5 for second node

If you have to launch a non-validator node in fakenet, use 0 as ID:

$ lachesis --fakenet 0/5

After that, you have to connect your nodes. Either connect them statically or specify a bootnode:

$ lachesis --fakenet 1/5 --bootnodes "enode://verylonghex@1.2.3.4:5050"

Running the demo

For the testing purposes, the full demo may be launched using:

cd docker/
make # build docker image
./start.sh # start the containers
./stop.sh # stop the demo

The full demo doesn't spin up very fast. To avoid the full docker image building, you may run the integration test instead:

go test -v ./integration/...

Adjust test duration, number of nodes and logs verbosity in the test source code.

Auto check updates

Auto check is enabled by default. If the build version is not the latest release, a corresponding log message will be issued and the validator node will be finished or non-validator node will continue work with disabled transaction API. Pass the --nocheckversion flag to disable check updates.

$ lachesis --nocheckversion

For nightly build, the operation of the node will also continue with a corresponding log warning.