Skip to content

Using the Pocket Core Service Node Docker Image

Jump to bottom
Andrew Nguyen edited this page Jun 10, 2019 · 26 revisions

Prerequisites

Downloading the Pocket Core MVP image

Remember to keep your image updated by running the following command:

docker rmi -f poktnetwork/pocket-core:mvp-latest && docker pull poktnetwork/pocket-core:mvp-latest

Using docker run

During this tutorial we will be using the docker run and a series of environment variables to configure your Pocket Core Service Node. All environment variables are passed using the -e argument of the docker run command. For example:

docker run -e MY_VAR=myvalue -it poktnetwork/pocket-core:mvp-latest

Another argument we will be using is -p, which allows us to map a port within the Docker container to a port in the host machine, allowing us to access the Pocket Core process running inside the container (By default on the port 8081). For example:

docker run -p 8081:8081 -it poktnetwork/pocket-core:mvp-latest

Configuring your Pocket Core Service Node using environment variables

POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_GID Required

The unique identifier for all of your Service Nodes instances. This GID will be provided by the Pocket team and will serve as the primary means of authentication with the Trusted MVP Dispatch Node.

Example POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_GID=GID1

POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_IP Required

The IP, domain, load balancer or proxy that points to your Service Node.

NOTE: In case you are hosting more than one service node and/or will expect to receive higher traffic, we suggest to set it up behind a load balancer

Example POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_IP=yourdomain.com

Example POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_IP=x.x.x.x

Defaults to POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_IP=127.0.0.1

POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_PORT Required

The port to be used to connect using your POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_IP

NOTE: In case you are going to production, we suggest to use 443 and setup properly HTTPS

Example POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_PORT=443

Defaults to POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_PORT=80

POCKET_PATH_DATADIR

Absolute path to the data directory (defaults to datadir)

Defaults to datadir

Example POCKET_PATH_DATADIR=datadir

POCKET_CORE_REQUEST_TIMEOUT

Default request timeout (in ms) to use when doing network requests (defaults to 0)

Defaults to 0

Example POCKET_CORE_REQUEST_TIMEOUT=1000

The chains.json file

In order to connect your Pocket Core instance to your blockchain nodes, you're going to need to specify a chains.json file, which you can do in different ways:

  • Fetching your chains.json configuration file from a S3 bucket.
  • Passing chains.json configuration via environment variable.
  • Mapping POCKET_PATH_DATADIR to a folder with your chains.json.

Please see the example below to see what the contents of the chains.json file must be:

[
  {
    "blockchain": {
      "name": "ETH",
      "netid": "4"
    },
    "url":"mygethrinkebynode.com:443"
  },
  {
    "blockchain": {
      "name": "AION",
      "netid": "32"
    },
    "url":"myaionmasterynode.com:80"
  }
]

name is the name of the hosted blockchain. As of now, the convention is to put the ticker of the network in uppercase (as shown above).

netid is the network id that you are running of the specific hosted blockchain, this is used to differentiate a testnet request from a mainnet one. The convention is to use whatever identifies that specific network (e.g. 4 for Ethereum's Rinkeby testnet, 32 for AION's Mastery testnet).

url is the url in which you are running the specified blockchain node. Make sure your Docker Container has network access to this url, if Pocket Core cannot reach it, it won't spin up. For more information on Docker Networking please refer to the following link: https://docs.docker.com/network/.

Fetching chains.json from a S3 bucket

To pull your chains.json from a S3 bucket, we will use the POCKET_CORE_S3_CONFIG_URL environment variable described below.

POCKET_CORE_S3_CONFIG_URL Required

Receives a URL for a S3 bucket or a S3 bucket and directory path to download configurations from. If not provided, it will lookup your configuration using the POCKET_CORE_CHAINS environment variable. The bucket must contain a file named chains.json.

In order to download the configuration properly from S3. You will also need to define the following environment variables by using the -e flag of the docker run command:

  • -e AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=xxx
  • -e AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=xxx
  • -e AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1

Example with bucket: POCKET_CORE_S3_CONFIG_URL=s3://mypocketconfigbucket/

Example with bucket subdirectory: sub-directory POCKET_CORE_S3_CONFIG_URL=s3://mypocketconfigbucket/staging

Example

Please refer to example below to see how you can run a Pocket Core Service Node using S3 to fetch your chains.json configuration:

$ docker run 
    -p 8081:8081
    -e POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_IP=yourservicenode.com
    -e POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_PORT=443 
    -e POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_GID=EXAMPLE_GID  
    -e POCKET_CORE_S3_CONFIG_URL=s3://mypocketconfigbucket/
    -e AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=xxx
    -e AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=xxx
    -e AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1
    -it poktnetwork/pocket-core:mvp-latest

Passing chains.json configuration via environment variable

Pocket Core also allows you to pass in the chains.json contents via an environment variable described below.

POCKET_CORE_CHAINS Required

Receives a JSON Array with the chains.json information.

Defaults to []

Example POCKET_CORE_CHAINS='[{"blockchain":{"name":"AION","netid":"32"},"port":"80","medium":"rpc","host":"myaionmasterynode.com"},{"blockchain":{"name":"ETH","netid":"4"},"port":"80","medium":"rpc","host":"mygethtestnetnode.com"}]'

Example

$ docker run 
    -p 8081:8081
    -e POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_IP=yourservicenode.com
    -e POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_PORT=443
    -e POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_GID=EXAMPLE_GID  
    -e POCKET_CORE_CHAINS='[{"blockchain":{"name":"AION","netid":"256","version":"0"},"url":"myaionmainnetnode.com"},{"blockchain":{"name":"AION","netid":"32","version":"0"},"url":"myaionmasterynode.com"},{"blockchain":{"name":"ETH","netid":"1","version":"0"},"url":"mygethmainnetnode.com"},{"blockchain":{"name":"ETH","netid":"4","version":"0"},"url":"mygethtestnetnode.com"}]'
    -it poktnetwork/pocket-core:mvp-latest

Passing chains.json configuration via volume mapping

Docker allows you to map a directory in the host machine to a directory in the Docker container, which you can use to map your datadir and extract the chains.json from there using the -v flag. Let's take a look at the example below:

$ docker run 
    -u root
    -p 8081:8081
    -e POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_IP=yourservicenode.com
    -e POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_PORT=443
    -e POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_GID=EXAMPLE_GID  
    -v $PWD/datadir:/go/src/github.com/pokt-network/pocket-core/datadir
    -it poktnetwork/pocket-core:mvp-latest

Or if you modified the data dir location using the POCKET_PATH_DATADIR, you must use that in the -v argument, please see the example below:

$ docker run 
    -u root
    -p 8081:8081
    -e POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_IP=yourservicenode.com
    -e POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_PORT=443
    -e POCKET_CORE_SERVICE_GID=EXAMPLE_GID
    -e POCKET_PATH_DATADIR=my_custom_data_dir  
    -v $PWD/datadir:/go/src/github.com/pokt-network/pocket-core/datadir  # See here the value is reflected
    -it poktnetwork/pocket-core:mvp-latest

NOTE: Do not use this example in Production this last two examples uses -u root (run container as root) and are only just for educational purposes. For security concerns It is NOT recommended to run any application as root

General

Home

How to contribute

Developer Setup Guide

MVP (Minimum Viable Pocket)

Service Node Setup

Setup Options

Docker Setup

Client Developers

API Documentation

Clone this wiki locally