Various¶

Private node¶

The node can be set in private mode with the option --private-mode so that:

it doesn’t connect to any peer other than those provided with --peer or in bootstrap-peers
the peers connected to a private node don’t advertise it in the list of peers sent to their neighborhood

This feature is especially useful to hide a sensitive node that signs operations.

For example we could have a set up with two nodes, a private one connected uniquely with a public one. The public node runs on a VPS, connects normally to the network and keeps an up to date state of the network while the private node runs at your home and is in charge of injecting and signing operations with a hardware wallet.

tezos-node run --rpc-addr [::] --private-mode \
                               --no-bootstrap-peers \
                               --bootstrap-threshold=1 \
                               --connections 1 \
                               --peer <public-node-ip>

Configuration options for the node¶

./tezos-node config init

This will initialize a configuration file for the node in $HOME/.tezos-node/config.json, using default values. It only specifies that the node will listen to incoming connections on socket address [::]:9732.

The easiest way to amend this default configuration is to use

# Update the config file
./tezos-node config update <…>
# Start from an empty cfg file
./tezos-node config reset <…>

All blockchain data is stored under $HOME/.tezos-node/. You can change this by doing ./tezos-node config update –data-dir </somewhere/in/your/disk>.

To run multiple nodes on the same machine, you can duplicate and edit $HOME/.tezos-node/config.json while making sure they don’t share the same data-dir. Then run your node with ./tezos-node run –config-file=</path/to/alternate_cfg>.

Here is an example configuration file with all parameters specified. Most of the time it uses default values, except for cases where the default is not explanatory enough (i.e. “bootstrap-peers” is an empty list by default). Comments are not allowed in JSON, so this configuration file would not parse. They are just provided here to help writing your own configuration file if needed.

{

  /* Location of the data dir on disk. */

  "data-dir": "/home/tezos/my_data_dir"

  /* Configuration of net parameters */

  "net": {

    /* Floating point number between 0 and 256 that represents a
    difficulty, 24 signifies for example that at least 24 leading
    zeroes are expected in the hash. */

    "expected-proof-of-work": 24.5,

    /* List of hosts. Tezos can connect to both IPv6 and IPv4
    hosts. If the port is not specified, default port 9732 will be
    assumed. */

    "bootstrap-peers": ["::1:10732", "::ffff:192.168.1.3:9733", "mynode.tezos.com"],

    /* Specify if the node is in private mode or not. A node in
    private mode only opens outgoing connections to peers whose
    addresses are in [trusted_peers] and only accepts incoming
    connections from trusted peers. In addition, it informs these
    peers that the identity of the node should not be revealed to
    the rest of the network. */

    "private-mode": false,

    /* Network limits */

    "limits": {

      /* Delay granted to a peer to perform authentication, in
      seconds. */

      "authentication-timeout": 5,

      /* Strict minimum number of connections (triggers an urgent
      maintenance). */

      "min-connections": 50,

      /* Targeted number of connections to reach when bootstrapping /
      maintaining. */

      "expected-connections": 100,

      /* Maximum number of connections (exceeding peers are
      disconnected). */

      "max-connections": 200,

      /* Number above which pending incoming connections are
      immediately rejected. */

      "backlog": 20,

      /* Maximum allowed number of incoming connections that are
      pending authentication. */

      "max-incoming-connections": 20,

      /* Max download and upload speeds in KiB/s. */

      "max-download-speed": 1024,
      "max-upload-speed": 1024,

      /* Size of the buffer passed to read(2). */

      "read-buffer-size": 16384,
    }
  },

  /* Configuration of rpc parameters */

  "rpc": {

    /* Host to listen to. If the port is not specified, the default
    port 8732 will be assumed. */

    "listen-addr": "localhost:8733",

    /* Cross Origin Resource Sharing parameters, see
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-origin_resource_sharing. */

    "cors-origin": [],
    "cors-headers": [],

    /* Certificate and key files (necessary when TLS is used). */

    "crt": "tezos-node.crt",
    "key": "tezos-node.key"
  },

  /* Configuration of log parameters */

  "log": {

    /* Output for the logging function. Either "stdout", "stderr" or
    the name of a log file . */

    "output": "tezos-node.log",

    /* Verbosity level: one of 'fatal', 'error', 'warn', 'notice',
    'info', 'debug'. */

    "level": "info",

    /* Fine-grained logging instructions. Same format as described in
    `tezos-node run --help`, DEBUG section. In the example below,
    sections "net" and all sections starting by "client" will have
    their messages logged up to the debug level, whereas the rest of
    log sections will be logged up to the notice level. */

    "rules": "client* -> debug; net -> debug; * -> notice",

    /* Format for the log file, see
    http://ocsigen.org/lwt/dev/api/Lwt_log_core#2_Logtemplates. */

    "template": "$(date) - $(section): $(message)"
  },

  /* Configuration for the validator and mempool parameters */

  "shell": {

     /* The number of peers to synchronize with
        before declaring the node 'bootstrapped'. */

     "bootstrap_threshold": 4,

     /* The history mode configuration you want to run. */
     "history_mode": "full"

  }
}

Environment for writing Michelson contracts¶

Here is how to setup a practical environment for writing, editing and debugging Michelson programs.

Install Emacs with the deferred and exec-path-from-shell packages. The packages can be installed from within Emacs with M-x package-install. The last package imports the shell path in Emacs and it is needed because we will run a sandboxed node.

Set up the Michelson mode by adding in your .emacs :

(load "~/tezos/tezos/emacs/michelson-mode.el" nil t)
(setq michelson-client-command "tezos-client")
(setq michelson-alphanet nil)

Note that the Michelson mode will be chosen automatically by Emacs for files with a .tz or .tez extension.

Run a sandboxed node (and activate the Alpha protocol with tezos-activate-alpha) so that useful information about the program can be displayed. We can now open our favourite contract emacs ./src/bin_client/test/contracts/attic/id.tz and, when moving the cursor on a Michelson instruction, in the bottom of the windows Emacs should display the state of the stack before (left) and after (right) the application of the instruction. The Emacs mode automatically type-checks your program and reports errors; once you are happy with the result you can ask the client to run it locally:

tezos-client run script ./src/bin_client/test/contracts/attic/id.tz \
             on storage '"hello"' and input '"world"'

Debugging¶

It is possible to set independent log levels for different logging sections in Tezos, as well as specifying an output file for logging. See the description of log parameters above as well as documentation under the DEBUG section displayed by tezos-node run –-help.

Admin Client¶

The admin client enables you to interact with the peer-to-peer layer in order to:

check the status of the connections
force connections to known peers
ban/unban peers

A useful command to debug a node that is not syncing is:

tezos-admin-client p2p stat