Running a Chainlink node!

Spin up a VM running Debian Stretch (9). At least 2GB RAM and 16GB storage is recommended.

Ensure that your system is up to date and fully patched

sudo apt update -y && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install what we can from the default repository:

sudo apt -y install git build-essential net-tools vim apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl wget gnupg2 software-properties-common ntp postgresql

Start the ntp service

sudo /etc/init.d/ntp start

Set up Go 1.9.1

Download and install Go:

curl -O https://storage.googleapis.com/golang/go1.9.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
tar -xvf go1.9.1.linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo mv go /usr/local

Set the Go paths:

echo "export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin" >> ~/.profile
source ~/.profile

Install Ethereum locally (geth)

Change 192.168.2.76 to your IP address

git clone https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum.git && cd go-ethereum
make geth
./build/bin/geth --rpc --rpcaddr 192.168.2.76 --syncmode "light"

If you get an error about go version when running make geth, see install Go 1.9.1 instructions above.

Open a new terminal or screen

cd go-ethereum/build/bin
./geth account new

Enter in a password and confirm

./geth account list

You should see the account that you just created

./geth attach
net.listening
net.peerCount

Just let that run and open a new terminal or screen to do the rest

Installing Docker:

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/$(. /etc/os-release; echo "$ID")/gpg | sudo apt-key add -
sudo add-apt-repository -y "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/$(. /etc/os-release; echo "$ID") $(lsb_release -cs) stable"
sudo apt -y update
sudo apt -y install docker-ce

# Allows use of docker commands without sudo
sudo gpasswd -a $USER docker
su $USER

Set up PostgreSQL

Replace 192.168.1.101/16 with your IP/netmask

# Replace 9.6 with your version number. You can find this with "ls /etc/postgresql"
cd /etc/postgresql/9.6/main/

# Add settings by running these commands or manually appending the setting lines to the files
sudo sh -c "echo \"listen_addresses = '*'\" >> postgresql.conf"
sudo sh -c "echo \"host all all 192.168.1.101/16 trust\" >> pg_hba.conf"

# Restart PostgreSQL
sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql restart

Open up port 8545

sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 8545 --jump ACCEPT
sudo iptables-save

Finally set up Chainlink:

cd
docker pull smartcontract/chainlink

Note the IP address for your host machine

sudo ifconfig

Create a .env file

vim .env

You can also use POSTGRES_USER and POSTGRES_PASSWORD environment variables in the .env file if you set up a different user in PostgreSQL

Use this text as example, but change the IP to your machine's address:

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres@10.0.2.15:5432/nayru_development?encoding=utf8&pool=5&timeout=5000
ETHEREUM_URL=http://10.0.2.15:8545
ETHEREUM_EXPLORER_URL=https://etherscan.io

Run this to initialize the database:

docker run -it --env-file=.env smartcontract/chainlink rake oracle:initialize

It will ask if you're ready to print coordinator credentials to the screen. You need to actually type "Y" for it to print out the coordinators. Copy them into a text file.

And finally run this to actually start the node:

docker run -t --env-file=.env smartcontract/smartoracle

Test connection:

docker run -it --env-file=.env smartcontract/chainlink rails runner "puts Ethereum::Client.new.current_block_height"

Stopping the node

If you want to stop the ChainLink node, you need to kill the entire docker container.

First, get a list of running docker containers with:

docker ps

Look for the line where "image" is set to smartcontract/smartoracle. Copy the container id and use it in the following command: (e.g. docker kill 23e27b5e63fb)

docker kill CONTAINER_ID

boxhock/ChainLink-Node