AVALON

Get a node running

Dependencies

MongoDB
NodeJS v14/16 (LTS)
ntpd or any NTP alternative for your system. ntpd comes pre-installed on most linux distributions

Install and run an Avalon node for Linux

npm install to install nodejs dependencies
chmod +x scripts/start.sh
./scripts/start.sh

Environment Variables

The start.sh shows the list of available environment variables you can set to make avalon behave slightly differently from the default install.

Install and run an Avalon node for Windows

npm install to install nodejs dependencies
Get your own keys with node src/cli.js keypair
Save your keys
Add your keys to scripts/start.bat
Define the path to your directory in scripts/start.bat
Run scripts/start.bat
Note: to restore a genesis.zip file you may need to download the mongo databasetools and put the mongorestore.exe binary into your main directory.

Syncing your node

Become a leader and produce blocks

Debian 10 quick install procedure

Get helped

We have a discord channel dedicated to node owners (aka leaders), where you can get support to get set up. Join discorg.gg/dtube and go to DTube Chain -> #leader-candidates

Using Avalon

Once you have a node running, there are many ways to interact with Avalon:

With the CLI tool

You can use the CLI tool to transact with Avalon. Simply try node src/cli --help or node src/cli <command> --help for a full help.

Using Javalon

Javalon is the javascript wrapper for Avalon's API. Working on both browser and nodejs.

HTTP API

Avalon's API uses 100% JSON. The GET calls will allow you to fetch the public information which is already available through the d.tube UI.

Examples:

Account data: /account/:username, i.e https://avalon.d.tube/account/rt-international
Video data: /content/:username/:link i.e. https://avalon.d.tube/content/rongibsonchannel/QmdjVMdeTtTEy1CJTDbtjuaiRKMP6H364Dv4n7FsWGpnPH

Full list of API endpoints

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ORoHjrdq5V5OkTChijTUOEYRzTujVXTzCyNYt-ysVhw/edit?usp=drive_web&ouid=109732502499946497195

This lists all the available API endpoints for Avalon. We also have recommended security practises if you want to open your node's API to the world. You can do it easily with nginx and avalon-nginx-config.

Sending Transactions to the network (POST /transact)

Once you have an account and balance (if you don't, you can create one on https://signup.d.tube, your account will start generating bandwidth and voting power (respectively the bw and vt fields in your account data). You can consume those resources by transacting.

Every transaction will have a bandwidth cost, calculated based on the number of bytes required for the storage of your transaction inside a block. Certain transaction types will require you to spend voting power, such as publishing a content, voting or tagging a content.

To transact, you need to use the /transact POST call of the Avalon API. All the examples here are for the CLI tool, but the same can be achieved with Javalon in Javascript.

Necessary for all transactions:

key: your private key
- Use -K MyKeyHere to use a plain-text key
- Or use -F file.json to use a key inside a file to sign (this will prevent your key from showing on the screen too much)
user: your username

Vote for a leader

target: the node owner to approve

node src/cli.js vote-leader -K <key> -M <user> <target>

// alice votes for bob as a leader
node src/cli.js vote-leader -K 5DPwDJqTvMuykHimmZxThfKttPSNLzJjpbNtkGNnjPAf -M alice bob

Unvote a leader

target: the node owner to approve

node src/cli.js vote-leader -K <key> -M <user> <target>

// charlie does not want to vote for daniel as a leader anymore
node src/cli.js unvote-leader -F charlie_key.txt -M charlie daniel

Transfer tokens

receiver: username of the receiver of the transfer
amount: number of tokens to transfer to the receiver. Warning! 1 DTC in UI = 100 tokens
memo: arbitrary short text content

node src/cli.js transfer -K <bob_key> -M <user> <receiver> <amount> <memo>
// bob sends 50 DTC to charles
node src/cli.js transfer -K HkUbQ5YpejWVSPt8Qgz8pkPGwkDrMn3XECd4Asn3ANB3 -M bob charles 50 'thank you'

Add a post / Commenting

link: a short string to be used as the index of the content
parent_author: the username of the author of the parent post
parent_link: the link of the parent post
json: arbitrary json input. example: {"string":"aye", array:[1,2,3]}
tag: arbitrary short text content
weight : the number of vote tokens to spend on this vote

node src/cli.js comment -K <key> -M <user> <link> <parent_author> <parent_link> <json>

Vote a post

link: the link of the post to vote on
author: the username of the author to vote on
weight: the number of vote tokens to spend on this vote
tag: arbitrary short text content

node src/cli.js vote -K <key> -M <user> <link> <author> <weight> <tag>

Edit your user json object

json: arbitrary json input. example: {"string":"aye", array:[1,2,3]}

node src/cli.js profile -K <key> -M <user> <json>

Follow a user

target: the user to follow

node src/cli.js follow -K <key> -M <user> <target>

Unfollow a user

target: the user to unfollow

node src/cli.js unfollow -K <key> -M <user> <target>

Signing a raw transaction

To create a transaction and export it to a file, you can use the sign CLI tool

node src/cli.js sign <priv_key> <user> <tx> > tmptx.json

For example to approve a node owner and publishing it only 5 seconds later:

node src/cli.js sign -K 4L1C3553KRETK3Y -M alice '{"type":1,"data":{"target":"miner1"}}' > tmptx.json
sleep 5
curl -H "Content-type:application/json" --data @tmptx.json http://localhost:3001/transact

Data storage

MongoDB

Avalon saves the state of the chain into mongodb after each block. You can easily query mongodb directly to get any data you want, that wouldn't be provided by the API itself.

mongo <db_name>
db.accounts.findOne({name:'master'})
db.blocks.findOne({_id: 0})

However be sure not to write to any collection used by avalon in this database (namely the accounts, blocks and contents). If you do, your node will irremediably fork sooner or later.

Elastic Search

Avalon can also copy the accounts and contents into an elastic search database with monstache. A configuration file for monstache is provided in the root of this repository. Once running you can do text queries on accounts or contents like so:

# search contents
curl http://localhost:9200/avalon.contents/_search?q=football
# search accounts
curl http://localhost:9200/avalon.accounts/_search?q=satoshi

Please refer to Elastic Search documentation for more complex queries.

D.Tube runs a public Elastic Search mirror of the current testnet on https://search.d.tube

dtube/avalon