Quorum

Quorum is an Ethereum-based distributed ledger protocol with transaction/contract privacy and a new consensus mechanism.

Key enhancements:

QuorumChain - a new consensus model based on majority voting
Constellation - a peer-to-peer encrypted message exchange
Peer Security - node/peer permissioning using smart contracts

Architecture

The above diagram is a high-level overview of the privacy architecture used by Quorum. For more in-depth discussion of the components, refer to the wiki pages.

Quickstart

The quickest way to get started with Quorum is using VirtualBox and Vagrant:

git clone https://github.com/jpmorganchase/quorum-examples
cd quorum-examples
vagrant up
# (should take 5 or so minutes)
vagrant ssh

Now that you have a fully-functioning Quorum environment set up, let's run the 7-node cluster example. This will spin up several nodes with a mix of voters, block makers, and unprivileged nodes.

# (from within vagrant env, use `vagrant ssh` to enter)
ubuntu@ubuntu-xenial:~$ cd quorum-examples/examples/7nodes

$ ./init.sh
# (output condensed for clarity)
[*] Cleaning up temporary data directories
[*] Configuring node 1
[*] Configuring node 2 as block maker and voter
[*] Configuring node 3
[*] Configuring node 4 as voter
[*] Configuring node 5 as voter
[*] Configuring node 6
[*] Configuring node 7

$ ./start.sh
[*] Starting Constellation nodes
[*] Starting bootnode... waiting... done
[*] Starting node 1
[*] Starting node 2
[*] Starting node 3
[*] Starting node 4
[*] Starting node 5
[*] Starting node 6
[*] Starting node 7
[*] Unlocking account and sending first transaction
Contract transaction send: TransactionHash: 0xbfb7bfb97ba9bacbf768e67ac8ef05e4ac6960fc1eeb6ab38247db91448b8ec6 waiting to be mined...
true

We now have a 7-node Quorum cluster with a private smart contract (SimpleStorage) sent from node 1 "for" node 7 (denoted by the public key passed via privateFor: ["ROAZBWtSacxXQrOe3FGAqJDyJjFePR5ce4TSIzmJ0Bc="] in the sendTransaction call).

Connect to any of the nodes and inspect them using the following commands:

$ geth attach ipc:qdata/dd1/geth.ipc
$ geth attach ipc:qdata/dd2/geth.ipc
...
$ geth attach ipc:qdata/dd7/geth.ipc


# e.g.

$ geth attach ipc:qdata/dd2/geth.ipc
Welcome to the Geth JavaScript console!

instance: Geth/v1.5.0-unstable/linux/go1.7.3
coinbase: 0xca843569e3427144cead5e4d5999a3d0ccf92b8e
at block: 679 (Tue, 15 Nov 2016 00:01:05 UTC)
 datadir: /home/ubuntu/quorum-examples/7nodes/qdata/dd2
 modules: admin:1.0 debug:1.0 eth:1.0 net:1.0 personal:1.0 quorum:1.0 rpc:1.0 txpool:1.0 web3:1.0

> quorum.nodeInfo
{
  blockMakerAccount: "0xca843569e3427144cead5e4d5999a3d0ccf92b8e",
  blockmakestrategy: {
    maxblocktime: 10,
    minblocktime: 3,
    status: "active",
    type: "deadline"
  },
  canCreateBlocks: true,
  canVote: true,
  voteAccount: "0x0fbdc686b912d7722dc86510934589e0aaf3b55a"
}

# let's look at the private txn created earlier:
> eth.getTransaction("0xbfb7bfb97ba9bacbf768e67ac8ef05e4ac6960fc1eeb6ab38247db91448b8ec6")
{
  blockHash: "0xb6aec633ef1f79daddc071bec8a56b7099ab08ac9ff2dc2764ffb34d5a8d15f8",
  blockNumber: 1,
  from: "0xed9d02e382b34818e88b88a309c7fe71e65f419d",
  gas: 300000,
  gasPrice: 0,
  hash: "0xbfb7bfb97ba9bacbf768e67ac8ef05e4ac6960fc1eeb6ab38247db91448b8ec6",
  input: "0x9820c1a5869713757565daede6fcec57f3a6b45d659e59e72c98c531dcba9ed206fd0012c75ce72dc8b48cd079ac08536d3214b1a4043da8cea85be858b39c1d",
  nonce: 0,
  r: "0x226615349dc143a26852d91d2dff1e57b4259b576f675b06173e9972850089e7",
  s: "0x45d74765c5400c5c280dd6285a84032bdcb1de85a846e87b57e9e0cedad6c427",
  to: null,
  transactionIndex: 1,
  v: "0x25",
  value: 0
}

Note in particular the v field of "0x25" (37 in decimal) which marks this transaction as having a private payload (input).

Demonstrating Privacy

Documentation detailing steps to demonstrate the privacy features of Quorum can be found in quorum-examples/7nodes/README.

Contributing

Thank you for your interest in contributing to Quorum!

Quorum is built on open source and we fully intend to accept public contributions in the near future. Until then, feel free to file issues and open pull requests, but note that we won't be merging them until the necessary processes are in place.

License

The go-ethereum library (i.e. all code outside of the cmd directory) is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0, also included in our repository in the COPYING.LESSER file.

The go-ethereum binaries (i.e. all code inside of the cmd directory) is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0, also included in our repository in the COPYING file.

slietz/quorum