Deploying a hybrid network

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Deprecation notice

Consortium networks have been deprecated. This guide is for historical reference.

This section will guide you through the hybrid deployment of a MultiChain network.

By the end of the section, you will have your MultiChain nodes from the same network running in cloud and on-premises.

Prerequisites

• A Chainstack account
• A supported operating system for the MultiChain on-premises deployment:
  • Linux 64-bit: Ubuntu 12.04+, CentOS 6.2+, Debian 7+, Fedora 15+, RHEL 6.2+
  • Windows 64-bit: Windows 7, 8, 10, Server 2008, or later
  • Mac 64-bit: OS X 10.11 or later
• System requirements for the MultiChain on-premises deployment:
  • 512MB of RAM
  • 1GB of disk space

Overview

To deploy a hybrid MultiChain network, do the following:

1. With Chainstack, create a consortium project project.
2. With Chainstack, deploy a MultiChain network in cloud.
3. With Chainstack, get your cloud MultiChain node access and credentials.
4. On-premises, install MultiChain.
5. On-premises, initialize your MultiChain node.
6. From your cloud MultiChain node, grant permissions to your on-premises MultiChain node's wallet address.
7. From your cloud MultiChain node, add your on-premises MultiChain node to the network.
8. From your on-premises MultiChain node, connect to the MultiChain network.

Step-by-step

Create a consortium project

See Create a project.

Deploy a MultiChain network

See Deploy a consortium network.

Get your cloud MultiChain node access and credentials

See View node access details.

Install MultiChain on-premises

On your on-premises machine, install MultiChain.

See MultiChain 2.0: Download and Install MultiChain.

Initialize your on-premises MultiChain node

On your on-premises machine, attempt to connect to the cloud node to initialize your on-premises node.

Run:

multichaind CHAIN_NAME@HOSTNAME:PORT -daemon

where

• CHAIN_NAME — your cloud MultiChain network chain name. See Default chain name.
• HOSTNAME — your cloud MultiChain node hostname
  • Get your RPC hostname under Access and credentials as part of RPC endpoint.
  • Get your Organization ID on your Organization Settings page.
  • Combine them using the following format: nd-XXX-XXX-XXX.rg-XXX-XXX.p2pify.com.
• PORT — your cloud MultiChain node port. Always use the default value 7447.

Command example:

multichaind [email protected]:7447 -daemon

As a result of running the command, you will have:

• An initialized on-premises node
• Your on-premises node's wallet address

Output example:

MultiChain 2.0.2 Daemon (Community Edition, latest protocol 20010)

Starting up node...

Retrieving blockchain parameters from the seed node nd-123-456-789.p2pify.com:7447 ...
Blockchain successfully initialized.

Please ask blockchain admin or user having activate permission to let you connect and/or transact:
multichain-cli nw-123-456-7 grant 14SW7RsdNbktZxkTSzi52iLvXviHyPebqCaW1q connect
multichain-cli nw-123-456-7 grant 14SW7RsdNbktZxkTSzi52iLvXviHyPebqCaW1q connect,send,receive

Grant permissions to your on-premises MultiChain node

For information on how to connect to and interact with a MultiChain node, see MultiChain tooling.

On your on-premises machine, grant your on-premises MultiChain node's wallet address with the grant method and the following permissions:

• connect
• send
• receive

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You need to send the grant request through your first deployed node.

Sending a curl request from terminal:

curl RPC_ENDPOINT -u "RPC_USER:RPC_PASSWORD" -d '{"method":"grant","params":["WALLET_ADDRESS","connect,send,receive"],"id":1}'

where

• RPC_ENDPOINT — your cloud MultiChain node RPC endpoint. Available under Access and credentials > RPC endpoint.
• RPC_USER — your cloud MultiChain node RPC username. Available under Access and credentials > RPC username.
• RPC_PASSWORD — your cloud MultiChain node RPC password. Available under Access and credentials > RPC password.
• WALLET_ADDRESS — your on-premises MultiChain node's wallet address. You received the wallet address when you initialized your on-premises node.

Command example:

curl https://nd-123-456-789.p2pify.com -u "user-name:pass-word-pass-word-pass-word" -d '{"method":"grant","params":["14SW7RsdNbktZxkTSzi52iLvXviHyPebqCaW1q","connect,send,receive"],"id":1}'

Output example:

{"result":"17859d3efdaa95bc9d1573e539a9b5177e17debb6afe37078ac6c4bd1bec9821","error":null,"id":1}

Add your on-premises MultiChain node to the network

On your on-premises machine, add your on-premises MultiChain node to the network with the addnode method.

Sending a curl request from the terminal:

curl RPC_ENDPOINT -u "RPC_USER:RPC_PASSWORD" -d '{"method":"addnode","params":["ON_PREM_IP:PORT","add"],"id":2}'

where

• RPC_ENDPOINT — your cloud MultiChain node RPC endpoint. Available under Access and credentials > RPC endpoint.
• RPC_USER — your cloud MultiChain node RPC username. Available under Access and credentials > RPC username.
• RPC_PASSWORD — your cloud MultiChain node RPC password. Available under Access and credentials > RPC password.
• ON_PREM_IP — your on-premises MultiChain node machine's IP address
• PORT — your on-premises MultiChain node machine's port

Command example:

curl https://nd-123-456-789.p2pify.com -u "user-name:pass-word-pass-word-pass-word" -d '{"method":"addnode","params":["123.45.100.80:7447","add"],"id":2}'

Connect to the MultiChain network

On your on-premises machine, connect to the MultiChain network. Run:

multichaind CHAIN_NAME@HOSTNAME:PORT -daemon

where

• CHAIN_NAME — your cloud MultiChain network chain name. See Default chain name.
• HOSTNAME — your cloud MultiChain node hostname
  • Get your RPC hostname under Access and credentials as part of RPC endpoint.
  • Get your Organization ID on your Organization Settings page.
  • Combine them using the following format: nd-XXX-XXX-XXX.rg-XXX-XXX.p2pify.com.
• PORT — your cloud MultiChain node port. Always use the default value 7447.

Command example:

multichaind [email protected]:7447 -daemon

Interact from any node

Now that the MultiChain network is running in a hybrid environment, you can interact with it.

You can interact through your on-premises node or your cloud node.

Enter multichain-cli interactive mode through your on-premises node

Enter interactive mode:

multichain-cli CHAIN_NAME

where

• CHAIN_NAME — your cloud MultiChain network chain name. See Default chain name.

Command example:

multichain-cli nw-123-456-7

After entering the interactive mode, send any command. For example, getinfo to get the node and blockchain information:

nw-123-456-7: getinfo

Example output:

{"method":"getinfo","params":[],"id":"64739383-1561354299","chain_name":"nw-123-456-7"}

{
    "version" : "2.0.2",
    "nodeversion" : 20002901,
    "protocolversion" : 20004,
    "chainname" : "nw-123-456-7",
    "description" : "My Network",
    "protocol" : "multichain",
    "port" : 7447,
    "setupblocks" : 60,
    "nodeaddress" : "[email protected]:7447",
    "burnaddress" : "1XXXXXXX24XXXXXXoiXXXXXXegXXXXXXURq4HJ",
    "incomingpaused" : false,
    "miningpaused" : false,
    "offchainpaused" : false,
    "walletversion" : 60000,
    "balance" : 0,
    "walletdbversion" : 3,
    "reindex" : false,
    "blocks" : 70,
    "timeoffset" : 0,
    "connections" : 2,
    "proxy" : "",
    "difficulty" : 5.96046447753906e-8,
    "testnet" : false,
    "keypoololdest" : 1560923993,
    "keypoolsize" : 2,
    "paytxfee" : 0,
    "relayfee" : 0,
    "errors" : ""
}

Run any MultiChain JSON-RPC command.

Send commands to your cloud node

Send getinfo to get the node and blockchain information:

curl https://nd-123-456-789.p2pify.com -u "user-name:pass-word-pass-word-pass-word" -d '{"method":"getinfo","params":[],"id":1}'

Example output:

{"result":{"version":"2.0","nodeversion":20000901,"protocolversion":20004,"chainname":"nw-123-456-7","description":"My Network","protocol":"multichain","port":7447,"setupblocks":60,"nodeaddress":"[email protected]:7447","burnaddress":"1XXXXXXX24XXXXXXoiXXXXXXegXXXXXXURq4HJ","incomingpaused":false,"miningpaused":false,"offchainpaused":false,"walletversion":60000,"balance":0,"walletdbversion":3,"reindex":false,"blocks":81,"timeoffset":0,"connections":3,"proxy":"","difficulty":5.96046447753906e-8,"testnet":false,"keypoololdest":1561618750,"keypoolsize":2,"paytxfee":0,"relayfee":0,"errors":""},"error":null,"id":3}

Send any MultiChain JSON-RPC command.