Hathor Network

Running a full-node

Disclaimer

At the moment, our mainnet is running on a whitelist basis. This means only authorized nodes will be able to connect. For testing purposes, you can connect to the testnet (using the --testnet parameter). If you want to connect to the mainnet, you have to use a peer-id and send this id to a team member. You can get in touch with us through our channels, preferrably Discord.

Using Docker

The easiest way to run a full-node is to use our Docker image. If you don't have Docker installed, check out this link. So, just run:

docker run -ti -p 8080:8080 -p 8081:8081 hathornetwork/hathor-core run_node --cache --status 8080 --stratum 8081

The --status 8080 will run our HTTP API on port 8080, while the --stratum 8081 will run a stratum server on port 8081. You can check your full-node status accessing http://localhost:8080/v1a/status/. Use --help for more parameters.

For more information about our HTTP API, check out our API Documentation.

From source-code

First, you need to have Python >=3.8 installed. If you don't, we recommend you to install using pyenv (check this link).

System dependencies

• on Ubuntu 20.04 (without using pyenv):

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install python3 python3-dev python3-pip build-essential liblz4-dev libbz2-dev libsnappy-dev
  pip install -U poetry
  

  optionally install RocksDB lib:

  sudo apt install librocksdb-dev
  

• on macOS:

  first intall pyenv, keep in mind that you might need to restart your shell or init pyenv after installing:

  brew install pyenv
  

  then Python 3.11 (you could check the latest 3.11.x version with pyenv install --list):

  pyenv install 3.11.0
  pyenv local 3.11.0
  pip install -U poetry
  

  optionally install RocksDB lib:

  brew install rocksdb
  

• on Windows 10 (using winget):

  winget install python-3.11
  pip install -U poetry
  

  currently it isn't possible to use RocksDB, if you're interested, please open an issue or if you were able to do this please create a pull-request with the required steps.

Clone the project and install poetry dependencies

git clone git@github.com:HathorNetwork/hathor-core.git && cd hathor-core

poetry install

Running the full-node

poetry run hathor-cli run_node --status 8080

It may take a considerable amount of time for it to sync all the transactions in the network. To speed things up, read below.

Speeding up the sync

You can use database snapshots to speed things up.

We provide both testnet and mainnet snapshots. You can get the link to the latest snapshots this way:

• Testnet: curl https://hathor-public-files.s3.amazonaws.com/temp/testnet-data-latest
• Mainnet: curl https://hathor-public-files.s3.amazonaws.com/temp/mainnet-data-latest

You should download and unpack one of them into your data directory before starting the full-node:

wget $(curl https://hathor-public-files.s3.amazonaws.com/temp/testnet-data-latest)

tar xzf testnet-data-*.tar.gz

Additional considerations

(Assume poetry shell, otherwise prefix commands with poetry run)

Data persistence

By default, the full node uses RocksDB as storage. You need to pass a parameter --data to configure where data will be stored. You can use a memory storage instead by using --memory-storage parameter. In this case, if the node is restarted, it will have to sync all blocks and transactions again.

Example passing --data:

hathor-cli run_node --status 8080 --data /data

Example with --memory-storage:

hathor-cli run_node --status 8080 --memory-storage

With Docker

When running the full node with Docker and using a persistent storage, it's best to bind a Docker volume to a host directory. This way, the container may be restarted or even destroyed and the data will be safe.

To bind the volume, use parameter -v host-dir:conatiner-dir:options (Docker documentarion).

docker run -v ~/hathor-data:/data:consistent ... run_node ... --data /data

Using a peer-id

It's optional, but generally recommended, first generate a peer-id file:

hathor-cli gen_peer_id > peer_id.json

Then, you can use this id in any server or client through the --peer parameter. For instance:

hathor-cli run_node --listen tcp:8000 --peer peer_id.json

The ID of your peer will be in the key id inside the generated json (peer_id.json), e.g. "id": "6357b155b0867790bd92d1afe3a9afe3f91312d1ea985f908cac0f64cbc9d5b2".

Common development commands

Assuming virtualenv is active, otherwise prefix make commands with poetry run.

Check if code seems alright:

make check

Test and coverage:

make tests

Generate Sphinx docs:

cd docs
make html
make latexpdf

The output will be written to docs/_build/html/.

Generate API docs:

hathor-cli generate_openapi_json
redoc-cli bundle hathor/cli/openapi_files/openapi.json --output index.html