Vocdoni

# Gateway Deployment (stage)

This section shows how to deploy a node with the gateway role running on Vocdoni, which provides an entry point to the P2P networks for the clients. To get more information about the gateway component, read the gateway docs (opens new window).

# Requirements

# Hardware

  • 2 Cores
  • 8GB RAM
  • 40GB SSD disk space

# Software

# Network

The list of exposed ports to the Internet is as follows:

  • 443
  • 4001
  • 4171
  • 9090
  • 26656
  • 26657

Note: All all ports are TCP.

It is also required for the API to have a public DNS domain available and with A / AAAA records pointing to the gateway IP.

# Docker compose

Hands on! Clone the repository vocdoni-node (opens new window) in your current path, and change the branch:

git clone https://github.com/vocdoni/vocdoni-node
cd vocdoni-node
git checkout stage

This is the source path of the vocdoni-node. We are going to use files provided for a docker compose deploy:

cd dockerfiles/dvotenode
ls

As you can see, there are many YAML files. The main one we are going to use is docker-compose.yml. This file uses the env file to configure the node with environment variables. There are many parameters to configure, but we are going to show a basic selection of them just to get started with the mainnet. To get a reference of all the variables, check the env.example file.

Now, create and edit the env file and add the content like this:

DVOTE_DATADIR=/app/run
DVOTE_MODE=gateway
DVOTE_IPFS_SYNCKEY=vocdonistage
DVOTE_API_SSL_DOMAIN=
DVOTE_ETHCONFIG_SIGNINGKEY=
DVOTE_VOCHAINCONFIG_MEMPOOLSIZE=200000
DVOTE_W3CONFIG_ENABLED=False
DVOTE_ETHCONFIG_NOWAITSYNC=True
DVOTE_METRICS_ENABLED=True
DVOTE_METRICS_REFRESHINTERVAL=10
DVOTE_VOCHAIN=stage

Now, we are going to generate a random number of 32bits and we will use as a private key, and to have a fixed public address derived from it. Run the following command (only once) to add the key to the env file.

sed -i "s/DVOTE_ETHCONFIG_SIGNINGKEY=/&$(openssl rand -hex 32)/" env

It is highly recommended to add SSL support to your gateways APIs. You can add your own using other components in your Docker stack, such as nginx-proxy or traefik. However, go-dvote has full Let's Encrypt support built in.

To get the certificates and enable it, we are going to assume you have a DNS domain pointing to your gateway, i.e. gateway1.mydomain.net. If that's ready, then it's only a matter of adding a new variable to the env file, using your own domain:

DVOTE_API_SSL_DOMAIN=gateway1.mydomain.net

Now we are ready to start the node. First, let's pull the docker image:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.watchtower.yml -f docker-compose.yml pull

Then we start the node in a detached mode:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.watchtower.yml -f docker-compose.yml up -d

The gateway should be up and syncing the vochain with other peers.

To get some output from the logs run this command

docker-compose logs | grep "custom pubKey"

You should see a line similar to this:

dvotenode_1  | 2020-10-19T14:01:20Z	INFO	dvotenode/dvotenode.go:403	using custom pubKey 020ea27524f0daa120d9f04a1aaebb82944137e4eb675f0510c216c299a9412ab4

This is the public key that identifies your gateway node, and will be used to add your node to the list of public gateways of Vocdoni. This is the value you have to share with other participants.

Now the node is syncing, you can track the progress with:

docker-compose logs -f

There are lines like the following:

dvotenode_1  | 2020-10-20T07:21:39Z	INFO	service/vochain.go:133	[vochain info] fastsync running at block 6392 (52 blocks/s), peers 10

Warning: Do not share the private key with other gateways of the network, and save a backup as it could be needed in case of data loss.

Last Updated: 7/28/2021, 2:05:34 AM

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