ponlv/simple-p2p-network

Simple p2p network

This is a simple p2p network that uses a blockchain to store data. It is a simple implementation of a blockchain and is not intended to be used in production. I use this project to learn about blockchain and p2p networks.

Consensus

In this project, I use snowball consensus algorithm to reach consensus. Snowball is a consensus algorithm that is used in the avalanche protocol. It is a probabilistic consensus algorithm that is used to reach consensus in a p2p network. It is a simple algorithm that is easy to implement and understand. It is also a good algorithm to use to learn about consensus algorithms.

Network

In the p2p network, each node will choose some nodes as their neighbors

             +------+
    +------->+ node +<------+
    |        +------+       |
    |                       |
    v                       v
+---+--+                 +--+---+
| node |                 | node |
+---+--+                 +--+---+
    ^                       ^
    |                       |
    |        +------+       |
    +------->+ node +<------+
             +------+

Peer

A peer is a node in the network. Each peer has a blockchain and a list of neighbors. The blockchain is used to store data and the neighbors are used to communicate with other peers. We use gRPC to communicate between peers. Each peer has a gRPC server that listens for requests from other peers. Each peer also has a gRPC client that is used to send requests to other peers.

                                gRPC
                                  |
                                  v       +----+
                       +-----connection-->+peer|
                       |                  +----+
                       |
                       |
                       |
                   +---+--+               +----+
+----Service---+-->+ node +--connection-->+peer|
|PeerManager   |   +---+--+               +----+
|MessageManager|       |
+--------------+       |
                       |
                       |                  +----+
                       +-----connection-->+peer|
                                          +----+

Build and run

To build and run the project, you need to have go installed on your machine. You can download go from here.

To build the project, run the following command in the root directory of the project

go build -o build/startnode cmd/startnode/main.go

To run the project, run the following command in the root directory of the project

./build/startnode -port 5000 -neighbors localhost:5001,localhost:5002