Substrate Node for Diffy chat messenger
The aim of this project is to develop a secured decentralized messenger that doesn’t store data on a centralized backend and uses personal Polkadot wallet credentials for chatting initiation and messaging.
P2p channels between users are set using WebRTC. This Substrate pallet is used for exchanging SDP offers. For address discovery of NAT users any public STUN server can be used. All messages between users are encrypted with user’s public keys. This pallet also includes a “contacts” feature: a user is able to tie names to wallet addresses and organize his contacts in a common way.
Substrate Node Template
A fresh FRAME-based Substrate node, ready for hacking
Getting Started
Follow the steps below to get started with the Node Template, or get it up and running right from
your browser in just a few clicks using
the Substrate Playground
Using Nix
Install nix and optionally direnv and
lorri for a fully plug and play experience for setting up
the development environment. To get all the correct dependencies activate direnv direnv allow
and
lorri lorri shell
.
Rust Setup
First, complete the basic Rust setup instructions.
Run
Use Rust's native cargo
command to build and launch the template node:
cargo run --release -- --dev
Build
The cargo run
command will perform an initial build. Use the following command to build the node
without launching it:
cargo build --release
Embedded Docs
Once the project has been built, the following command can be used to explore all parameters and subcommands:
./target/release/diffychat -h
Run
The provided cargo run
command will launch a temporary node and its state will be discarded after
you terminate the process. After the project has been built, there are other ways to launch the
node.
Single-Node Development Chain
This command will start the single-node development chain with non-persistent state:
./target/release/diffychat --dev
Purge the development chain's state:
./target/release/diffychat purge-chain --dev
Start the development chain with detailed logging:
RUST_BACKTRACE=1 ./target/release/diffychat -ldebug --dev
Development chain means that the state of our chain will be in a tmp folder while the nodes are running. Also, alice account will be authority and sudo account as declared in the genesis state. At the same time the following accounts will be pre-funded:
- Alice
- Bob
- Alice//stash
- Bob//stash
In case of being interested in maintaining the chain' state between runs a base path must be added so the db can be stored in the provided folder instead of a temporal one. We could use this folder to store different chain databases, as a different folder will be created per different chain that is ran. The following commands shows how to use a newly created folder as our db base path.
// Create a folder to use as the db base path
$ mkdir my-chain-state
// Use of that folder to store the chain state
$ ./target/release/diffychat --dev --base-path ./my-chain-state/
// Check the folder structure created inside the base path after running the chain
$ ls ./my-chain-state
chains
$ ls ./my-chain-state/chains/
dev
$ ls ./my-chain-state/chains/dev
db keystore network
Connect with Polkadot-JS Apps Front-end
Once the node template is running locally, you can connect it with Polkadot-JS Apps front-end to interact with your chain. Click here connecting the Apps to your local node template.
Multi-Node Local Testnet
If you want to see the multi-node consensus algorithm in action, refer to our Simulate a network tutorial.
Substrate Builder Docker Image
Go to folder scripts/docker.
The Docker image in this folder is a builder
image. It is self contained and allows users to build the binaries themselves.
There is no requirement on having Rust or any other toolchain installed but a working Docker environment.
Unlike the parity/polkadot
image which contains a single binary (polkadot
!) used by default, the image in this folder builds and contains several binaries and you need to provide the name of the binary to be called.
You should refer to the .Dockerfile for the actual list. At the time of editing, the list of included binaries is:
- substrate
- subkey
- node-template
- chain-spec-builder
First, install Docker.
Then to generate the latest parity/substrate image. Please run:
./build.sh
If you wish to create a debug build rather than a production build, then you may modify the .Dockerfile replacing
cargo build --locked --release
with justcargo build --locked
and replacingtarget/release
withtarget/debug
. If you get an error that a tcp port address is already in use then find an available port to use for the host port in the .Dockerfile. The image can be used by passing the selected binary followed by the appropriate tags for this binary.
Your best guess to get started is to pass the --help flag
. Here are a few examples:
./run.sh substrate --version
./run.sh subkey --help
./run.sh diffychat --version
./run.sh chain-spec-builder --help
Then try running the following command to start a single node development chain using the Substrate Node Template binary diffychat
:
./run.sh diffychat --dev --ws-external
Note: It is recommended to provide a custom --base-path
to store the chain database. For example:
# Run Substrate Node Template without re-compiling
./run.sh diffychat --dev --ws-external --base-path=/data
To print logs follow the Substrate debugging instructions.
# Purge the local dev chain
./run.sh diffychat purge-chain --dev --base-path=/data -y
Then run the following command to start Substrate node without re-compiling.
./scripts/docker_run.sh