Our Explorer page is a tool for visualizing the NexRes blockchain. The Explorer displays specific blocks on the blockchain, transactions within the blocks, ledger configuration data, and a chart exposing transaction history.

Install

Go to our install tutorial for instructions on how to install NexRes.

Set Up

You will need to clone three repos to get started: resilientdb for the ResilientDB servers, sdk for the HTTP endpoints and websocket, and resilientdb.github.io for the webpage.

resilientdb

Install dependencies.

./INSTALL.sh

Start the KV servers with the example script. This script uses the example/kv_config.config file.

./service/tools/kv_service/service_tools/start_kv_service.sh

You will observe that four kv_server replicas have locally launched.

sdk

We use Crow, a C++ framework for creating HTTP or Websocket web services to connect NexRes to the Explorer.

In another terminal shell after starting KV Server, build the crow service from the sdk repo:

bazel build service/http_server/crow_service_main

Run the binary to start the service:

bazel-bin/service/http_server/crow_service_main service/tools/config/interface/client.config service/http_server/server_config.config

You will see this if successful:

  (2022-12-19 06:12:02) [INFO    ] Crow/master server is running at http://0.0.0.0:18000 using 16 threads
  (2022-12-19 06:12:02) [INFO    ] Call `app.loglevel(crow::LogLevel::Warning)` to hide Info level logs

resilientdb.github.io

In another terminal open the resilientdb.github.io repo and follow the steps below.

Switch to explorer branch

git fetch

git checkout explorer

Project Setup

npm install

Compile and Hot-Reload for Development

npm run dev

You will now be able to access a development server for resilientdb.com running at http://localhost:3000. Click on the explorer icon in the top right corner to migrate to http://localhost:3000/explorer.

NOTE: You must disable cross-origin restrictions in the browser where you open the development server.

Populating the Blockchain

At this point you will be able to see the ledger configuration data, but the transaction history chart and block table will be empty. The next step is populating the NexRes blockchain to view blocks and transactions using the Explorer.

You can use an API tester tool such as Talend API Tester for committing and getting transactions using the routes defined by our crow service.

You can also use curl commands to transfer data to and from the server. Here are some examples of the routes available.

For committing a transaction:

curl -X POST -d ‘{“id”:”samplekey”,”value”:”samplevalue”}’ localhost:18000/v1/transactions/commit

For getting the transaction:

curl localhost:18000/v1/transactions/samplekey

For getting all transactions:

curl localhost:18000/v1/transactions

Once you have set and get some transactions you will be able to see the blocks and the transactions within them in the table and chart.

There are currently two options for how the blocks table refreshes. The method that is used on the nexres branch uses a websocket and fetches the updated list of blocks whenever a new transaction is committed through the HTTP endpoints. The second option, which is available on the explorer-alternate-refresh branch, polls an updated list of blocks every five seconds. You may use whichever one suits your needs better.

Video Demo

Here is a video demo showing how to run and use the Explorer. The video assumes that all the dependencies have already been installed.