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LocalNet

Background ​

This document walks you through launching a LocalNet that brings up a k8s cluster with a Data Availability network, a validator, Pocket actors and everything else needed to send an end-to-end relay.

Run Poktroll locally​

Report issues​

If you encounter any problems, please create a new GitHub Issue here.

TL;DR​

  1. Install dependencies:
    1. Ignite
    2. Docker
    3. Kind
    4. Helm
    5. Tilt (note: we recommend using Kind cluster with Tilt)
  2. Run make localnet_up to start the network
  3. When prompted, click space to see the web UI with logs and current status of the network. Alternatively, you can go directly to localhost:10350

Developing with LocalNet​

localnet_config.yaml​

Once LocalNet is started, a new file localnet_config.yaml is generated in the root directory of the repository. This file contains the configuration of the network. It looks like this:

helm_chart_local_repo:
  enabled: false
  path: ../helm-charts
relayers:
  count: 1

Scaling network actors​

To scale the number of actors, edit the localnet_config.yaml file and change the count of the relayers.

For example:

helm_chart_local_repo:
  enabled: false
  path: ../helm-charts
relayers:
-   count: 1
+   count: 2

NOTE: You may need to up to 1 minute for the new actors to be registered and deployed locally.

Off-chain actors configuration​

We heavily use Helm charts for configuring LocalNet. The goal is to maximize the tooling involved in deploying production workloads and local development.

Following best practices in Helm chart design, we have default values defined in the values.yaml file of each service Helm chart. For example, here are the RelayMiner values.yaml.

Local infrastructure requires some changes to the default values to properly configure RelayMiner or AppGate Server, so we override some of the values. You can find such overrides in the poktroll/localnet/kubernetes directory.

IF YOU NEED TO CHANGE LocalNet configs, 👆 is the place.

Modify Kubernetes workloads​

The local cluster is dependant on the latest available helm charts available at github.com/pokt-network/helm-charts.

If you need to modify Kubernetes resources in your local setup, follow these steps.

Clone the helm charts locally:

cd .. && git clone git@github.com:pokt-network/helm-charts.git
cd -

Update the path of the helm charts to the relative path of the cloned repository:

sed -i'' -e '/helm_chart_local_repo:/,/path:/ s|\(path: \).*|\1../helm-charts|' localnet_config.yaml

Set the helm_chart_local_repo.enabled flag in localnet_config.yaml to true:

sed -i'' -e '/helm_chart_local_repo:/,+1 s/\(enabled: \)true/\1false/; /helm_chart_local_repo:/,+1 s/\(enabled: \)false/\1true/' localnet_config.yaml

You can always set it back to false with:

sed -i'' -e '/helm_chart_local_repo:/,+1 s/\(enabled: \)false/\1true/; /helm_chart_local_repo:/,+1 s/\(enabled: \)true/\1false/' localnet_config.yaml

Observability​

You can configure LocalNet to deploy third-party observability tools such as Prometheus and Grafana:

localnet_config.yaml:

observability:
  enabled: true

Access dashboards with graphs and logs​

Each service in Tilt has a link to its own Grafana dashboard as seen in the image below.

Specifically, the RelayMiner, Validator, AppGateServer and others each have a separate dashboards.

Example

How to update and save an existing dashboard?​

Every time LocalNet is re-started, Grafana is deployed and provisioned from scratch.

A list of existing dashboards are saved as JSON files in localnet/grafana-dashboards. If you wish to change a dashboard, do the following:

  1. Make the necessary modifications in the Grafana UI
  2. Click save button. This will then display the updated JSON output of the dashboard
  3. Copy-paste the output to the corresponding file in localnet/grafana-dashboards

Example

High-level overview of LocalNet​

This section describes how LocalNet operates and the interactions between different components to provision a working network.

LocalNet Deployment Flow​

After you execute make localnet_up, many things happen:

  1. ignite CLI provisions a new genesis.json and validator keys.
  2. tilt starts and runs a Tiltfile - a Python-like script.
  3. Subsequently, the logic described in the Tiltfile executes various CLI commands, communicates with the k8s API, and creates or reads the LocalNet configuration file:
    1. Creates a new localnet_config.yaml if it doesn't exist. Updates it with default values if new ones are introduced.
    2. Depending on the configuration in localnet_config.yaml, uses Helm charts from the local helm-chartsrepository or downloads Helm charts from our Helm chart repository (https://pokt-network.github.io/helm-charts/).
    3. Compiles the poktrolld binary from the source code.
    4. Using values from localnet_config.yaml, provisions an observability stack (Grafana, Prometheus, Loki), a validator, AppGate servers, RelayMiners, etc.
  4. With make localnet_up continually running in the background, tilt monitors for code changes and re-compiles the binary when a code change is detected. After the new binary is built, it is pushed to the containers and all processes restart.

Troubleshooting​

Clean Slate (Nuclear Option)​

If you're encountering weird issues and just need to start over, follow these steps:

make localnet_down
kind delete cluster
make docker_wipe
make go_develop_and_test
kind create cluster
make localnet_up