pod

Parallelcoin Pod

Fully integrated all-in-one cli client, full node, wallet server, miner and GUI wallet for Parallelcoin

Installation

Straight to business, this is the part I am looking for so it's here at the top.

First, you need a working Go 1.11+ installation for the platform you are using.

Clone this repository where you like, here I show the SSH URL which is recommended for speed as well as if you want to add a branch to the repository as a member of the team (github account and a registered SSH public key on it is required):

cd /where/you/keep/your/things
git clone git@github.com:p9c/pod.git

Before you can build it, though, see gioui.org install instructions

Several important libraries are required to build on each platform. Linux needs some input related X libraries, wayland and their GL libraries, and similar but different for Mac, Windows, iOS and Android.

More detailed instructions will follow as we work through each platform build. For now we develop on FreeBSD and Ubuntu so for now, at this early stage with the GUI, please bear with us.

Next, go to the repo root and get Go to build it.

cd pod
go install -v

Any version of Go from 1.11 should build, this is really the current minimal production version for Go anyway with the chaos that modules have unleashed on Git repository branch keeping hygiene.

GO111MODULE should be set to "on".

If you want to build a version without any GUI, for servers or if support is lacking on the given platform:

go install -v -tags headless

Running

Initial configuration:

For initial configuration, use the -D and -n flags combined with the init subcommand like so:

pod -D <data directory> -n <mainnet/testnet> init

This in one step creates a fresh new configuration file, all of the TLS certificates and default Certificate Authority to use the web sockets interface for especially the wallet async functionality, and prompts you on the CLI to enter a new wallet passphrase, gives seed you need to restore the wallet later, and fills the configuration with a set of starting mining addresses based on the wallet seed, for the defined network type.

**TODO:**s yes, we want to move these keys into the directory subfolder so it can be done without the node running and on demand with a new subcommand for exactly this purpose. New addresses require a wallet but should be kept away from a public RPC or other remote protocol endpoint. Only nodes need them while mining to use for creating coinbase payment outpoints.

Run Modes

If you just want to use it as an RPC for only node services at localhost:11047 (no wallet)

pod node

For wallet only at localhost:11048 (a full node must be configured, by default should be found at localhost:11047)

pod wallet

For combined RPC wallet at localhost:11046

pod shell

For the standalone multicast miner worker 'Kopach':

pod kopach

The list of commands and options can be seen using the following command:

pod help

Notable items and their short forms:

-D

Set the root folder of the data directory. Default is ~/.pod or the string 'pod' as the folder name in other systems.

-g

-g=false disables mining

Enable mining, using inbuilt for run modes that enable a p2p blockchain node

-G

Set the number of threads to mine with. Performance with the Plan 9 hardfork will entirely depend on the performance characteristics of the processor and its' long division units and how they are scheduled. The inbuilt miner (which will be deprecated) has significantly inferior performance. Concurrency is not parallelism, and the stand-alone miner is better. The inbuilt miner will be entirely removed by release.

-n

Set the network type, mainnet and testnet are the main important options. Note that this is the main configuration as well as pre-shared key, to run the multi- cast mining system, as the different networks have different start heights for hard forks.

Configuration

Configuration is designed to be largely automatic, however manual edits can be made, from <pod profile directory>/pod.json - notably critical elements for the cluster mining configurations is the 'MiningPass' item matches up between nodes you intend to communicate with each other.

Mining Farm Setup

For the time being all that is necessary is to copy the pod.json file, and that all nodes deployed are on the same subnets as the nodes. Note that it is possible to isolate subnets and join them using nodes via dual network (virtual) interfaces and that worker nodes trust implicitly all nodes that use the same pre shared key (thus the configuration file).

Before beta release there will be a FreeBSD based live image that is written to using a utility app with the correct key and network settings and will be basically turn-key if used as default configured. BSD is being used because it is lighter and ensures your hardware is doing nothing more than exactly crunching giant numbers for the chance to get a block reward.s

Configuration for adjunct services (block explorers, exchanges)

rpc.cert ca.cert and rpc.key files, which as they are can be used (not so securely) for connecting nodes in one's server set up. The system can be run by default in an 'insecure' configuration (they are wired to connect via localhost ports). Presumably for this kind of production application one would use a complete set of ports and custom CA file. What is provided by default is for development purposes and on a relatively unconnected end user setup.

Further improvements in security are planned.

For now it is advisable to isolate wallet services strongly and the main attack vector is covered. Easier to use GUI interface for offline transaction signing and similar features also are planned for later implementation.

GUI build info

The GUI subsystem can be disabled in the build using

go install -tags headless

To build it, there are some GL and X prerequisites for the Linux build

sudo apt-get install libgles2-mesa-dev \
     libxkbcommon-dev \
     libxkbcommon-x11-dev

More info about building for other platforms to follow. There should be a build for Android and iOS eventually, they have extra build environment requirements (android sdk and xcode/mac respectively). Specifics for Windows builds also to come.

Windows GUI build needs files:

Files are included in Pod's root folder

• d3dcompiler_47.dll
• libEGL.dll
• libGLESv2.dll

Binaries for legacy (pre hardfork) now available for linux amd64

Get them from here: https://git.parallelcoin.io/dev/parallelcoin-binaries

Developer Notes

Goland's inbuilt terminal is very slow and has several bugs that my workflow exposes and I find very irritating, and out of the paned terminal apps I find Tilix the most usable, but it requires writing a regular expression to match and so the logger is written to output relative paths to the repository root.

The regexp that I use given my system base path is (exactly this with all newlines removed for dconf with using tilix at the dconf path /com/gexperts/Tilix/custom-hyperlinks)

[
    ' [/]((([a-zA-Z0-9-_.]+/)+([a-zA-Z0-9-_.]+)):([0-9]+)),
        <goland executable> --line $5 /$1,false', 
    'github[.]((([a-zA-Z0-9-_.]+/)+([a-zA-Z0-9-_.]+)):([0-9]+)),
        <goland executable> --line $5 <$GOPATH>/src/github.$1,
        false', 
    '((([a-zA-Z0-9-_.]+/)+([a-zA-Z0-9-_.]+)):([0-9]+)),
        <goland executable> --line $5 <$GOPATH>/src/github.com/p9c/pod/$1,
        false'
]

(the text fields in tilix's editor are very weird so it will be easier to just paste this in and gnome dconf editor should remove the newlines automatically)

Replace the parts inside < > with the relevant path from your environment and enjoy quickly hopping to source code locations while you are working on this project. Goland's terminal recognises most of them anyway but when you get a runaway log print going on it can take some time before the terminal decides it will listen to your control C.

The configuration shown above covers the most common relative to project root paths as used in the logger, as well as go get style paths starting with the domain name, as well as absolute paths (first one) that will work for any relevant file path with line number reference.