This server provides a convenient REST interface for web applications to transact on Hyperledger Fabric 1.0 network. It uses Node.js SDK API to call peers, orderer and CA servers of network's members.

The server can be instantiated from a docker image and run alongside other services like peers and ca servers on a member's host.

The API server is meant to be run by each member organization. It manages user authentication, interacts with peers and passes events to the client.

See the example calls in REST.md.

The server connects to the organization's CA server to get certs for end users and passes these certs to authenticate to blockchain peers. User requests coming from a web app authenticate with a Bearer JWT token for which the server finds a corresponding key cached locally and signs user transactions with it when it passes them to peers.

Block events coming from peers are sent to clients with a popular socket.io library to be consumed by browser or other clients.

Admin web application is served from the http endpoint for developers to invoke chaincodes and view transaction and block info. Please note that connection to the API server and the test web app is not password protected.

A sample network of two organizations and a solo orderer can be started from a docker-compose file generated together with crypto material by network.sh setup script. Use this network for testing and development of this project.

To jump start your own application with more robust scripts we recommend fabric-starter app which uses this server in a docker instance.

• Node.js v6.9.0+
• Same prerequisites as for Fabric:
  • Docker - v1.12 or higher
  • Docker Compose - v1.8 or higher
  • Git client - needed for clone commands

network.sh script will create docker-compose.yaml, configtx.yaml and cryptogen.yaml files with your custom org names; will run cryptogen to generate crypto material and configtxgen for the orderer genesis block and config transactions.

The network can be started from the generated docker-compose.yaml with these docker instances:

• 2 CAs
• A SOLO orderer
• 4 peers: 2 peers per member organization

Once the network is running you can start the API and web app servers.

# generate customized yaml files and generate crypto and channel artifacts
./network.sh -m generate
 
# start the network
./network.sh -m up

# tail the logs
./network.sh -m logs
 
# stop the network
./network.sh -m down

Open http://localhost:4000 for org1 admin web app and http://localhost:4001 for org2.

You can also interact with the API server directly with an http client of your choice and test with these sample requests.

Dev mode supports editing source files without rebuilding container (for the most of the files, but not for all of them!). For more details see docker-compose-server-dev.yaml file.

 docker-compose -f ledger/docker-compose-server-dev.yaml up

Preset mode uses predefined certificates and configuration.

 # start pure ledger and api servers
 docker-compose -f artifacts-preset/docker-compose.yaml up

 # create channel and init with example chaincode
 ./artifacts-preset/init.sh

API server for org1 and org2 become available on port 4001 and 4002 respectively.

NOTE that chaincode instantiation is a long process and may result in a timeout. It doesn't mean it's failed. You can see real state in peer logs or by observing docker ps (ex. dev-peer0.org2.example.com-mycc-v0 means instantiated chaincode).

You can change configuration parameters by editing network-config.json. All paths in the config file should be absolute or relative to the file.

If you choose to customize your docker-compose file by hardcoding IP Addresses and PORT information for your peers and orderer, then you MUST also add their values to network-config.json. The paths shown below will need to be adjusted to match your docker-compose file.

		"orderer": {
			"url": "grpcs://x.x.x.x:7050",
			"server-hostname": "orderer0",
			"tls_cacerts": "../artifacts/tls/orderer/ca-cert.pem"
		},
		"org1": {
			"ca": "http://x.x.x.x:7054",
			"peer1": {
				"requests": "grpcs://x.x.x.x:7051",
				"events": "grpcs://x.x.x.x:7053",
				...
			},
			"peer2": {
				"requests": "grpcs://x.x.x.x:7056",
				"events": "grpcs://x.x.x.x:7058",
				...
			}
		},
		"org2": {
			"ca": "http://x.x.x.x:8054",
			"peer1": {
				"requests": "grpcs://x.x.x.x:8051",
				"events": "grpcs://x.x.x.x:8053",
				...			},
			"peer2": {
				"requests": "grpcs://x.x.x.x:8056",
				"events": "grpcs://x.x.x.x:8058",
				...
			}
		}

To retrieve the IP Address for one of your network entities, issue the following command:

# this will return the IP Address for peer0
docker inspect peer0 | grep IPAddress

Based on the sample app balance transfer.