Compiling and Running a Node

Since this is still an early phase, we will not be installing any of the software system-wide. Instead, we'll be running all the commands from the git repository, so we're able to easily pull any necessary updates.

Compiling

Refer to the main README file for instructions on how to install Rust and necessary deps.

Once you have the repository in place, and everything is installed, we can compile the darkfid node and the drk wallet CLI:

$ make darkfid drk

This process will now compile the node and the wallet CLI tool. When finished, we can begin using the network. Run darkfid once so that it spawns its config file on your system. This config file will be used by darkfid in order to configure itself. The defaults are already preset for using the testnet network.

$ ./darkfid
Config file created in "~/.config/darkfi/darkfid_config.toml". Please review it and try again.

Running

Once that's in place, you can run it again and darkfid will start, create necessary keys for validation of blocks and transactions, and begin syncing the blockchain. Keep it running, and you should see a Blockchain is synced! message after some time.

$ ./darkfid

Now it's time to initialize your wallet. For this we use a separate wallet CLI which is created to interface with the smart contract used for payments and swaps.

We simply have to initialize a wallet, and create a keypair:

$ ./drk wallet --initialize
$ ./drk wallet --keygen

The second command will print out your new DarkFi address where you can receive payments. Take note of it. Alternatively, you can always retrieve it using:

$ ./drk wallet --address

In order to receive incoming coins, you'll need to use the drk tool to subscribe on darkfid so you can receive notifications for incoming blocks. The blocks have to be scanned for transactions, and to find coins that are intended for you. In another terminal, you can run the following commands to first scan the blockchain, and then to subscribe to new blocks:

$ ./drk scan
$ ./drk subscribe blocks

Now you can leave the subscriber running. In case you stop it, just run drk scan again until the chain is fully scanned, and then you should be able to subscribe again.

Advanced Usage

To run a node in full debug mode:

LOG_TARGETS="\!sled,\!net" ./darkfid -v | tee /tmp/darkfid.log

The sled and net targets are very noisy and slow down the node so we disable those.

We can now view the log, and grep through it.

tail -n +0 -f /tmp/darkfid.log | grep -a --line-buffered -v DEBUG