Manual Deployment Guide
Deploy Blockscout with a user-friendly UI and all microservices
📗 This guide walks you through a new Blockscout deployment including the user-friendly UI frontend and installation of all microservices. If you'd prefer a more automated approach see the docker-compose deployment page.
A. Prerequisites
Please familiarize yourself with the general requirements, db storage requirements, JSON RPC requirements and Client setting requirements before installing Blockscout.
Minimum Local Hardware Requirements
CPU: 4core / 8core
RAM: 8GB / 16GB / 32GB
DISK: 120gb or 500GB NVME SSD or Standard SSD
OS: Linux, MacOS
Hosting Environment Hardware Requirements
If you are running Blockscout on a cloud server or other remote environment, see the Hardware and Hosting Requirements
Software Dependencies
For Erlang/Elixir, asdf is recommended to install and set the appropriate versions. Note the supported versions for Erlang/Elixir/Node are specified in the .tool-versions file. Additional Instructions for setting up the environment are available for Ubuntu and MacOS.
brew install erlang
brew install elixir
brew install postgresql
brew install node
brew install automake
brew install libtool
Not Required
Ubuntu - apt-get install inotify-tools
brew install gcc
brew install gmp
Make
-
sudo apt install makeif Debian 9
G++ Compiler
-
sudo apt install g++if Debian 9
B. Manual Deployment
The following guide contains 5 sections that cover a complete Blockscout installation.
1. Prepare the backend
1) Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/blockscout/blockscout blockscout-backend
2) Change directories
cd blockscout-backend
3) Provide DB URL with your username
export DATABASE_URL=postgresql://username:password@localhost:5432/blockscout
Linux: Update the database username and password configuration
Mac: Use logged-in user name and empty password (
export DATABASE_URL=postgresql://username:@localhost:5432/blockscout)Optional: Change credentials in
apps/explorer/config/test.exsfor test env Example usage: Changing the default Postgres port from localhost:5432 if Boxen is installed.
You can check the regex pattern for the db url via https://regex101.com/ with the following regular expression:
4) Install Mix dependencies and compile
mix do deps.get, local.rebar --force, deps.compile
5) Generate a new secret_key_base for the DB
mix phx.gen.secret
6) Copy keybase and export as an env (for example)
export SECRET_KEY_BASE=VTIB3uHDNbvrY0+60ZWgUoUBKDn9ppLR8MI4CpRz4/qLyEFs54ktJfaNT6Z221No
7) Export remaining environment variables as needed.
CLI basic example:
Notes:
The
ETHEREUM_JSONRPC_VARIANTwill vary depending on your client (nethermind, geth etc). More information on client settings.If you're in production environment, please, set
MIX_ENV=prod. The current default isMIX_ENV=devwhich is a slower and less secure setting. However, for development purposes, unsetting or setting isMIX_ENV=devis preferred.To configure “My Account” section on the backend, see https://docs.blockscout.com/for-developers/configuration-options/my-account-settings
8) Compile the application:
mix compile
9) If not already running, start Postgres: pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres start or brew services start postgresql
Check postgres status: pg_isready
10) Create and migrate database
mix do ecto.create, ecto.migrate
If you are in dev environment and have run the application previously with a different blockchain, drop the previous database:
mix do ecto.drop, ecto.create, ecto.migrate
Be careful since this will delete all data from the DB. Don't execute it on production if you don't want to lose all of the data!
11) Install Node.js dependencies
Optional: If preferred, use npm ci rather than npm install to strictly follow all package versions in package-lock.json.
cd apps/block_scout_web/assets; npm install && node_modules/webpack/bin/webpack.js --mode production; cd -
cd apps/explorer && npm install; cd -
12) Build static assets for deployment
mix phx.digest
13) Enable HTTPS in development. The Phoenix server only runs with HTTPS.
cd apps/block_scout_web; mix phx.gen.cert blockscout blockscout.local; cd -
14) Add blockscout and blockscout.local to your /etc/hosts
If using Chrome, Enable chrome://flags/#allow-insecure-localhost
🎉 This completes the backend setup! Proceed to setup microservices.
2. Run Microservices
You will use Docker to run 4 Rust microservices: smart-contract verification, smart-contract sol2uml visualizer, sig-provider, and stats services. These add additional functionality to your instance once everything is connected.
Prerequisites
Docker v20.10+
Docker-compose 2.x.x+
Commands
Go to the docker-compose directory
cd ./blockscout-backend/docker-composerun docker-compose
docker-compose -f microservices.yml up -d
Stats
Stats will be served from http://localhost:8080/
You can check, that service works by requesting http://localhost:8080/health?service=. It should return
{"status":"SERVING"}
sig-provider
sig-provider will be at http://localhost:8083/
You can check, that service works by requesting http://localhost:8083/health?service=. It should return
{"status":"SERVING"}
Sc-visualizer
A visualizer for smart contracts.
sc-visualizer will be located at http://localhost:8081/
Check the visualizer service works by requesting the http://localhost:8081/health page - it should return
{"status":"SERVING"}.
Sc-verifier
A separate smart contract verification service.
sc-verifier will be at http://localhost:8082/.
Check that the sc-verifier service works by requesting http://localhost:8082/api/v2/verifier/solidity/versions page
You can also use the Blockscout endpoint for smart-contract verification if you prefer (instructions in the integration section)
To stop all microservices, run docker-compose -f microservices.yml down
To troubleshoot issues with a container, run docker ps to check which containers are not starting.
Check logs with docker logs visualizer -f
3. Add the microservices integration to the backend
Add the microservices env variables to the backend. Use the export command to add.
The Blockscout team also provides an endpoint for smart-contract verification. To use, set the following for the MICROSERVICE_SC_VERIFIER envs
🎉 This completes the microservices setup! Proceed to run the backend and frontend.
4. Run backend
Return to the blockscout-backend directory
./blockscout-backendRun
mix phx.server
The API will be available at http://localhost:3001/api/
5. Run frontend
The frontend can be added to the same high-level directory as the blockscout-backend or a different directory of your choice.
clone the blockscout frontend repository
git clone https://github.com/blockscout/frontend blockscout-frontendchange directories
cd blockscout-frontendcreate a .env file, for example
touch .envAdd this minimal set of required env variables (additional variables are available here)
install dependencies
yarn installrun frontend
yarn dev
🎉 Once completed, the frontend should be available at http://localhost:3000
Notes:
To configure the My Account section, you will add additional env variables on the frontend. See https://github.com/blockscout/frontend/blob/main/docs/ENVS.md#my-account
More info related to the frontend is available at: https://github.com/blockscout/frontend/blob/main/docs/CONTRIBUTING.md#local-development
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