[Ethereum] Bootnode public address

bootnodesdigitaloceango-ethereum

I am trying to deploy an small private Ethereum network using geth. I have a server running geth configured as a miner in my local network. In the other side I have a droplet in DigitalOcean that I want to use as a bootnode to connect future nodes to my network.

I have executed the following commands in my DigitalOcean Droplet:

 bootnode --genkey=boot.key 
 bootnode --nodekey=boot.key --addr:$(MY_PUBLICIP):30301

And I get the following output from the command instead of my public key that I need to introduce as my enode reference in the future nodes:

INFO [10-29|18:13:32.851] New local node record                    seq=1 id=785b198c28c625f8 ip=<nil> udp=0 tcp=0

I introduced a netstat command in order to find out whether or not the program is opening a port.

ether@ubuntu-s-1vcpu-2gb-ams3-01:~$ netstat -l
Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State      
tcp        0      0 localhost:domain        0.0.0.0:*              LISTEN     
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:ssh             0.0.0.0:*              LISTEN     
tcp6       0      0 [::]:ssh                [::]:*                 LISTEN     
udp     6912      0 localhost:domain        0.0.0.0:*                          
udp        0      0 ubuntu-s-1vcpu-2g:30301 0.0.0.0:*                          
raw6       0      0 [::]:ipv6-icmp          [::]:*                  7          
raw6       0      0 [::]:ipv6-icmp          [::]:*                  7

I'm using the standard configuration of the basic droplet DigitalOcean, I would like to know if I should configure something else besides the usual compilation of the geth code.

Could please somebody tell how to interpret the output from the bootnode command?
Thanks any help is welcomed.

Best Answer

Use the following commands to get the bootnode address to be used in future nodes:

bootnode --genkey=boot.key
bootnode --nodekey=boot.key --writeaddress 
bootnode --nodekey=boot.key --addr:$(MY_PUBLICIP):30301

Related Solutions

Bootnode Connection Error – Resolving getsockopt: Connection Refused When Running a Bootnode

Finally it worked. I still don't really know what did it but I will list here some of the changes that got it to work. When I figure out what exactly did it I will update my answer.

Use the --v5disc flag for node discovery.
The bootnode took ages to start with the --v5 flag so instead of using a bootnode I chose a random node as bootnode. I started my node with the --bootnodes referring to this regular node but didn't seem to work until I manually added it. Probably using static-nodes.json would have worked as well.
Use a small networkId. I think I was too optimistic on the size of this value. Once I ran geth and realized that it was using a different NetworkID from the one I entered. This was not a good sign but instead of choosing a smaller value I chose as the value that geth was suggesting. I only realized there was something wrong going on when I got this error Protocol eth/63 failed id=X conn=inbound err="NetworkId mismatch - 3853220132 (!= 1245324517197969700)". I am now using a 10-digit networkId and this is what seems to have done the trick.
[Possibly not necessary] Run a node in miner mode (personal.newAccount("pw"), miner.setEtherbase(eth.accounts[0]) & miner.start())

I am more inclined to think it was the networkId that was causing some sort of problem. At least switching to v5 made it more easy to detect.

[Ethereum] How to generate the correct go-ethereum bootnode when creating a private blockchain

If you can't telnet then there is something wrong with your networking. Either your virtual network connection between hosts is the problem or there is a firewall blocking connections.

If you are just getting started then I'd keep things really simple first of all and:

Use standard geth nodes
Run your nodes on one virtual machine on different ports

e.g. initialise your geth nodes like this:

ethuser@host01:~$ mkdir test1
ethuser@host01:~$ cd test1
ethuser@host01:~/test1$ mkdir nodeA
ethuser@host01:~/test1$ mkdir nodeB
ethuser@host01:~/test1$ <use your favourite editor to create a genesis.json file in this directory>
ethuser@host01:~/test1$ geth --datadir nodeA init genesis.json
WARN [08-04|10:41:41] No etherbase set and no accounts found as default 
INFO [08-04|10:41:41] Allocated cache and file handles         database=/home/ethuser/test1/nodeA/geth/chaindata cache=16 handles=16
INFO [08-04|10:41:41] Writing custom genesis block 
INFO [08-04|10:41:41] Successfully wrote genesis state         database=chaindata                                hash=dd3f8d…707d0d
INFO [08-04|10:41:41] Allocated cache and file handles         database=/home/ethuser/test1/nodeA/geth/lightchaindata cache=16 handles=16
INFO [08-04|10:41:41] Writing custom genesis block 
INFO [08-04|10:41:41] Successfully wrote genesis state         database=lightchaindata                                hash=dd3f8d…707d0d
ethuser@host01:~/test1$ geth --datadir nodeB init genesis.json
WARN [08-04|10:41:52] No etherbase set and no accounts found as default 
INFO [08-04|10:41:52] Allocated cache and file handles         database=/home/ethuser/test1/nodeB/geth/chaindata cache=16 handles=16
INFO [08-04|10:41:52] Writing custom genesis block 
INFO [08-04|10:41:52] Successfully wrote genesis state         database=chaindata                                hash=dd3f8d…707d0d
INFO [08-04|10:41:52] Allocated cache and file handles         database=/home/ethuser/test1/nodeB/geth/lightchaindata cache=16 handles=16
INFO [08-04|10:41:52] Writing custom genesis block 
INFO [08-04|10:41:52] Successfully wrote genesis state         database=lightchaindata                                hash=dd3f8d…707d0d
ethuser@host01:~/test1$

Then launch your first geth node like this

ethuser@host01:~/test1$ geth --datadir nodeA --networkid 1234567 console
WARN [08-04|10:42:22] No etherbase set and no accounts found as default 
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] Starting peer-to-peer node               instance=Geth/v1.6.7-stable-ab5646c5/linux-amd64/go1.8.1
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] Allocated cache and file handles         database=/home/ethuser/test1/nodeA/geth/chaindata cache=128 handles=1024
WARN [08-04|10:42:22] Upgrading chain database to use sequential keys 
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] Initialised chain configuration          config="{ChainID: 1907 Homestead: 0 DAO: <nil> DAOSupport: false EIP150: <nil> EIP155: 0 EIP158: 0 Metropolis: <nil> Engine: unknown}"
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] Disk storage enabled for ethash caches   dir=/home/ethuser/test1/nodeA/geth/ethash count=3
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] Disk storage enabled for ethash DAGs     dir=/home/ethuser/.ethash                 count=2
WARN [08-04|10:42:22] Upgrading db log bloom bins 
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] Bloom-bin upgrade completed              elapsed=252.683µs
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] Initialising Ethereum protocol           versions="[63 62]" network=1234567
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] Database conversion successful 
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] Loaded most recent local header          number=0 hash=dd3f8d…707d0d td=40
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] Loaded most recent local full block      number=0 hash=dd3f8d…707d0d td=40
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] Loaded most recent local fast block      number=0 hash=dd3f8d…707d0d td=40
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] Starting P2P networking 
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] UDP listener up                          self=enode://9ce583f7e1905b23217cd2a92894291c6d8f5ce7a29e85fdeaf48b3ab065c6d5b6cce4f064fdaf26f41d2354bf0a203438563f6ffdba73cec3b8692f6f850817@[::]:30303
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] RLPx listener up                         self=enode://9ce583f7e1905b23217cd2a92894291c6d8f5ce7a29e85fdeaf48b3ab065c6d5b6cce4f064fdaf26f41d2354bf0a203438563f6ffdba73cec3b8692f6f850817@[::]:30303
INFO [08-04|10:42:22] IPC endpoint opened: /home/ethuser/test1/nodeA/geth.ipc 
Welcome to the Geth JavaScript console!

instance: Geth/v1.6.7-stable-ab5646c5/linux-amd64/go1.8.1
 modules: admin:1.0 debug:1.0 eth:1.0 miner:1.0 net:1.0 personal:1.0 rpc:1.0 txpool:1.0 web3:1.0

>

And then start up your second node. In my case I needed to use ethuser@host01:~/test1$ geth --datadir nodeB --port 30304 --networkid 1234567 --bootnodes enode://9ce583f7e1905b23217cd2a92894291c6d8f5ce7a29e85fdeaf48b3ab065c6d5b6cce4f064fdaf26f41d2354bf0a203438563f6ffdba73cec3b8692f6f850817@127.0.0.1:30303

Wait a few moments to give the nodes a chance to connect and then double check in your console that admin.peers returns some more info, e.g.

> admin.peers
[{
    caps: ["eth/63"],
    id: "9ce583f7e1905b23217cd2a92894291c6d8f5ce7a29e85fdeaf48b3ab065c6d5b6cce4f064fdaf26f41d2354bf0a203438563f6ffdba73cec3b8692f6f850817",
    name: "Geth/v1.6.7-stable-ab5646c5/linux-amd64/go1.8.1",
    network: {
      localAddress: "127.0.0.1:41900",
      remoteAddress: "127.0.0.1:30303"
    },
    protocols: {
      eth: {
        difficulty: 40,
        head: "0xdd3f8d61f38ebc195a6c9b0e5888e7e035f31ecd92e4427fb01176b984707d0d",
        version: 63
      }
    }
}]
>

I've left out creating accounts etc as you don't specifically ask it but if you're interested here are some more of my own newbie experiences: https://alanbuxton.wordpress.com/2017/07/19/first-steps-with-ethereum-private-networks-and-smart-contracts-on-ubuntu-16-04/

Best Answer

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Bootnode Connection Error – Resolving getsockopt: Connection Refused When Running a Bootnode

[Ethereum] How to generate the correct go-ethereum bootnode when creating a private blockchain

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