- bitcoind - Download and Install Bitcoin
bitcore-node needs a trusted bitcoind node to run. It will connect to the node
through the RPC API, bitcoin peer-to-peer protocol, and will even read its raw block .dat files for syncing.
Configure bitcoind to listen to RPC calls and set txindex to true.
The easiest way to do this is by copying ./etc/bitcoind/bitcoin.conf to your
bitcoin data directory (usually ~/.bitcoin on Linux, %appdata%\Bitcoin\ on Windows,
or ~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin on Mac OS X).
bitcoind must be running and must have finished downloading the blockchain before running bitcore-node.
-
Node.js v0.10.x - Download and Install Node.js.
-
NPM - Node.js package manager, should be automatically installed when you get node.js.
Check the Prerequisites section above before installing.
To install bitcore-node, clone the main repository:
$ git clone https://github.com/bitpay/bitcore-node && cd bitcore-node
Install dependencies:
$ npm install
Run the main application:
$ node index.js
Then open a browser and go to:
http://localhost:3001
Please note that the app will need to sync its internal database with the blockchain state, which may take some time. You can check sync progress at http://localhost:3001/api/sync.
bitcore-node is configured using yaml files. The application defaults are in the config folder.
Make sure that bitcoind is configured to accept incoming connections using 'rpcallowip'.
In case the network is changed (testnet to livenet or vice versa) levelDB database needs to be deleted. This can be performed running:
util/sync.js -D and waiting for bitcore-node to synchronize again. Once the database is deleted, the sync.js process can be safely interrupted (CTRL+C) and continued from the synchronization process embedded in main app.
The initial synchronization process scans the blockchain from the paired bitcoind server to update addresses and balances. bitcore-node needs exactly one trusted bitcoind node to run. This node must have finished downloading the blockchain before running bitcore-node.
While bitcore-node is synchronizing the website can be accessed (the sync process is embedded in the webserver), but there may be missing data or incorrect balances for addresses. The 'sync' status is shown at the /api/sync endpoint.
The blockchain can be read from bitcoind's raw .dat files or RPC interface.
Reading the information from the .dat files is much faster so it's the
recommended (and default) alternative. .dat files are scanned in the default
location for each platform (for example, ~/.bitcoin on Linux). In case a
non-standard location is used, it needs to be defined (see the Configuration section).
As of June 2014, using .dat files the sync process takes 9 hrs.
for livenet and 30 mins. for testnet.
While synchronizing the blockchain, bitcore-node listens for new blocks and
transactions relayed by the bitcoind node. Those are also stored on bitcore-node's database.
In case bitcore-node is shutdown for a period of time, restarting it will trigger
a partial (historic) synchronization of the blockchain. Depending on the size of
that synchronization task, a reverse RPC or forward .dat syncing strategy will be used.
If bitcoind is shutdown, bitcore-node needs to be stopped and restarted
once bitcoind is restarted.
Old blockchain data can be manually synced issuing:
$ util/sync.js
Check util/sync.js --help for options, particulary -D to erase the current DB.
NOTE: there is no need to run this manually since the historic synchronization
is built in into the web application. Running bitcore-node normally will trigger
the historic sync automatically.
To store the blockchain and address related information, LevelDB is used. Two DBs are created: txs and blocks. By default these are stored on
~/.bitcore-node/
This can be changed at config/config.js. As of June 2014, storing the livenet blockchain takes ~35GB of disk space (2GB for the testnet).
To run bitcore-node locally for development with gulp:
$ NODE_ENV=development gulp
To run the tests
$ gulp test
Since v0.2 a new cache schema has been introduced. Only information from transactions with BLOCKCHAIN_API_SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS settings will be cached (by default SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS=6). There are 3 different caches:
- Number of confirmations
- Transaction output spent/unspent status
- scriptPubKey for unspent transactions
Cache data is only populated on request, i.e., only after accessing the required data for
the first time, the information is cached, there is not pre-caching procedure. To ignore
cache by default, use BLOCKCHAIN_API_IGNORE_CACHE. Also, address related calls support ?noCache=1
to ignore the cache in a particular API request.
By default, bitcore-node provides a REST API at /api, but this prefix is configurable from the var apiPrefix in the config.js file.
The end-points are:
/api/block/[:hash]
/api/block/00000000a967199a2fad0877433c93df785a8d8ce062e5f9b451cd1397bdbf62
/api/tx/[:txid]
/api/tx/525de308971eabd941b139f46c7198b5af9479325c2395db7f2fb5ae8562556c
/api/addr/[:addr][?noTxList=1&noCache=1]
/api/addr/mmvP3mTe53qxHdPqXEvdu8WdC7GfQ2vmx5?noTxList=1
/api/addr/[:addr]/balance
/api/addr/[:addr]/totalReceived
/api/addr/[:addr]/totalSent
/api/addr/[:addr]/unconfirmedBalance
The response contains the value in Satoshis.
/api/addr/[:addr]/utxo[?noCache=1]
Sample return:
[
{
address: "n2PuaAguxZqLddRbTnAoAuwKYgN2w2hZk7",
txid: "dbfdc2a0d22a8282c4e7be0452d595695f3a39173bed4f48e590877382b112fc",
vout: 0,
ts: 1401276201,
scriptPubKey: "76a914e50575162795cd77366fb80d728e3216bd52deac88ac",
amount: 0.001,
confirmations: 3
},
{
address: "n2PuaAguxZqLddRbTnAoAuwKYgN2w2hZk7",
txid: "e2b82af55d64f12fd0dd075d0922ee7d6a300f58fe60a23cbb5831b31d1d58b4",
vout: 0,
ts: 1401226410,
scriptPubKey: "76a914e50575162795cd77366fb80d728e3216bd52deac88ac",
amount: 0.001,
confirmation: 6
confirmationsFromCache: true,
}
]Please note that in case confirmations are cached (which happens by default when the number of confirmations is bigger that BLOCKCHAIN_API_SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS) the response will include the pair confirmationsFromCache:true, and confirmations will equal BLOCKCHAIN_API_SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS. See noCache and BLOCKCHAIN_API_IGNORE_CACHE options for details.
GET method:
/api/addrs/[:addrs]/utxo
/api/addrs/2NF2baYuJAkCKo5onjUKEPdARQkZ6SYyKd5,2NAre8sX2povnjy4aeiHKeEh97Qhn97tB1f/utxo
POST method:
/api/addrs/utxo
POST params:
addrs: 2NF2baYuJAkCKo5onjUKEPdARQkZ6SYyKd5,2NAre8sX2povnjy4aeiHKeEh97Qhn97tB1f
/api/txs/?block=HASH
/api/txs/?block=00000000fa6cf7367e50ad14eb0ca4737131f256fc4c5841fd3c3f140140e6b6
/api/txs/?address=ADDR
/api/txs/?address=mmhmMNfBiZZ37g1tgg2t8DDbNoEdqKVxAL
GET method:
/api/addrs/[:addrs]/txs[?from=&to=]
/api/addrs/2NF2baYuJAkCKo5onjUKEPdARQkZ6SYyKd5,2NAre8sX2povnjy4aeiHKeEh97Qhn97tB1f/txs?from=0&to=20
POST method:
/api/addrs/txs
POST params:
addrs: 2NF2baYuJAkCKo5onjUKEPdARQkZ6SYyKd5,2NAre8sX2povnjy4aeiHKeEh97Qhn97tB1f
from (optional): 0
to (optional): 20
Sample output:
{ totalItems: 100,
from: 0,
to: 20,
items:
[ { txid: '3e81723d069b12983b2ef694c9782d32fca26cc978de744acbc32c3d3496e915',
version: 1,
locktime: 0,
vin: [Object],
vout: [Object],
blockhash: '00000000011a135e5277f5493c52c66829792392632b8b65429cf07ad3c47a6c',
confirmations: 109367,
time: 1393659685,
blocktime: 1393659685,
valueOut: 0.3453,
size: 225,
firstSeenTs: undefined,
valueIn: 0.3454,
fees: 0.0001 },
{ ... },
{ ... },
...
{ ... }
]
}
Note: if pagination params are not specified, the result is an array of transactions.
POST method:
/api/tx/send
POST params:
rawtx: "signed transaction as hex string"
eg
rawtx: 01000000017b1eabe0209b1fe794124575ef807057c77ada2138ae4fa8d6c4de0398a14f3f00000000494830450221008949f0cb400094ad2b5eb399d59d01c14d73d8fe6e96df1a7150deb388ab8935022079656090d7f6bac4c9a94e0aad311a4268e082a725f8aeae0573fb12ff866a5f01ffffffff01f0ca052a010000001976a914cbc20a7664f2f69e5355aa427045bc15e7c6c77288ac00000000
POST response:
{
txid: [:txid]
}
eg
{
txid: "c7736a0a0046d5a8cc61c8c3c2821d4d7517f5de2bc66a966011aaa79965ffba"
}
/api/sync
/api/peer
/api/status?q=xxx
Where "xxx" can be:
- getInfo
- getDifficulty
- getTxOutSetInfo
- getBestBlockHash
- getLastBlockHash
The web socket API is served using socket.io.
The following are the events published:
'tx': new transaction received from network. This event is published in the 'inv' room. Data will be a app/models/Transaction object. Sample output:
{
"txid":"00c1b1acb310b87085c7deaaeba478cef5dc9519fab87a4d943ecbb39bd5b053",
"processed":false
...
}
'block': new block received from network. This event is published in the 'inv' room. Data will be a app/models/Block object. Sample output:
{
"hash":"000000004a3d187c430cd6a5e988aca3b19e1f1d1727a50dead6c8ac26899b96",
"time":1389789343,
...
}
'': new transaction concerning received from network. This event is published in the '' room.
'status': every 1% increment on the sync task, this event will be triggered. This event is published in the 'sync' room.
Sample output:
{
blocksToSync: 164141,
syncedBlocks: 475,
upToExisting: true,
scanningBackward: true,
isEndGenesis: true,
end: "000000000933ea01ad0ee984209779baaec3ced90fa3f408719526f8d77f4943",
isStartGenesis: false,
start: "000000009f929800556a8f3cfdbe57c187f2f679e351b12f7011bfc276c41b6d"
}
The following html page connects to the socket.io API and listens for new transactions.
html
<html>
<body>
<script src="http://<bitcore-node-server>:<port>/socket.io/socket.io.js"></script>
<script>
eventToListenTo = 'tx'
room = 'inv'
var socket = io("http://<bitcore-node-server>:<port>/");
socket.on('connect', function() {
// Join the room.
socket.emit('subscribe', room);
})
socket.on(eventToListenTo, function(data) {
console.log("New transaction received: " + data.txid)
})
</script>
</body>
</html>
(The MIT License)
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.