Canton Network quickstart installation

Contents

Canton Network quickstart installation

Introduction

Overview

Prerequisites

Step-by-step instructions

Next steps

Resources

Canton Network quickstart installation

Introduction

The QS is designed to help teams become familiar with CN application development by providing scaffolding to kickstart development. The QS application is intended to be incrementally extended by you to meet your specific business needs. Once you are familiar with the QS, please review the technology choices and the application design to determine what changes are needed - technology and design decisions are ultimately up to you. Please be aware that the Canton Network Quickstart (CN QS) is a rapidly evolving work in progress.

Overview

The CN QS and its guides are a work-in-progress (WIP). As a result, the CN QS guides may not accurately reflect the state of the application. If you find errors or other inconsistencies, please contact your representative at Digital Asset.

This guide walks through the installation and LocalNet deployment of the CN QS.

Prerequisites

Access to the open source CN-Quickstart Github repository and CN Docker repository is needed to successfully pull the Digital Asset artifacts from JFrog Artifactory.

If you need access to the JFrog Artifactory, email support@digitalasset.com.

Access to the Daml-VPN connection or a SV Node that is whitelisted on the CN is required to connect to DevNet. The GSF publishes a list of SV nodes who have the ability to sponsor a Validator node. To access DevNet, contact your sponsoring SV agent for VPN connection information.

If you need access or additional support, email support@digitalasset.com.

The CN QS is a Dockerized application and requires Docker Desktop. Running CN QS is resource intensive. We recommend allocating 8 GB of memory to Docker Desktop. If your machine does not have that much memory consider declining Observability when prompted.

Other requirements include:

Nix download support

Check for Nix on your machine.

nix --version

If the command returns something like:

Nix (Nix) 2.25.2

Congratulations, you’re done.

Recommended installation for MacOS.

sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install)

Recommended installation for Linux.
(Windows users should run this and all following commands in WSL 2).

sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install) --daemon

Step-by-step instructions

Clone from Github

Clone and cd into the cn-quickstart repository into your local machine.

git clone https://github.com/digital-asset/cn-quickstart.git
cd cn-quickstart
direnv allow
allow direnv

Artifactory

Check the ~/.netrc file

Necessary artifacts are located in Digital Asset’s JFrog Artifactory. These files are accessed through the repository’s build system using a ~/.netrc configuration file.

Check if a ~/.netrc file already exists.

cat ~/.netrc

Create or edit the ~/.netrc file at root.

vim ~/.netrc

Paste the boiler plate content into ~/.netrc.

machine digitalasset.jfrog.io
login <username>
password <identity_token>

Locate login for ~/.netrc

Log into JFrog. Click the profile icon in the top right corner and then click Edit Profile.

Your email address is the login username in ~/.netrc. Replace <username> with the JFrog Artifactory user profile email.

JFrog user profile

Create an Identity Token

Toward the bottom of the same profile page, click “Generate an Identity Token.”

JFrog generate identity token

Add an identity token description.

JFrog API Key

Copy the Identity Token as shown under “Reference Token.” The Identity Token is also referred to as the “Reference Token” and the “API key” in JFrog and is the password in ~/.netrc.

New Reference Token

Complete ~/.netrc

The Identity Token is stored as the password in ~/.netrc. Replace <identity_token> with the Identity Token (also referred to as the Reference Token) from your JFrog profile. When complete, the ~/.netrc file will look similar to:

machine digitalasset.jfrog.io
login email@domain.com
password cmVmdGtuOjAxOjE3Nzg5NTQzNjc6UmhYaFNaZWpUNGtFMzJyYXRyWEQya...

Manually set .netrc’s permissions.

chmod 600 ~/.netrc

Check for Artifactory connectivity using .netrc credentials after populating the username and password.

curl -v --netrc
"https://digitalasset.jfrog.io/artifactory/api/system/ping"`
JFrog connection ping

A response of “OK” indicates a successful connection.

Authentication problems often result in a 401 or 403 error. If an error response occurs, double check ~/.netrc to confirm that .netrc is a source file (in root) and not a local file.

Docker

Verify that Docker Desktop is running.

Login to Docker repositories via the terminal.

docker login digitalasset-docker.jfrog.io
docker login digitalasset-canton-network-docker.jfrog.io
docker login

The last command requires a Docker Hub username and password or Personal Access Token (PAT). Commands should return ‘Login Succeeded’.

Install Daml SDK

cd into the quickstart subdirectory and install the Daml SDK from the quickstart subdirectory.

cd quickstart
make install-daml-sdk

Note

The makefile providing project choreography is in the quickstart/ directory. make only operates within quickstart/. If you see errors related to make, double check your present working directory.

The Daml SDK is large and can take several minutes to complete.

Daml SDK unpacking

Note

The CN QS uses Java SDK version Eclipse Temurin JDK version 17.0.12+7. The Java SDK runs within the Docker container.

Deploy a validator on LocalNet

From the quickstart subdirectory, build the application.

make build

Build success

Once complete, start the application, Canton services and Observability.

make start

The first time running make start, a helper assistant prompts to set up a local deployment. It offers the choice of running DevNet or LocalNet, enabling Observability, and specifying a party hint. In the future, this helper can be accessed by running make setup.

Begin the first application in LocalNet with Observability enabled. Leave the party hint blank to use the default.

The party hint is used as a party node’s alias of their identification hash. The Party Hint is not part of the user’s identity. It is a convenience feature. It is possible to have multiple party nodes with the same hint.

Enable LocalNet? (Y/n): Y
LOCALNET_ENABLED set to ‘true’.
Enable Observability? (Y/n): Y
OBSERVABILITY_ENABLED set to ‘true’.
Specify a party hint (this will identify the participant in the network) [quickstart-USERNAME-1]:
PARTY_HINT set to ‘quickstart-USERNAME-1’.

.env.local updated successfully.

Consider declining Observability if your machine has less than 8 GB of memory to allocate to Docker Desktop.

Make setup

If prompted to re-run make start, do so.

make start

Make start

In the future, you may run the following series of commands from cn-quickstart/ to clone and initiate Quickstart:

git pull; cd quickstart; make install-daml-sdk; make setup; make build;
make start

In a separate shell, from the quickstart subdirectory, run the Canton Consoles.

make console-app-provider
make console-app-user
Canton console

In a third shell, from the quickstart subdirectory, begin the Daml Shell.

make shell

Daml shell

Closing the application

⚠️ (If you plan on immediately using the CN QS then delay execution of this section)

Close Canton console

When complete, open the Canton console terminal. Run exit to stop and remove the console container.

Close Daml shell

In the Daml shell terminal, execute quit to stop the shell container.

Close the CN QS

Finally, close the application and observability services with:

make stop && make clean-all

It is wise to run make clean-all during development and at the end of each session to avoid conflict errors on subsequent application builds.

Next steps

You have successfully installed the CN QS. The next section, “Exploring The Demo,” provides a demonstration of the application in LocalNet and DevNet environments.

Resources

Curl

Direnv

Docker Desktop

Docker Hub

GSF list of SV Nodes

JFrog CN Artifactory

Nix

Quickstart GitHub repository

Validator onboarding documentation

WSL 2