Canton Network quickstart installation

Introduction

The Quickstart application helps you and your team become familiar with CN application development by providing essential scaffolding. The Quickstart application provides a launchpad and is intended to be extended to meet your business needs. When you are familiar with the Quickstart, review the technology choices and application design to determine what changes are needed. Technology and design decisions are ultimately up to you.

Overview

This guide walks through the installation and LocalNet deployment of the CN Quickstart. We have provided a fast path installation and step-by-step instructions, based on level of experience, for your convenience. Please contact your representative at Digital Asset if you find errors.

Roadmap

Prerequisites

Access to the CN-Quickstart GitHub repository and digitalasset-docker.jfrog.io JFrog Artifactory docker repository is needed to successfully pull the Digital Asset artifacts.

Contact us if you need access or additional support.

The CN Quickstart is a Dockerized application and requires Docker Desktop. We recommend allocating 8 GB of memory to Docker Desktop. Allocate additional resources if you witness unhealthy containers, if possible. Decline Observability if your machine does not have sufficient memory.

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

Fast path installation

If you are familiar with the prerequisites and have access to JFrog Artifactory, use these abbreviated installation instructions. More detailed instructions are provided below.

  1. Clone from GitHub and cd into the cn-quickstart repository: git clone https://github.com/digital-asset/cn-quickstart.git

  2. Paste your jfrog login and identity token into a global ~/.netrc file.

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

  1. Manually set .netrc’s permissions: chmod 600 ~/.netrc

  2. Check for Artifactory connectivity using .netrc credentials: curl -v --netrc "https://digitalasset.jfrog.io/artifactory/api/system/ping"

  3. Verify that the Docker Desktop app is running on your computer: docker info

  4. Login to Docker repositories via the terminal: docker login digitalasset-docker.jfrog.io and docker login

  5. cd into the quickstart subdirectory: cd quickstart

  6. Install the Daml SDK from the quickstart subdirectory: make install-daml-sdk

  7. Configure the local development environment: make setup

  8. When prompted, enable Observability and OAuth2, leave the party hint blank to use the default, and disable TEST MODE.

  9. Build the application from the quickstart subdirectory: make build

  10. Start the application, Canton services and Observability: make start

  11. Optional - In a separate shell, from the quickstart subdirectory, run the Canton Console: make canton-console

  12. Optional - In a third shell, from the quickstart subdirectory, begin the Daml Shell: make shell

  13. When complete, close the application and observability services with: make stop && make clean-all

  14. If applicable, close Canton Console with exit and close Daml Shell with quit.

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 the Docker Desktop application is running on your computer.

Login to Docker repositories via the terminal.

docker login digitalasset-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

Deploy a validator on LocalNet

Configure the local development environment by running make setup.

Enable Observability and OAuth2. Leave the party hint blank to use the default and disable TEST MODE.

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.

| % make setup
|  Starting local environment setup tool...
|  ./gradlew configureProfiles --no-daemon --console=plain --quiet
|  Enable Observability? (Y/n): y
|  OBSERVABILITY_ENABLED set to 'true'.

| Enable OAUTH2? (Y/n): y
| AUTH_MODE set to 'oauth2'.

| Specify a party hint (this will identify the participant in the
  network) [quickstart-USERNAME-1]:
| PARTY_HINT set to ‘quickstart-USERNAME-1’.

| Enable TEST_MODE? (y/N): n
|   TEST_MODE set to 'off'.

| ``.env.local`` updated successfully.

You can change these choices any time by running make setup again.

OAuth2 and Observability may be unstable if your machine has less than 8 GB of memory to allocate to Docker Desktop.

Build the application.

make build
Build success

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

make start

Connecting to the Local Canton Nodes

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

make canton-console
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 Quickstart 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 Quickstart

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 Quickstart.

The next section, “Exploring The Demo,” provides a demonstration of the example application.

Connecting your application to The Canton Network

The LocalNet deployment connects to a local validator which is in turn connected to a local super-validator (synchronizer). Staging and final production deployments require connecting to a validator that is in turn connected to the public Canton Network.

The Canton Network provides three synchronizer pools. The production network is MainNet; the production staging network is TestNet. As a developer you will mostly be connecting to the development staging network DevNet.

Access to 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.

Resources