hcAutonomy

HcAutonomy

autonomy is the Hc proposal system. autonomy is a system for storing off-chain data that is both versioned and timestamped, essentially “git, a popular revision control system, plus timestamping”. Instead of attempting to store all the data related to Hc’s governance on-chain, we have opted to create an off-chain store of data that is anchored into Hc’s blockchain, minimizing its on-chain footprint.

The hcAutonomy stack is as follows:

~~~~~~~~ Internet ~~~~~~~~~
            |
+-------------------------+
|      hcAutonomy www       |
+-------------------------+
            |
+-------------------------+
|        hcAutonomyd        |
+-------------------------+
|       git backend       |
+-------------------------+
            |
~~~~~~~~ Internet ~~~~~~~~~
            |
+-------------------------+
|        hctimed         |
+-------------------------+

Components

Core components

• hcAutonomyd - Reference server daemon.
• hcAutonomywww - Web backend server; depends on hcAutonomyd.

Tools and reference clients

• hcAutonomy - Reference client application for hcAutonomyd.
• hcAutonomy_verify - Reference verification tool.
• hcAutonomywwwcli - Command-line tool for interacting with hcAutonomywww.
• hcAutonomywww_refclient - Reference client application for hcAutonomywww.
• hcAutonomywww_dbutil - Tool for debugging and creating admin users within the hcAutonomywww database.
• hcAutonomywww_dataload - Tool using hcAutonomywwwcli to load a basic dataset into hcAutonomywww.

Note: hcAutonomywww does not provide HTML output. It strictly handles the JSON REST RPC commands only. The GUI for hcAutonomywww can be found at: https://github.com/HcashOrg/hcAutonomygui

Development

1. Install Go, dep, and Git.

Make sure each of these are in the PATH.

2. Clone this repository.

3. Setup configuration files:

hcAutonomyd and hcAutonomywww both have configuration files that you should set up to make execution easier. You should create the configuration files under the following paths:

• macOS

  /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/autonomyd/hcAutonomyd.conf
  /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/autonomywww/hcAutonomywww.conf
  

• Windows

  C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\autonomyd/hcAutonomyd.conf
  C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\autonomywww/hcAutonomywww.conf
  

• Ubuntu

  ~/.hcAutonomyd/hcAutonomyd.conf
  ~/.hcAutonomywww/hcAutonomywww.conf
  

Copy and change the sample-hcAutonomywww.conf and sample-hcAutonomyd.conf files.

You can also use the following default configurations:

hcAutonomyd.conf:

rpcuser=user
rpcpass=pass
testnet=true

hcAutonomywww.conf:

rpchost=127.0.0.1
rpcuser=user
rpcpass=pass
rpccert="/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/autonomyd/https.cert"
testnet=true
paywallxpub=tpubVobLtToNtTq6TZNw4raWQok35PRPZou53vegZqNubtBTJMMFmuMpWybFCfweJ52N8uZJPZZdHE5SRnBBuuRPfC5jdNstfKjiAs8JtbYG9jx
paywallamount=10000000

Things to note:

• The rpccert path is referencing a macOS path. See above for more OS paths.

• hcAutonomywww uses an email server to send verification codes for things like new user registration, and those settings are also configured within hcAutonomywww.conf. The current code should work with most SSL-based SMTP servers (but not TLS) using username and password as authentication.

4. Build the programs:

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/HcashOrg/hcAutonomy
dep ensure && go install -v ./...

5. Start the hcAutonomyd server by running on your terminal:

hcAutonomyd

6. Download hcAutonomyd's identity to hcAutonomywww:

hcAutonomywww --fetchidentity

Accept hcAutonomyd's identity by pressing Enter.

The result should look something like this:

2018-08-01 22:48:48.468 [INF] PWWW: Identity fetched from hcAutonomyd
2018-08-01 22:48:48.468 [INF] PWWW: Key        : 331819226de0270d0c997749ce9f2b56bc5aed110f57faef8d381129e7ee6d26
2018-08-01 22:48:48.468 [INF] PWWW: Fingerprint: MxgZIm3gJw0MmXdJzp8rVrxa7REPV/rvjTgRKefubSY=
2018-08-01 22:48:48.468 [INF] PWWW: Save to /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/autonomywww/identity.json or ctrl-c to abort

2018-08-01 22:49:53.929 [INF] PWWW: Identity saved to: /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/autonomywww/identity.json

7. Start the hcAutonomywww server by running on your terminal:

hcAutonomywww

Awesome! Now you have your autonomy servers up and running!

At this point, you can:

• Follow the instructions at HcashOrg/hcAutonomygui to setup autonomy and access it through the UI.
• Use the hcAutonomywwwcli tool to interact with hcAutonomywww.
• Use the hcAutonomy tool to interact directly with hcAutonomyd.
• Use any other tools or clients that are listed above.

Further information

Paywall

This hcAutonomywww feature prevents users from submitting new proposals and comments until a payment in HC has been paid. By default, it needs a transaction with 2 confirmations to accept the payment.

Setting up the paywall requires a master public key for an account to derive payment addresses. You may either use one of the pre-generated test keys (see sample-hcAutonomywww.conf) or you may acquire one by creating accounts and retrieving the public keys for those accounts:

Put the result of the following command as paywallxpub=tpub... in hcAutonomywww.conf:

hcctl --wallet --testnet createnewaccount hcAutonomypayments
hcctl --wallet --testnet getmasterpubkey hcAutonomypayments

If running with paywall enabled on testnet, it's possible to change the minimum blocks required for accept the payment by setting minconfirmations flag for hcAutonomywww:

hcAutonomywww --minconfirmations=1

When using hcAutonomywww_refclient, the -use-paywall flag is true by default. When running the refclient without the paywall, set -use-paywall=false, but note that it will not be possible to test new proposals and comments or the admin flag.

• To test the admin flow:
• Run the refclient once with paywall enabled and make the payment.
• Stop hcAutonomywww.
• Set the user created in the first refclient execution as admin with hcAutonomywww_dbutil.
• Run refclient again with the email and password flags set to the user created in the first refclient execution.

Integrated Projects / External APIs / Official URLs

• https://faucet.h.cash - instance of testnetfaucet which is used by hcAutonomywww_refclient to satisfy paywall requests in an automated fashion.

• https://testnet-autonomy.h.cash - testing/development instance of autonomy.

• https://autonomy.h.cash - live production instance of autonomy.

Library and interfaces

• hcAutonomyd/api/v1 - JSON REST API for hcAutonomyd clients.
• hcAutonomywww/api/v1 - JSON REST API for hcAutonomywww clients.
• util - common used miscellaneous utility functions.

Misc

nginx reverse proxy sample (testnet)

# hcAutonomywww
location /api/ {
	# disable caching
	expires off;

	proxy_set_header Host $host;
	proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
	proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
	proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
	proxy_bypass_cache $http_upgrade;

	proxy_http_version 1.1;
	proxy_ssl_trusted_certificated /path/to/hcAutonomywww.crt;
	proxy_ssl_verify on;
	proxy_pass https://test-hcAutonomy.domain.com:4443/;
}

# hcAutonomygui
location / {
	# redirect not found
	error_page 404 =200 /;
	proxy_intercept_errors on;

	# disable caching
	expires off;

	proxy_set_header Host $host;
	proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
	proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
	proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
	proxy_http_version 1.1;

	# backend
	proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
}