Run a Local Testnet with Validator
Last updated
Last updated
USING CLI TO RUN A LOCAL TESTNET
If you want to use CLI to start and run a local testnet, see .
You can run a local testnet of the Jin blockchain. This local testnet will not be connected to the Jin devnet. It will run on your local machine, independent of other Jin networks. You can use this local testnet for testing and development purposes.
You can run a local testnet in two ways:
Using the Aptos-core source code. This approach is useful for testing modifications to the Aptos-core codebase or to the Jin Framework.
Using Docker. This is particularly useful for building services on top of the Jin blockchain or the Jin Framework, as there is no build overhead and the ledger persists across network restarts (by default).
The rest of this document describes:
How to start your local testnet with a single validator node, and
How to start a Faucet service and attach it to your local testnet.
Clone the Jin repo.
cd
into aptos-core
directory.
Run the scripts/dev_setup.sh
Bash script as shown below. This will prepare your developer environment.
Update your current shell environment.
With your development environment ready, now you can start your testnet network. Before you proceed, make a note of the following:
TIP
When you run the below command to start the local testnet, your terminal will enter into an interactive mode, with a message Aptos is running, press ctrl-c to exit
. Hence, you will need to open another shell terminal for the subsequent steps described in this section.
After the below command runs, copy the Test dir
information from the terminal output for the next step.
To start your testnet locally, run the following command:
See below for an example of the partial output. Make a note of the Test dir
from the output.
NOTE: The above command starts a local testnet with a single validator node. The command runs aptos-node
from a genesis-only ledger state. If you want to reuse the ledger state produced by a previous run of aptos-node
, then use:
Faucets are stateless services that can be run in parallel with the testnet. A Faucet is a way to create Aptos test coins with no real-world value. You can use the Faucet by sending a request to create coins and transfer them into a given account on your behalf.
Make sure that you started your local testnet as described in Step 5 above.
Open a new shell terminal.
Copy the Aptos root key path from your terminal where you started the testnet, and use it to replace the mint-key-file-path
in the below command.
Run the following command to start a Faucet:
This will start a Faucet running locally without any restrictions to tokens that can be claimed and minted. This Faucet service will be as accessible as the testnet you started above.
This section describes how to start your local testing using Docker.
Create a directory for your local test validator network, and cd
into it.
Download the YAML configuration files for:
Start Docker Compose by running the command:
An example command sequence for the above steps 2 through 4 is shown below:
This will start both a validator node and Faucet service.
The Validator's REST endpoint will be available at http://127.0.0.1:8080
, and
The Faucet is available at http://127.0.0.1:8000
.
As the software is in the early stages of development, there may be breaking changes. If the software fails to start, do the following:
First, query Docker for both the containers and shared volumes with docker container ls -a
and docker volume ls
.
Then, delete them using docker container rm $id
and docker volume rm $name
.
Alternatively you can start with a clean slate by cleaning your entire local docker state by running the below command:
NOTE
If you intend to use your testnet over an extended period of time, you should pin the images to a specific ID. Image IDs can be obtained via docker container ls
and added to the docker compose file.
After starting your local testnet, you will see the following:
Aptos root key path
: The root key (also known as the mint or faucet key) controls the account that can mint tokens. Available in the docker compose folder under aptos_root_key
.
Waypoint
: A verifiable checkpoint of the blockchain (available in the docker compose folder under waypoint.txt)
REST endpoint
: The endpoint for the REST service, e.g., http://127.0.0.1:8080
.
ChainId
: The chain ID uniquely distinguishes this network from other blockchain networks.
At this point, you will have a special root account at 0x1
that can perform the mint operation. Follow up with:
Install including .
and
.
Use the to interact with your local testnet. The above output contains information you will use for starting the :
to learn how to submit transactions.
to learn how to create Move modules.
to learn how to mint coins.