Running from the code repository

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If you can't use Docker or you want to run your node locally from the source code, you can follow the steps in this document. Running the Node this way is helpful for debugging and developing the Node itself.

Running locally

To run a Request Node locally for tests, make sure you have the necessary IPFS and Ethereum nodes available.

You can run the following steps to launch a fully local test Request Node.

Cloning the repository

Let's clone the repository, install and build dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/RequestNetwork/requestNetwork.git
cd requestNetwork
yarn install
yarn build

You are ready to run the local test Node. You will need three different consoles for Ethereum, IPFS, and Request.

Launching IPFS locally

First, make sure you installed IPFS locally.

Run IPFS with:

ipfs daemon

Now you need to configure your IPFS to connect to our dedicated network. We have a script to make it easy for you:

cd packages/request-node
yarn init-ipfs

Running an Ethereum node

If you want to test using Ethereum mainnet and Goerli, you can launch your Ethereum node or connect to a service like infura.

If you want to debug and test, you may be interested in using a local Ethereum network.

Local network using docker

The easiest way to run a local Ethereum network is by using our pre-configured ganache Docker image. If you have Docker you can just run:

docker run --name ganache -d -p 8545:8545 requestnetwork/ganache

Local network using hardhat

You can also run hardhat to set up a local network.

cd packages/smart-contracts
yarn hardhat

Now you have hardhat running on your second console. We're still missing all the important smart-contracts that Request uses. On a new console, run:

cd packages/smart-contracts
yarn deploy

Done! Your local Ethereum network is ready for testing.

Running the Request Node

Now it's time to run the Node:

cd packages/request-node
yarn start

Your Request Node should be running! If you want to run it using a different Ethereum network, mnemonic, or a different IPFS server, you can check out the available options for the node here.

NPX

If for some reason you want to run the Node without Docker, but don't need to make changes to the repository, you can also use npx to run it directly from npm:

npx @requestnetwork/request-node [OPTIONS]

If you got to this point you know what Node options you should be using 🙂.