Dash Masternode

Masternode setup with Dash Platform services

The purpose of this tutorial is to walk through the steps necessary to set up a masternode with Dash Platform services.

Prerequisites

• Docker (v20.10.0+) and docker-compose (v1.25.0+) installed
• An installation of NodeJS (v16, NPM v8.0+)

The following is not necessary for setting up a local network for development, but is helpful if setting up a testnet masternode:

• Access to a Linux system configured with a non-root user (guide)

Dashmate

Use NPM to install dashmate globally in your system:

Shell

npm install -g dashmate

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More comprehensive details of using the dashmate tool can be found in the dashmate README.

Local Network

Dashmate can be used to create a local network on a single computer. This network contains multiple nodes to mimic conditions and features found in testnet/mainnet settings.

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Dashmate local networks use the regtest network type so layer 1 blocks can be easily mined as needed.

Setup

Run the following command to start the setup wizard, then accept the default values at each step to create a local network:

Shell

dashmate setup local

Example output of the setup wizard showing important information:

✔ Set configuration preset
✔ Set configuration preset
✔ Set configuration preset
✔ Set configuration preset
✔ Set configuration preset
✔ Set the number of nodes
✔ Enable debug logs
✔ Set the core miner interval
✔ Create local group configs
  › Masternode Reward Shares Private Key: tprv8ZgxMBicQKsPfMKp9kkj3KPokivdyZFzviddYq5uum1pMwtvx7cr4551gg8JsAMD6k8GWm1CJesVp7ZvGSYVD8ujT6hFmbn6wmm2UnA6KWw
  ✔ Create local_1 config
  ✔ Create local_2 config
  ✔ Create local_3 config
  ✔ Create local_seed config
  ✔ Save configs
✔ Configure Core nodes
✔ Configure Tenderdash nodes

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Make a note of the key information displayed during setup as they it be required in the future.

Operation

Once the setup completes, start/stop/restart the network via the following commands:

Shell

dashmate group start
dashmate group stop
dashmate group restart

The status of the network's nodes can be check via the group status command:

Shell

dashmate group status

Testing DAPI

At this point DAPI will respond to requests. Test this by issuing a simple curl request to one of the JSON-RPC endpoints as shown below:

Shell

curl --request POST \
  --url http://127.0.0.1:3000/ \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{
      "method":"getBestBlockHash",
      "id":1,
      "jsonrpc":"2.0",
      "params":{}
    }'

Mining Dash

During development, it may be necessary to obtain Dash to create and topup identities. This can be done using the dashmate wallet mint command. First obtain an address to fund via the Create and Fund a Wallet tutorial and then mine Dash to it as shown below:

Mine to provided address

# Stop the devnet first
dashmate group stop

# Mine 10 Dash to a provided address
dashmate wallet mint 10 --address=<your address> --config=local_seed

# Restart the devnet
dashmate group start

Mine to new address

# Stop the devnet first
dashmate group:stop

# Mine 10 Dash to a random address/key
# The address and private key will be displayed
dashmate wallet:mint 10 --config=local_seed

# Restart the devnet
dashmate group:start

Example output of dashmate wallet mint 10 --address=yYqfdpePzn2kWtMxr9nz22HBFM7WBRmAqG --config=local_seed:

Text

✔ Generate 10 dash to address
  ✔ Start Core
  ↓ Use specified address yYqfdpePzn2kWtMxr9nz22HBFM7WBRmAqG [SKIPPED]
  ✔ Generate ≈10 dash to address yYqfdpePzn2kWtMxr9nz22HBFM7WBRmAqG
    › Generated 172.59038279 dash
  ✔ Wait for balance to confirm
  ✔ Stop Core

Using the network

Once the address is funded, you can begin creating identities, data contracts, etc. and experimenting with Dash Platform. The other tutorials in this section will help you get started.

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To make the Dash SDK connect to your local network, set the network option to 'local' as shown in the code example below.

Note: Prior to Platform v0.22, it was also necessary to set the DPNS contract ID; however, system contract IDs are now static so this is no longer necessary as of pull request 192.

JavaScript

const clientOpts = {
  network: 'local',
  ...
};

const client = new Dash.Client(clientOpts);
...

Testnet Masternode Setup

❗️Advanced Topic

Running a masternode requires familiarity with Dash Platform services. Improper configuration may impact testing so please exercise caution if running a masternode.

To setup a testnet masternode, please refer to the comprehensive documentation of the process as described here. The following video also details how to complete the process.

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Full Platform Node

A full node that with all Platform services can be started by simply running the setup command with the node type setup parameter set to fullnode and then starting the node.

dashmate setup testnet fullnode
dashmate start

Remote Development Network

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Connecting to a remote development network

In order to connect to a remote devnet (e.g. one run by Dash Core Group), please use one of the methods described in the Connect to a Devnet section.

For development we recommend using either a local network created via dashmate as described above or using Testnet. While configuring a remote development network is possible using the Dash network deployment tool, it is beyond the scope of this documentation. For details regarding this tool, please refer to the GitHub repository.