Run BigchainDB with Vagrant

NOT for Production Use

You can use the following instructions to deploy a BigchainDB node for dev/test using Vagrant. Vagrant will setup a BigchainDB node with all the dependencies along with MongoDB, BigchainDB Python driver. You can also tweak the following configurations for the BigchainDB node.

  • Vagrant Box
    • Currently, we support the following boxes:
      • ubuntu/xenial64 # >=16.04
      • centos/7 # >=7
      • fedora/24 # >=24
    • NOTE : You can choose any other vagrant box of your choice but these are the minimum versioning requirements.
  • Resources and specs for your box.
    • RAM
    • VCPUs
    • Network Type
      • Currently, only private_network is supported.
    • IP Address
  • Setup type
    • quickstart
  • Deploy node with Docker
    • Deploy all the services in Docker containers or as processes.
  • Upstart Script
  • Vagrant Provider
    • Virtualbox
    • VMware

Install dependencies | Vagrant

  1. VirtualBox >= 5.0.0
  2. Vagrant >= 1.16.0

Clone the BigchainDB repository | Vagrant

$ git clone https://github.com/bigchaindb/bigchaindb.git

Configuration | Vagrant

Navigate to bigchaindb/pkg/config/ inside the repository.

$ cd bigchaindb/pkg/config/

Edit the bdb-config.yaml as per your requirements. Sample bdb-config.yaml:

---
- name: "bdb-node-01"
  box:
    name: "ubuntu/xenial64"
  ram: "2048"
  vcpus: "2"
  setup_type: "quickstart"
  deploy_docker: false
  network:
    ip: "10.20.30.40"
    type: "private_network"
  upstart: "/bigchaindb/scripts/bootstrap.sh"

Note: You can spawn multiple instances as well using bdb-config.yaml. Here is a sample bdb-config.yaml:

---
- name: "bdb-node-01"
  box:
    name: "ubuntu/xenial64"
  ram: "2048"
  vcpus: "2"
  setup_type: "quickstart"
  deploy_docker: false
  network:
    ip: "10.20.30.40"
    type: "private_network"
  upstart: "/bigchaindb/scripts/bootstrap.sh"
- name: "bdb-node-02"
  box:
    name: "ubuntu/xenial64"
  ram: "4096"
  vcpus: "3"
  setup_type: "quickstart"
  deploy_docker: false
  network:
    ip: "10.20.30.50"
    type: "private_network"
  upstart: "/bigchaindb/scripts/bootstrap.sh"

Local Setup | Vagrant

To bring up the BigchainDB node, run the following command:

$ vagrant up

Note: There are some vagrant plugins required for the installation, user will be prompted to install them if they are not present. Instructions to install the plugins can be extracted from the message.

$ vagrant plugin install <plugin-name>

After successfull execution of Vagrant, you can log in to your fresh BigchainDB node.

$ vagrant ssh <instance-name>

Make your first transaction

Once you are inside the BigchainDB node, you can verify that BigchainDB docker/process is running.

Verify BigchainDB process:

$ ps -ef | grep bigchaindb

OR

Verify BigchainDB Docker:

$ docker ps | grep bigchaindb

The BigchainDB Python Driver is pre-installed in the instance, so you can use it to make transactions and verify the functionality of your BigchainDB node. See the BigchainDB Python Driver documentation for details on how to use it.

Note 1: The bdb_root_url can be one of the following:

# BigchainDB is running as a process
bdb_root_url = http://<HOST-IP>:9984

OR

# BigchainDB is running inside a docker container
bdb_root_url = http://<HOST-IP>:<DOCKER-PUBLISHED-HOST-PORT>

Note 2: BigchainDB has other drivers as well.