Run BigchainDB with Vagrant

NOT for Production Use

You can use the following instructions to deploy a single or multi node BigchainDB setup for dev/test using Vagrant. Vagrant will set up the BigchainDB node(s) with all the dependencies along with MongoDB and BigchainDB Python driver. You can also tweak the following configurations for the BigchainDB node(s).

  • 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
  • Deploy node with Docker
    • Deploy all the services in Docker containers or as processes.
  • Number of BigchainDB nodes
    • If you want to deploy the services inside Docker containers, you can specify number of member(s) in the BigchainDB cluster.
  • Upstart Script
  • Vagrant Provider
    • Virtualbox
    • VMware

Minimum Requirements | Vagrant

Minimum resource requirements for a single node BigchainDB dev setup. The more the better:

  • Memory >= 512MB
  • VCPUs >= 1

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/configuration/vars/ inside the BigchainDB repository.

$ cd bigchaindb/pkg/configuration/vars/

Edit bdb-config.yml as per your requirements. Sample bdb-config.yml:

---
deploy_docker: false #[true, false]
docker_cluster_size: 1
upstart: "/bigchaindb/scripts/bootstrap.sh"
bdb_hosts:
  - name: "bdb-node-01"
    box:
      name: "ubuntu/xenial64"
    ram: "2048"
    vcpus: "2"
    network:
      ip: "10.20.30.40"
      type: "private_network"

Note: You can spawn multiple instances to orchestrate a multi-node BigchainDB cluster. Here is a sample bdb-config.yml:

---
deploy_docker: false #[true, false]
docker_cluster_size: 1
upstart: "/bigchaindb/scripts/bootstrap.sh"
bdb_hosts:
  - name: "bdb-node-01"
    box:
      name: "ubuntu/xenial64"
    ram: "2048"
    vcpus: "2"
    network:
      ip: "10.20.30.40"
      type: "private_network"
  - name: "bdb-node-02"
    box:
      name: "ubuntu/xenial64"
    ram: "2048"
    vcpus: "2"
    network:
      ip: "10.20.30.50"
      type: "private_network"

Note: You can also orchestrate a multi-node BigchainDB cluster on a single dev host using Docker containers. Here is a sample bdb-config.yml

---
deploy_docker: true #[true, false]
docker_cluster_size: 3
upstart: "/bigchaindb/scripts/bootstrap.sh"
bdb_hosts:
  - name: "bdb-node-01"
    box:
      name: "ubuntu/xenial64"
    ram: "8192"
    vcpus: "4"
    network:
      ip: "10.20.30.40"
      type: "private_network"

The above mentioned configuration will deploy a 3 node BigchainDB cluster with Docker containers on your specified host.

BigchainDB Setup | Vagrant

Note: There are some vagrant plugins required for the installation, user will be prompted to install them if they are not present. To install the required plugins, run the following command:

$ vagrant plugin install vagrant-cachier vagrant-vbguest vagrant-hosts

To bring up the BigchainDB node(s), run the following command:

$ vagrant up

After successful 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(s)/process(es) is(are) running.

Verify BigchainDB process(es):

$ ps -ef | grep bigchaindb

OR

Verify BigchainDB Docker(s):

$ 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.