consensys / quorum

This guide provides a comprehensive step-by-step approach to deploying the ConsenSys Quorum project into a production environment. The focus is on ensuring a smooth deployment process, leveraging Docker for containerization, and following best practices.

Prerequisites

  • Ensure that you have Go installed (version 1.22 recommended).
  • Docker should be installed and running in your environment.
  • Familiarity with building Go applications and Docker container management is assumed.

Step 1: Clone the Repository

First, clone the ConsenSys Quorum repository:

git clone https://github.com/consensys/quorum.git
cd quorum

Step 2: Build the Docker Image

Dockerfile Overview

The Dockerfile builds the geth client and exposes required ports for communication. Below is a breakdown of the Dockerfile content used for building and deploying Quorum.

# Support setting various labels on the final image
ARG COMMIT=""
ARG VERSION=""
ARG BUILDNUM=""

# Build Geth in a stock Go builder container
FROM golang:1.22-alpine as builder

RUN apk add --no-cache gcc musl-dev linux-headers git

# Get dependencies - will also be cached if we won't change go.mod/go.sum
COPY go.mod /go-ethereum/
COPY go.sum /go-ethereum/
RUN cd /go-ethereum && go mod download

ADD . /go-ethereum
RUN cd /go-ethereum && go run build/ci.go install -static ./cmd/geth
RUN cd /go-ethereum && go run build/ci.go install -static ./cmd/bootnode

# Pull Geth into a second stage deploy alpine container
FROM alpine:latest

RUN apk add --no-cache ca-certificates curl
RUN apk add --no-cache openssl

COPY --from=builder /go-ethereum/build/bin/geth /usr/local/bin/
COPY --from=builder /go-ethereum/build/bin/bootnode /usr/local/bin/

EXPOSE 8545 8546 30303 30303/udp
ENTRYPOINT ["geth"]

# Add some metadata labels to help programatic image consumption
ARG COMMIT=""
ARG VERSION=""
ARG BUILDNUM=""

LABEL commit="$COMMIT" version="$VERSION" buildnum="$BUILDNUM"

Build the Docker Image

To build the Docker image, run the following command in the terminal:

docker build -t quorum:latest .

Step 3: Running Tests (Optional)

To ensure everything works correctly, you can run tests using the built-in testing framework. Note that these will only work if the gofuzz build constraint is met:

go test ./... -tags gofuzz

This step is optional and primarily for validating the application before production deployment.

Step 4: Running the Docker Container

After building the image, the next step is to run your Quorum instance in a container:

docker run -d --name quorum-node \
  -p 8545:8545 -p 8546:8546 -p 30303:30303 -p 30303:30303/udp \
  quorum:latest

This command runs the Quorum node in detached mode and exposes essential ports for API and peer-to-peer communication, including:

  • 8545: RPC endpoint
  • 8546: WebSocket endpoint
  • 30303: P2P network communication (TCP and UDP)

Step 5: Configuration and Customization

You may need to customize the configuration based on your network requirements and desired consensus mechanism. Configuration files can be mounted into the container to provide custom settings.

Example to run with a configuration file:

docker run -d --name quorum-node \
  -v ./config:/path/to/your/config \
  -p 8545:8545 -p 8546:8546 -p 30303:30303 -p 30303:30303/udp \
  quorum:latest --config /path/to/your/config

Conclusion

Deploying ConsenSys Quorum into a production environment requires careful attention to building and managing Docker containers. By following the steps outlined in this guide, developers can efficiently deploy their blockchain solution.

Sources:

  • Dockerfile content as specified in the ConsenSys Quorum repository documentation.
  • General Docker build and run commands.

The thorough application of the outlined steps ensures a robust and production-ready deployment.