insight API
insight API is an open-source beyondcoin blockchain REST and websocket API. Insight API runs in NodeJS and use LevelDB for storage.
Insight API allows to develop beyondcoin related applications such as wallets that require certain information from the blockchain that beyondcoind does not provide.
A blockchain explorer front-end have been developed to top of Insight API, it can be downloaded at Github Insight Repository.
IMPORTANT: Upgrading from v0.1 to v0.2
In order to optimize some queries, the key-value layout in Level DB has been changed. An update script need to be run when updating from version v0.1.x to 0.2.x
The script is located at:
$ util/updateToV0.2.js
The script takes ~3minutes in testnet. While the script is running, Insight API must be stopped.
Alternatively, a total resync can be made, running $ util/sync.js -D
IMPORTANT: v0.2 Caching schema
In v0.2 a new cache schema has been introduced. Only information from transactions with INSIGHT_SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS+ settings will be cached (by default SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS=6). There are 3 different caches:
- nr. of confirmations
- transaction spent information
- scriptPubKey for unspent transactions
Cache data is only populated on request, i.e., only after accessing the required data for
the first time, the information is cached, there is not pre-caching procedure. To ignore
cache by default, use INSIGHT_IGNORE_CACHE. Also, address related calls support ?noCache=1
to ignore the cache in a particular API request.
Prerequisites
- beyondcoind - Download and Install Beyondcoin
insight API needs a trusted beyondcoind node to run. insight API will connect to the node thru the RPC API, Peer-to-peer protocol and will even read its raw .dat files for syncing.
Configure beyondcoind to listen to RPC calls and set txindex to true.
The easiest way to do this is by copying ./etc/beyondcoind/beyondcoin.conf to your
beyondcoin data directory (usually "~/.beyondcoin" on Linux, "%appdata%\Beyondcoin\" on Windows,
or "~/Library/Application Support/Beyondcoin" on Mac OS X).
beyondcoind must be running and must have finished downloading the blockchain before running insight API.
-
Node.js v0.10.x - Download and Install Node.js.
-
NPM - Node.js package manager, should be automatically installed when you get node.js.
Quick Install
Check the Prerequisites section above before installing.
To install Insight API, clone the main repository:
$ git clone https://github.com/bitpay/insight-api && cd insight-api
Install dependencies:
$ npm install
Run the main application:
$ node insight.js
Then open a browser and go to:
http://localhost:3001
Please note that the app will need to sync its internal database with the blockchain state, which may take some time. You can check sync progress from within the web interface.
Configuration
All configuration is specified in the config folder, particularly the config.js file. There you can specify your application name and database name. Certain configuration values are pulled from environment variables if they are defined:
BEYONDCOIND_HOST # RPC beyondcoind host
BEYONDCOIND_PORT # RPC beyondcoind Port
BEYONDCOIND_P2P_PORT # P2P beyondcoind Port
BEYONDCOIND_USER # RPC username
BEYONDCOIND_PASS # RPC password
BEYONDCOIND_DATADIR # beyondcoind datadir for livenet, or datadir/testnet3 for testnet
INSIGHT_NETWORK [= 'livenet' | 'testnet']
INSIGHT_DB # Path where to store insight's internal DB. (defaults to $HOME/.insight)
INSIGHT_SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS=6 # Nr. of confirmation needed to start caching transaction information
INSIGHT_IGNORE_CACHE # True to ignore cache of spents in transaction, with more than INSIGHT_SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS confirmations. This is useful for tracking double spents for old transactions.
Make sure that beyondcoind is configured to accept incoming connections using 'rpcallowip'.
In case the network is changed (testnet to livenet or vice versa) levelDB database needs to be deleted. This can be performed running:
util/sync.js -D and waiting for insight to synchronize again. Once the database is deleted, the sync.js process can be safely interrupted (CTRL+C) and continued from the synchronization process embedded in main app.
Synchronization
The initial synchronization process scans the blockchain from the paired beyondcoind server to update addresses and balances. insight needs one (and only one) trusted beyondcoind node to run. This node must have finished downloading the blockchain before running insight.
While insight is synchronizing the website can be accessed (the sync process is embedded in the webserver), but there may be missing data or incorrect balances for addresses. The 'sync' status is shown on the top-right of all pages.
The blockchain can be read from beyondcoind's raw .dat files or RPC interface. Reading the information from the .dat files is much faster so it's the recommended (and default) alternative. .dat files are scanned in the default location for each platform. In case a non-standard location is used, it needs to be defined (see the Configuration section). The synchronization type being used can be seen at the Status page. As of February 2014, using .dat files the sync process takes 7 hrs. for livenet and 20 mins. for testnet.
While synchronizing the blockchain, insight listens for new blocks and transactions relayed by the beyondcoind node. Those are also stored on insight's database. In case insight is shutdown for a period of time, restarting it will trigger a partial (historic) synchronization of the blockchain. Depending on the size of that synchronization task, a reverse RPC or forward .dat syncing strategy will be used.
If beyondcoind is shutdown, insight needs to be stopped and restarted once beyondcoind is restarted.
Syncing old blockchain data manualy
Old blockchain data can be manually synced issuing:
$ util/sync.js
Check util/sync.js --help for options, particulary -D to erase the current DB.
NOTE that there is no need to run this manually since the historic synchronization is embedded on the web application, so by running you will trigger the historic sync automatically.
DB storage requirement
To store the blockchain and address related information, insight uses LevelDB. Two DBs are created: txs and blocks. By default these are stored on
<user's home>/db
Please note that previous version's of Insight-API store that on <insight's root>/db
this can be changed on config/config.js. As of February 2014, storing the livenet blockchain takes ~30GB of disk space (2GB for the testnet).
Development
To run insight locally for development with grunt:
$ NODE_ENV=development grunt
To run the tests
$ grunt test
Contributions and suggestions are welcomed at insight-api github repository.
API
By default, insight provides a REST API at /api, but this prefix is configurable from the var apiPrefix in the config.js file.
The end-points are:
Block
/api/block/[:hash]
/api/block/00000000a967199a2fad0877433c93df785a8d8ce062e5f9b451cd1397bdbf62
Transaction
/api/tx/[:txid]
/api/tx/525de308971eabd941b139f46c7198b5af9479325c2395db7f2fb5ae8562556c
Address
/api/addr/[:addr][?noTxList=1&noCache=1]
/api/addr/mmvP3mTe53qxHdPqXEvdu8WdC7GfQ2vmx5?noTxList=1
Unspent Outputs
/api/addr/[:addr]/utxo[?noCache=1]
Sample return:
Please not that in case confirmations are cached and are more that INSIGHT_SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS setting, the
return can be a string of the form SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS+, e.g.: the string 6+
Unspent Outputs for multiple addresses
GET method:
/api/addrs/[:addrs]/utxo
/api/addrs/2NF2baYuJAkCKo5onjUKEPdARQkZ6SYyKd5,2NAre8sX2povnjy4aeiHKeEh97Qhn97tB1f/utxo
POST method:
/api/addrs/utxo
POST params:
addrs: 2NF2baYuJAkCKo5onjUKEPdARQkZ6SYyKd5,2NAre8sX2povnjy4aeiHKeEh97Qhn97tB1f
Transactions by Block
/api/txs/?block=HASH
/api/txs/?block=00000000fa6cf7367e50ad14eb0ca4737131f256fc4c5841fd3c3f140140e6b6
Transactions by Address
/api/txs/?address=ADDR
/api/txs/?address=mmhmMNfBiZZ37g1tgg2t8DDbNoEdqKVxAL
Historic blockchain data sync status
/api/sync
Live network p2p data sync status
/api/peer
Status network
/api/status?q=xxx
Where "xxx" can be:
- getInfo
- getDifficulty
- getTxOutSetInfo
- getBestBlockHash
- getLastBlockHash
Web Socket API
The web socket API is served using socket.io at:
/socket.io/1/
Beyondcoin network events published are: 'tx': new transaction received from network. Data will be a app/models/Transaction object. Sample output:
{
"txid":"00c1b1acb310b87085c7deaaeba478cef5dc9519fab87a4d943ecbb39bd5b053",
"processed":false
...
}
'block': new block received from network. Data will be a app/models/Block object. Sample output:
{
"hash":"000000004a3d187c430cd6a5e988aca3b19e1f1d1727a50dead6c8ac26899b96",
"time":1389789343,
...
}
'sync': every 1% increment on the sync task, this event will be triggered.
Sample output:
{
blocksToSync: 164141,
syncedBlocks: 475,
upToExisting: true,
scanningBackward: true,
isEndGenesis: true,
end: "000000000933ea01ad0ee984209779baaec3ced90fa3f408719526f8d77f4943",
isStartGenesis: false,
start: "000000009f929800556a8f3cfdbe57c187f2f679e351b12f7011bfc276c41b6d"
}
License
(The MIT License)
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.