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Now PRBv2 is out of date. Please use PRBv3

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Understanding Runtime Bridge

Following services make a Runtime Bridge setup work:
  • Data Provider (a.k.a data_provider):
    • Fetches and analyses block data from Substrate,
    • Makes pre-encoded blobs that pRuntime consumes,
    • Serves pre-encoded blobs for lifecycle managers;
  • Lifecycle Manager (a.k.a lifecycle):
    • Sends block data blobs to workers(pRuntime),
    • Registers worker on the chain,
    • Starts mining with configured stake amount,
    • Provides API to query workers and pools.
  • Trader (a.k.a trade):
    • Sends transactions from queue to the chain.
Every service above uses Runtime Bridge Walkie as a communication method built on libp2p and Protocol Buffer. On the first startup of each service, an RSA key pair will be generated(by default saved in /var/data/keys/id) to be used as the identity in the libp2p protocol. The current identity public key can be found in the stdout of running service by searching Got my peer id in the base58 format. And for lifecycle managers, the key pair is used to encrypt critical information. DO BACK THE KEYS UP AND KEEP THE KEYS SAFE. When the lifecycle manager has finished the initial blob synchronization, it will attempt to sync messages in the message queue between the pRuntime and the blockchain. After that, it will try to register workers and do the “start mining” operation on the blockchain. Extrinsics (transactions) shall be sent to the blockchain for the operation mentioned above. To achieve this, the lifecycle manager shall push the extrinsics data to the trader queue(currently maintained with Redis). The trader will grab jobs from the queue and report the extrinsic results back. Runtime Bridge doesn’t require a SGX environment.

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Understanding the startup process and internal dependencies

Data providers and lifecycle managers are designed to discover each other using libp2p. While starting the service, it connects to the blockchain then analyses the chainIdentity from the parachain, libp2p will be initialized with the identity key and the chainIdentity. After the initialization, the service should begin its work and discover other peers via mDNS as well as the bootstrap node configured. A data provider fetches data from the parachain and the relaychain(called parent chain in Substrate). It starts a standalone TCP server for blob synching due to the performance issue of libp2p, the port of which will be included in the peer handshake process. While starting the lifecycle manager, it connects to the Redis server for the trade queue. There should be only 1 lifecycle manager and 1 trader accessing the same Redis server. The trader paired with the lifecycle manager should use the same identity key to ensure that the trader can decrypt the private key of saved pools. While the lifecycle requires a specified Redis server to start, it doesn’t require any data provider to start the service. It will wait until any valid data providers are discovered, which means it’s safe to stop the data provider when the lifecycle manager running, and you can build an HA setup for data providers. Data in the Redis server should never be persisted since the lifecycle manager always builds states from the blockchain and pRuntime. Restart the lifecycle manager, the trader, and the Redis server together when any error occurs.

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Quickstart with Docker Compose

We recommend deploying the services with Docker Compose, to install Docker and Docker Compose, please refer to the documentation: We assume you have already acknowledged the basic usage of Docker and Docker Compose to complete this guide. The host network driver is recommended when deploying with Docker to work with the auto discovery feature of Runtime Bridge.

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Local Node

Edit and save following content in docker-compose.yml in a directory for node deployment: 
version: "3"
services:
  node:
    image: phalanetwork/khala-node:latest
    container_name: node
    hostname: node
    restart: always
    ports:
     - "9933:9933"
     - "9934:9934"
     - "9944:9944"
     - "9945:9945"
     - "30333:30333"
     - "30334:30334"
    environment:
     - NODE_NAME=PNODE
     - NODE_ROLE=MINER
    volumes:
     - /var/khala-dev-node:/root/data
It’s recommended to build a TCP load balancer for the node in production environment.

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Data Provider

Edit and save following content in docker-compose.yml in another directory: 
version: "3"

x-defaults: &defaults
  volumes: &default-volume-config
    - ./data:/var/data

services:
  data_provider:
    image: phalanetwork/prb:next
    hostname: data_provider
    network_mode: host
    restart: always
    volumes: *default-volume-config
    logging:
      options:
        max-size: "1g"
    environment:
      - PHALA_MODULE=data_provider
      - NODE_ENV=development
      - PHALA_LOGGER_LEVEL=debug
      - PHALA_PARENT_CHAIN_ENDPOINT=ws://path.to.kusama.node:9945
      - PHALA_CHAIN_ENDPOINT=ws://path.to.khala.node:9944
      - PHALA_WALKIE_LISTEN_ADDRESSES=/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/28888
      - PHALA_BRIDGE_IDENTITY=production
      - PHALA_LIFECYCLE_BLOB_SERVER_SESSION_MAX_MEMORY=64
    entrypoint:
      - "node"
      - "--trace-warnings"
      - "--experimental-json-modules"
      - "--es-module-specifier-resolution=node"
      - "--harmony-top-level-await"
      - "dist/index"

  monitor:
    image: phalanetwork/prb-monitor:next
    hostname: monitor
    network_mode: host
    environment:
      - PTP_BOOT_NODES=/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/28888/peer_id_of_data_provider
Run docker-compose up to start the data provider, open the monitor with http://localhost:3000 in the browser, you will see the status of the data provider even the PTP_BOOT_NODES has not been set properly. One data provider can be shared by multiple lifecycle managers.

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Lifecycle Manager and Trader

Edit and save following content in docker-compose.yml: 
version: "3"

x-defaults: &defaults
  volumes: &default-volume-config
    - ./data:/var/data

services:
  redis-q:
    network_mode: host
    image: redis:alpine
    hostname: redis-q
    restart: always
    logging:
      options:
        max-size: "1g"
    command: ["redis-server", "--port", "63792", "--appendonly", "no", '--save', '']

  lifecycle:
    network_mode: host
    image: phalanetwork/prb:next
    hostname: lifecycle
    restart: always
    depends_on:
      - redis-q
    volumes: *default-volume-config
    logging:
      options:
        max-size: "1g"
    environment:
      - PHALA_MODULE=lifecycle
      - PHALA_PARENT_CHAIN_ENDPOINT=ws://path.to.kusama.node:9945
      - PHALA_CHAIN_ENDPOINT=ws://path.to.khala.node:9944
      - PHALA_Q_REDIS_ENDPOINT=redis://127.0.0.1:63792/
      - PHALA_LRU_CACHE_SIZE=50
      - PHALA_LRU_CACHE_MAX_AGE=90000
      - PHALA_RUNNER_MAX_WORKER_NUMBER=100
      - PHALA_PRPC_REQUEST_TIMEOUT=60000
      - PHALA_BRIDGE_IDENTITY=production
      - PHALA_WALKIE_LISTEN_ADDRESSES=/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/29888
      - PHALA_WALKIE_BOOT_NODES=/ip4/ip.of.data.provider/tcp/28888/p2p/some_peer_id
      - WORKER_KEEPALIVE_ENABLED=true
      - USE_BUILT_IN_TRADER=true
    entrypoint:
      - "node"
      - "--trace-warnings"
      - "--experimental-json-modules"
      - "--es-module-specifier-resolution=node"
      - "--harmony-top-level-await"
      - "dist/index"
Run docker-compose up to start the data provider, the lifecycle manager should be discovered and accessible in the monitor. Open http://127.0.0.1:4567 in the browser to check the queue of on-chain transactions.

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Configuring Runtime Bridge

Services with a Runtime Bridges setup are configured with environment variables.

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Shared items

NameDescription
NODE_ENVApplication environment, set to development to put the app in development mode.
PHALA_MODULEThe module to start.
PHALA_LOGGER_LEVELLogger level, defaults to info. See https://github.com/trentm/node-bunyan for more information.
PHALA_CHAIN_ENDPOINTThe WebSocket endpoint to the Substrate RPC of parachain.
PHALA_PARENT_CHAIN_ENDPOINTThe WebSocket endpoint to the Substrate RPC of relaychain(e.g. for Khala it’s Kusama).
PHALA_PEER_ID_PREFIXThe path storing identity keys, defaults to ‘/var/data/keys/id’.
PHALA_WALKIE_LISTEN_ADDRESSESThe multiaddr(https://github.com/libp2p/specs/tree/master/addressing) of listen address for libp2p, defaults to ‘/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/0,/ip6/::/tcp/0’ which means listen to a random port on every interface. Only TCP protocol is supported. Use a comma between addresses.
PHALA_WALKIE_BOOT_NODESThe multiaddr list of bootstrap nodes for peer discovery, defaults to ‘/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/18888,/ip6/::/tcp/28889’ which means no bootstrap node. Only TCP protocol is supported. Use a comma between addresses.
PHALA_BRIDGE_IDENTITYThe bridge identity in the PRB Walkie protocol, used to specify namespace.

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Items for data providers

NameDescription
PHALA_LOCAL_DB_PATHThe path to database, defaults to ‘/var/data/0’.
PHALA_DATA_PROVIDER_LOCAL_SERVER_PORTThe listen port for the blob server, defaults to 8012.

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Items for lifecycle managers

NameDescription
PHALA_Q_REDIS_ENDPOINTThe endpoint to the Redis for trader task queue.
PHALA_RUNNER_MAX_WORKER_NUMBERThe maximum worker number of one runner, defaults to 150.
PHALA_LIFECYCLE_CONFIG_MODEWhether the lifecycle manager should enter config mode, where it will start only the API to add/modify saved pools/workers. Set to true to enable.
PHALA_LRU_CACHE_SIZEThe size of LRU cache, defaults to 5000.
PHALA_LRU_CACHE_MAX_AGEThe maximum age of items in the LRU cache in milliseconds, defaults to 30 minutes.
PHALA_ENFORCE_MIN_BENCH_SCOREWhether the lifecycle manager should re-try the worker registration on the chain if the on-chain benchmark score to too low. Set to true to enable.
PHALA_MIN_BENCH_SCOREDesired minimum benchmark score.

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Items for trader

NameDescription
PHALA_Q_REDIS_ENDPOINTThe endpoint to the Redis for task queue.

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Configuring Node.js memory usage

Only do this when you are suffering from OOM issues. Change the docker entrypoint to node -trace-warnings -experimental-json-modules -es-module-specifier-resolution=node -harmony-top-level-await -max-old-space-size=$MAX_OLD_SPACE_SIZE dist/index. Change the $MAX_OLD_SPACE_SIZE to your desired size in MB. https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v16.x/docs/api/cli.html#–max-old-space-sizesize-in-megabytes

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Using the monitor

The monitor is an example of the Walkie usage. It provides a simple management ability to play with Runtime Bridge. It also implements a JSON proxy to the Walkie API. POST /ptp/discover returns the list of discovered peers. POST /ptp/proxy/:peer_id/:method sends the API request to the specified peer. The API definition can be found in https://github.com/Phala-Network/runtime-bridge-walkie/blob/master/src/proto/message.proto#L78.

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Import pools and workers

To import pools: https://github.com/Phala-Network/runtime-bridge-walkie/blob/master/src/proto/message.proto#L95 With monitor: 
curl --location --request POST 'http://path.to.monitor/ptp/proxy/Qmbz...RjpwY/CreatePool' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
    "pools": [
        {
            "pid": 2,
            "name": "test2",
            "owner": {
                "mnemonic": "boss...chase"
            },
            "enabled": true,
            "realPhalaSs58": "3zieG9...1z5g"
        }
    ]
}'
To import workers: https://github.com/Phala-Network/runtime-bridge-walkie/blob/master/src/proto/message.proto#L98 With monitor: 
curl --location --request POST 'http://path.to.monitor/ptp/proxy/Qmbz...RjpwY/CreateWorker' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
    "workers": [
        {
            "pid": 2,
            "name": "test-node-1",
            "endpoint": "http://path.to.worker1:8000",
            "enabled": true,
            "stake": "4000000000000000"
        },
        {
            "pid": 2,
            "name": "test-node-2",
            "endpoint": "http://path.to.worker2:8000",
            "enabled": true,
            "stake": "4000000000000000"
        }
    ]
}'
Restart the lifecycle manager after modified pools/workers.