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Hyperledger Cookbook

By Xun (Brian) Wu , Chuanfeng Zhang , Zhibin (Andrew) Zhang
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  1. Free Chapter
    Working with Hyperledger Fabric
About this book
Hyperledger is an open-source project and creates private blockchain applications for a range of domains. This book will be your desk reference as you explore common and not-so-common challenges faced while building blockchain networks using Hyperledger services. We'll work through all Hyperledger platform modules to understand their services and features and build end-to-end blockchain applications using various frameworks and tools supported by Hyperledger. This book's independent, recipe-based approach (packed with real-world examples) will familiarize you with the blockchain development cycle. From modeling a business network to integrating with various tools, you will cover it all. We'll cover common and not-so-common challenges faced in the blockchain life cycle. Later, we'll delve into how we can interact with the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain, covering all the principles you need to master, such as chaincode, smart contracts, and much more. We'll also address the scalability and security issues currently faced in blockchain development. By the end of this book, you will be able to implement each recipe to plan, design, and create a full-fledged, private, decentralized application to meet organizational needs.
Publication date:
April 2019
Publisher
Packt
Pages
310
ISBN
9781789534887

 

Working with Hyperledger Fabric

Hyperledger Fabric is the most widely-used permissioned blockchain in the Hyperledger family. It is an open source enterprise-grade platform that leverages a highly-modular and configurable architecture. Hyperledger Fabric is optimized for a broad range of industry use cases, including the finance, banking, healthcare, insurance, and public sectors, as well as supply chains and digital asset management.

Hyperledger Fabric supports smart contact development in general-purpose programming languages, such as Java, Go, and Node.js. Hyperledger Fabric is also operating under a governance model to build trust between participants on a shared network.

In this chapter, we will cover the following recipes:

  • Reviewing the Hyperledger Fabric architecture and components
  • Installing Hyperledger Fabric on AWS
  • Building the Fabric network
  • Adding an organization to a channel
  • Using CouchDB
  • Writing your first application

 

Reviewing the Hyperledger Fabric architecture and components

We will review and examine various Hyperledger Fabric components and architectures throughout this recipe. Hyperledger Fabric has three core components, which are peers, ordering service, and Fabric CA:

  • Peer: A node on the network that maintains the state of the ledger and manages chaincode. Any number of peers may participate in a network. A peer can be an endorser, which executes transactions, or a committer, which verifies the endorsements and validates transactions results. An endorser is always a committer. Peers form a peer-to-peer gossip network. A peer manages the events hub and delivers events to the subscribers.
  • Ordering service: Packages transactions into blocks to be delivered to peers, since it communicates only with peers. The ordering service is the genesis of a network. Clients of the ordering service are peers and applications. A group of orderers run a communication service, called an ordering service, to provide an atomic broadcast. The ordering service accepts transactions and delivers blocks. The ordering service processes all configuration transactions to set up network policies (including readers, writers, and admins). The orderer manages a pluggable trust engine (such as CFT or BFT) that performs the ordering of the transactions.
  • Fabric CA: Fabric CA is the certificate authority that issues PKI-based certificates to network member organizations and users. Fabric CA supports LDAP for user authentication and HSM for security. Fabric CA issues one root certificate to member organizations and one enrollment certificate to each authorized user.

Hyperledger Fabric also have several important key features and concepts:

  • Fabric ledger: Maintained by each peer and consists of two parts: the blockchain and the world state. Transaction read/write and channel configurations sets are written to the blockchain. A separate ledger is maintained for each channel for each peer that joins. The world state has options of either LevelDB or CouchDB, where LevelDB is a simple key-value store and CouchDB is a document store that allows complex queries. The smart contract decides what is written into the world state.
  • Channel: Provides privacy between different ledgers and exists in the scope of a channel. Channels can be shared across an entire network of peers, and peers can participate in multiple channels. Channels can be permissioned for a specific set of participants. Chaincode is installed on peers to access the world state. Chaincode is instantiated on specific channels. Channels also support concurrent execution for performance and scalability.
  • Organization: Define boundaries within a Fabric blockchain network. Each organization defines an MSP for the identities of administrators, users, peers, and orderers. A network can include many organizations, representing a consortium. Each organization has an individual ID.
  • Endorsement policy: The conditions by which a transaction can be endorsed. A transaction can only be considered valid if it has been endorsed according to its policy. Each chaincode is deployed with an endorsement policy. Endorsement system chaincode (ESCC) signs the proposal response on the endorsing peer and validation system chaincode (VSCC) validates the endorsement.
  • Membership services provider (MSP): Manages a set of identities within a distributed Fabric network. It provides identities for peers, orderers, client applications, and administrators. Where the identities can be Fabric CA or external CA, MSP provides authentication, validation, signing and issuance. MSP support different crypto standards with a pluggable interface. A network can include multiple MSPs (typically one per organization), which can include TLS crypto material for encrypted communications.

Getting ready

We will look into a sample transaction flow on Hyperledger Fabric. Fabric uses the execute-order-validate blockchain transaction flow architecture shown in the following diagram:

How to do it...

In this section, we will review how a transaction is created on the Hyperledger Fabric network:

  1. The Client Application submits a transaction proposal for smart contact A to the network. The endorsement policy requires three endorsers—E0, E1, and E2—to sign together.
  2. The endorsers execute proposed transactions. At this time, three endorsers—E0, E1, E2—will each execute the proposed transaction independently. None of these executions will update the ledger. Each execution will capture the set of read and written (RW) data, which will now flow in the fabric network. All transactions should be signed and encrypted.
  3. RW sets are asynchronously returned to the client application with a transaction proposal. The RW sets are signed by each endorser and will be processed later.
  4. All transactions that returned from the Fabric network are submitted for ordering. The application can submit responses as a transaction to be ordered, and ordering happens across the Fabric in parallel with transactions submitted by other applications.
  5. Ordering Service collects transactions into proposed blocks for distribution to committing peers. This proposed blocks can then be deliver to other peers in a hierarchy. There are two ordering algorithms available: SOLO (single node for development) and Kafka (crash-fault-tolerance for production). In the production system, it is suggested to use Kafka.
  6. Committing peers validate the transactions. All committing peers validate against the endorsement policy and check whether RW sets are still valid for the current world state. World state is not update if there is invalid transctions but are retained on the ledger while validated transactions are applied to the world state.
  7. Client applications can register to be notified on the status of transactions, to find out whether they succeed or fail, and when blocks are added to the ledger. Client applications will be notified by each peer to which they are independently connected.

How it works...

We reviewed how transaction flow works in Fabric. Fabric uses the execute-order-validate model with the following seven steps:

  1. Client application submits a transaction proposal
  2. Endorsers execute the proposed transactions
  3. Client applications receive transaction proposal response
  4. Transactions are submitted for ordering
  5. Transactions are delivered to committing peer
  6. Validated transaction are applied to world state
  7. Client applications get notified with the status of the transaction

In the next recipe, we will walk through how to install Hyperledger Fabric on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

 

Installing Hyperledger Fabric on AWS

To install and run the recipe in this chapter, you need AWS EC2 Ubuntu Server 16.04 with 4 GB of memory. We will use the Fabric 1.3 release as it is the most stable release as of writing this recipe.

Getting ready

From the Hyperledger Fabric website (https://hyperledger-fabric.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.3/prereqs.html), the prerequisites for this recipe are as follows:

  • Operating systems: Ubuntu Linux 14.04 / 16.04 LTS (both 64-bit), or macOS 10.12
  • cURL tool: The latest version
  • Docker engine: Version 17.06.2-ce or greater
  • Docker-compose: Version 1.14 or greater
  • Go: Version 1.10.x
  • Node: Version 8.9 or higher (note: version 9 is not supported)
  • npm: Version 5.x
  • Python: 2.7.x

We chose Amazon Ubuntu Server 16.04. If you don't have experience with installing Ubuntu in EC2, please refer to the AWS document: https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/tutorials/launch-a-virtual-machine/.

You can also chose to install Ubuntu in your local machine virtual box. A tutorial for this can be found at http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/virtualbox or https://askubuntu.com/questions/142549/how-to-install-ubuntu-on-virtualbox.

How to do it...

To install Hyperledger on AWS, follow these steps:

  1. Execute the following commands to update the software on your system:
        $ sudo apt-get update
  1. Install curl and the golang software package:
        $ sudo apt-get install curl
        $ sudo apt-get install golang
        $ export GOPATH=$HOME/go
        $ export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin
  1. Install Node.js, npm, and Python:
        $ sudo apt-get install nodejs
        $ sudo apt-get install npm
        $ sudo apt-get install python
  1. Install and upgrade docker and docker-compose:
        $ sudo apt-get install docker
        $ curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg |      
          sudo apt-key add -
        $ sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64]   
          https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu 
        $(lsb_release -cs) stable"
        $ sudo apt-get update
        $ apt-cache policy docker-ce
        $ sudo apt-get install -y docker-ce
        $ sudo apt-get install docker-compose
        $ sudo apt-get upgrade

  1. Let's customize and update Node.js and golang to the proper versions:
        $ wget https://dl.google.com/go/go1.11.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
        $ tar -xzvf go1.11.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
        $ sudo mv go/ /usr/local
        $ export GOPATH=/usr/local/go
        $ export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin
        $ curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_8.x | sudo bash -
        $ sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
  1. Verify the installed software package versions:
        $ curl --version
        $ /usr/local/go/bin/go version
        $ python -V
        $ node -v
        $ npm -version
        $ docker --version
        $ docker-compose --version

The result should look like this:

  1. Install Hyperledger Fabric 1.3:
        $ curl -sSL http://bit.ly/2ysbOFE | sudo bash -s 1.3.0

It will take a few minutes to download the Docker images. When it is done, the results should look like this:

This completes the installation of the Hyperledger Fabric on the AWS EC2 machine. We will build up the network in the next recipe.

How it works...

We installed several prerequisites, so let's explain what each software package is and how they work together to build the Hyperledger Fabric platform:

  • cURL: A tool used to transfer data from or to a server, using one of the supported protocols (HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SCP, SFTP, TFTP, DICT, TELNET, LDAP, or FILE). The command is designed to work without user interaction.
  • Docker: A tool to create, deploy, and run applications using containers. Containers allow developers to package applications with all of the parts it needs, such as libraries and other dependencies, and ship it out as one package.
  • Docker Compose: It is a tool which is used for defining and running Multi-container application. You can create and start all the services with help of a single command from your configuration YAML file.
  • Go: An open source programming language that makes it easy to build simple, reliable, and efficient software. Hyperledger Fabric is primarily developed using the Go language.
  • Node.js: A platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime to easily build fast and scalable network applications. Node.js is considered to be more lightweight and efficient since it uses event-driven, non-blocking I/O models, which make it more feasible for data-intensive real-time applications.
  • npm package manager: A tool that will allow you to install third-party libraries (other people's code) using the command line.
  • Python: A general-purpose programming language for developing both desktop and web applications. Python is also used to develop complex scientific and numeric applications. It is designed with features to facilitate data analysis and visualization.

With this Hyperledger Fabric installation, it will download and install samples and binaries to your system. The sample applications installed are useful for learning the capabilities and operations of Hyperledger Fabric:

  • balance-transfer: A sample Node.js app to demonstrate fabric-client and fabric-ca-client Node.js SDK APIs.
  • basic-network: A basic network with certificates and key materials, predefined transactions, and one channel, mychannel.
  • bin: Binary and scripts for fabric-ca, orderer, and peer.
  • chaincode: Chaincode developed for fabcar, marbles, and a few other examples.
  • chaincode-docker-devmode: Develops chaincode in dev mode for rapid code/build/run/debug.
  • config: YAML files to define transaction, orderer, organization, and chaincode.
  • fabcar: A sample Node.js app to demonstrate the capabilities with chaincode deployment, query, and updating the ledger.
  • fabric-ca: Uses the Fabric CA client and server to generate all crypto material and learn how to use attribute-based access control.
  • first-network: Builds the first hyperledger fabric network with byfn.sh and eyfn.sh.
  • Jenkinsfile: Jenkins is a suite of plugins that supports implementing and integrating continuous-delivery pipelines. The definition of a Jenkins pipeline is typically written into a text file, Jenkinsfile, which in turn is checked into a project's source-control repository.
  • scripts: There are two scripts in this directory: bootstrap.sh and Jenkins_Scripts.

Now that we have successfully installed Hyperledger Fabric on an AWS EC2 virtual machine, in the next recipe, we will set up the first Hyperledger Fabric network.

       
About the Authors
  • Xun (Brian) Wu

    Xun (Brian) Wu is a senior blockchain architect and consultant. He has written eight books on popular fields within blockchain, such as Hyperledger and Ethereum (from beginning to advanced), published by O'Reilly and Packt. Brian has 18+ years of hands-on experience across various technologies, including blockchain, big data, the cloud, systems, and infrastructure UI. He has worked on more than 50 projects in his career.

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  • Chuanfeng Zhang

    Chuanfeng Zhang is enthusiastic and passionate about technologies and trading and data analysis, with 20 years' experience in both the technology and finance sectors. He has worked at top investment banks and technology firms including Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and IBM. He has led, designed, and successfully developed many enterprise-scale systems with diverse architectures for algorithmic trading, order management, risk management, business intelligence, and more.

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  • Zhibin (Andrew) Zhang

    Andrew Zhang is an IBM Watson Cloud Advocate. He has many years of experience in cloud platforms, big data analytics, and machine learning. He works with start-ups and enterprise clients in the government, education, healthcare, and life science industries. His current interests are in embedding AI and blockchain open source technologies for consumer and enterprise applications. In his spare time, Andrew enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with his family and friends.

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