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Canton Network quickstart installation

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Introduction

The Quickstart application helps you and your team become familiar with CN application development by providing essential scaffolding. The Quickstart application provides a launchpad and is intended to be extended to meet your business needs. When you are familiar with the Quickstart, review the technology choices and application design to determine what changes are needed. Technology and design decisions are ultimately up to you.

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Overview

This guide walks through the installation and LocalNet deployment of the CN Quickstart. We have provided a fast path installation and step-by-step instructions, based on level of experience, for your convenience. Please contact your representative at Digital Asset if you find errors.

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Roadmap

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Prerequisites

Access to the CN-Quickstart GitHub repository is public. It does pull some artifacts provided by Digital Asset. Contact us if you need access or additional support. The CN Quickstart is a Dockerized application and requires Docker Desktop. We recommend allocating 8 GB of memory to Docker Desktop. Allocate additional resources if you witness unhealthy containers, if possible. Decline Observability if your machine does not have sufficient memory. Other requirements include:

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Nix download support

Check for Nix on your machine: 
nix --version
If the command returns something like Nix (Nix) 2.25.2, you’re done. Recommended installation for MacOS: 
sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install)
Recommended installation for Linux (Windows users should run this and all following commands in WSL 2): 
sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install) --daemon

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Fast path installation

If you are familiar with the prerequisites, use these abbreviated installation instructions. More detailed instructions are provided below.
  1. Clone from GitHub and cd into the cn-quickstart repository: git clone https://github.com/digital-asset/cn-quickstart.git
  2. Verify that the Docker Desktop app is running on your computer: docker info
  3. Login to Docker repositories via the terminal: docker login
  4. cd into the quickstart subdirectory: cd quickstart
  5. Install the Daml SDK from the quickstart subdirectory: make install-daml-sdk
  6. Configure the local development environment: make setup
  7. When prompted, enable OAuth2, disable Observability, disable TEST MODE, and leave the party hint blank to use the default value.
  8. Build the application from the quickstart subdirectory: make build
  9. In a new terminal window, initiate log collection from the quickstart subdirectory: make capture-logs
  10. Return to the previous terminal window to start the application and Canton services: make start
  11. Optional - In a separate shell, from the quickstart subdirectory, run the Canton Console: make canton-console
  12. Optional - In a fourth shell, from the quickstart subdirectory, begin the Daml Shell: make shell
  13. When complete, close the application and other services with: make stop && make clean-all
  14. If applicable, close Canton Console with exit and close Daml Shell with quit.

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Step-by-step instructions

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Clone from GitHub

Clone and cd into the cn-quickstart repository into your local machine. git clone https://github.com/digital-asset/cn-quickstart.git cd cn-quickstart direnv allow allow direnv

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Docker

Verify that the Docker Desktop application is running on your computer. Login to Docker repositories via the terminal. docker login The last command requires a Docker Hub username and password or Personal Access Token (PAT). Commands should return ‘Login Succeeded’.

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Install Daml SDK

cd into the quickstart subdirectory and install the Daml SDK from the quickstart subdirectory. cd quickstart make install-daml-sdk
The Makefile providing project choreography is in the quickstart/ directory. make only operates within quickstart/.If you see errors related to make, double check your present working directory.
The Daml SDK is large and can take several minutes to complete. Daml SDK unpacking

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Deploy a validator on LocalNet

Configure the local development environment by running make setup. Disable Observability. Enable OAuth2. Leave the party hint blank to use the default and disable TEST MODE.
The party hint is used as a party node’s alias of their identification hash. The Party Hint is not part of the user’s identity. It is a convenience feature. It is possible to have multiple party nodes with the same hint.
% make setup
Starting local environment setup tool...
./gradlew configureProfiles --no-daemon --console=plain --quiet
Enable Observability? (Y/n): n
OBSERVABILITY_ENABLED set to 'false'.

Enable OAUTH2? (Y/n): y
AUTH_MODE set to 'oauth2'.

Specify a party hint (this will identify the participant in the
  network) [quickstart-USERNAME-1]:
PARTY_HINT set to 'quickstart-USERNAME-1'.

Enable TEST_MODE? (Y/n): n
TEST_MODE set to 'off'.

.env.local updated successfully.
You can change these choices any time by running make setup again.
OAuth2 and Observability may be unstable if your machine has less than 8 GB of memory to allocate to Docker Desktop.
Build the application. make build Build success In a new terminal window, initiate log collection from the quickstart subdirectory. make capture-logs Once complete, return to the previous terminal to start the application and Canton services. make start

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Connecting to the Local Canton Nodes

In a separate shell, from the quickstart subdirectory, run the Canton Console. make canton-console Canton console In a fourth shell, from the quickstart subdirectory, begin the Daml Shell. make shell Daml shell

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Closing the application

⚠️ (If you plan on immediately using the CN Quickstart then delay execution of this section)

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Close Canton console

When complete, open the Canton console terminal. Run exit to stop and remove the console container.

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Close Daml shell

In the Daml shell terminal, execute quit to stop the shell container.

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Close the CN Quickstart

Finally, close the application and observability services with: make stop && make clean-all It is wise to run make clean-all during development and at the end of each session to avoid conflict errors on subsequent application builds.

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Next steps

You have successfully installed the CN Quickstart. The next section, “Exploring The Demo,” provides a demonstration of the example application.

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Connecting your application to The Canton Network

The LocalNet deployment connects to a local validator which is in turn connected to a local super-validator (synchronizer). Staging and final production deployments require connecting to a validator that is in turn connected to the public Canton Network. The Canton Network provides three synchronizer pools. The production network is MainNet; the production staging network is TestNet. As a developer you will mostly be connecting to the development staging network DevNet. Access to a SV Node that is whitelisted on the CN is required to connect to DevNet. The GSF publishes a list of SV nodes who have the ability to sponsor a Validator node. To access DevNet, contact your sponsoring SV agent for VPN connection information.

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Resources