Introduction

Welcome to the series of Introduction of STEEM Blockchain. In previous blogs of this series, I covered the basics of STEEM blockchain. In this part of the series, we are going to setup a node and syncing with blockchain. I have divided node setup guide into four parts which are as given below:

1. Prerequisites
2. Clone code
3. Configure network(testnet/mainnet)
4. Start witness node

Steem blockchain is an open-source and anybody can dispatch the steem blockchain. Steem blockchain chip away at the idea of 'Verification of-Brain' calculation. Evidence of-Brain is a sort of tokens rewards calculation that urges individuals to make and clergyman content. 

It's empowering tokens to be dispersed by "upvote" and "like" base calculation and can be incorporated with the site to adjust motivations between application proprietors and network part to goad development.

Witness Setup

Step 1: Prerequisites

After download Steem code we need to compile it. (it is written it c++ so we need c++ compiler dependencies).

Note: For running steem blockchain require ubuntu 16.04 for fully compatible.

1.1 Install the following dependencies

sudo apt-get install -y \
    autoconf \
    automake \
    cmake \
    g++ \
    git \
    libbz2-dev \
    libsnappy-dev \
    libssl-dev \
    libtool \
    make \
    pkg-config \
    python3 \
    python3-jinja2

1.2 Boost packages (also required)

sudo apt-get install -y \
    libboost-chrono-dev \
    libboost-context-dev \
    libboost-coroutine-dev \
    libboost-date-time-dev \
    libboost-filesystem-dev \
    libboost-iostreams-dev \
    libboost-locale-dev \
    libboost-program-options-dev \
    libboost-serialization-dev \
    libboost-signals-dev \
    libboost-system-dev \
    libboost-test-dev \
    libboost-thread-dev

1.3 Optional packages
 

sudo apt-get install -y \
    doxygen \
    libncurses5-dev \
    libreadline-dev \
    perl

Step 2: Clone code

after clone and download dependencies we have to configure and compile our steem blockchain.
 

git clone https://github.com/steemit/steem

cd steem

git checkout stable

git submodule update --init --recursive

mkdir build

cd build

cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DBUILD_STEEM_TESTNET=ON ..

make -j$(nproc) steemd

make -j$(nproc) cli_wallet

Note: Don’t forget to add .. at the end(cmake command). It’s important.

Note: It will take time to compile the blockchain code for ready to run.
 

Step 3: Configure Network

After compile code First launches the steemd process once to generate the initial/default config.ini file and print the default private key.

cd programs/steemd

mkdir testnet

touch testnet/config.ini

vim testnet/config.ini  

Edit file ./testnet/config.ini and set below configuration. setup the witnesses to produce blocks along with the private key printed above at the time of starting blockchain.

    # name of the witness controlled by node (e.g. initminer )
    witness = "initminer"

    # WIF private key (may specify multiple times)
    private-key = 5JNHfZYKGaomSFvd4NUdQ9qMcEAC43kujbfjueTHpVapX1Kzq2n

    # Endpoint for P2P node to listen on
    p2p-endpoint = 0.0.0.0:2001

    # Endpoint for websocket RPC to listen on
    rpc-endpoint = 127.0.0.1:9876

    # Shared file size(contains blockchain data)

    shared-file-size = 54G

    # Enable stale production

    enable-stale-production = true

    # required participation

    required-participation = 33

Note: If you are setting up private node, set required-participation = 0 initially. Increase later when node increases.

Step 4: Start the first witness

At this point, we can start the generation of blocks with initminer as unique witness. Being in the steemd folder run

After setup the witness node in testnet/config.ini file, you need to re-start blockchain with the following command

$ ./steemd -d testnet

After that, the blockchain is starting to producing blogs