Set Up Your First Fablo Network

Outline

1. What You’ll Need
2. Step 1 — Scaffold a Config with fablo init
3. Step 2 — Generate and Start the Network with fablo up
4. Step 3 — Tear Down the Network (down / prune)

What You’ll Need

• Fablo installed and available on your command line.
• A working directory where Fablo can create its configuration and generated network files.

Step 1 — Scaffold a Config with fablo init

Create a starting configuration file in your current directory:

fablo init

This writes a fablo-config.json describing a simple Hyperledger Fabric network:

• Fabric version 3.1.0 with TLS enabled
• an orderer organization with two BFT orderers
• one peer organization (Org1) with two LevelDB peers
• a single channel (my-channel1)
• no chaincodes

If you want extra scaffolding alongside the config, pass one or more options (order doesn’t matter):

fablo init node
fablo init node dev
fablo init ccaas
fablo init gateway
fablo init rest

• node — copies a sample Node.js chaincode into chaincodes/chaincode-kv-node and registers it in the config.
• dev — used together with node, configures the chaincode to run in hot-reload / CCaaS-style dev mode instead of a normal install.
• ccaas — adds a sample chaincode-as-a-service definition. Cannot be combined with node or dev.
• gateway — copies a sample Node.js gateway app into a gateway directory (separate from Fablo REST).
• rest — enables Fablo REST for each organization in the config.

You can also override generated fields with --set:

fablo init --set global.fabricVersion=2.5.0
fablo init --set global.monitoring.loglevel=debug --set orgs[1].peer.db=CouchDb
fablo init node --set orgs[1].peer.instances=5

Use orgs[1] for peer settings — orgs[0] is the orderer organization and has no peer block. Creating only peer.db without peer.instances is also invalid.

Step 2 — Generate and Start the Network with fablo up

Start the network defined by your config:

fablo up

By default this looks for fablo-config.json or fablo-config.yaml in the current directory. A source config file must already exist (fablo init creates one). fablo up starts the Hyperledger Fabric network, creates the channels, and installs and deploys chaincodes (package / install / approve / commit). If the generated fablo-target files are missing, fablo up generates them for you before starting.

If you want to generate the network files without starting anything (for inspection, or to target a specific config or output directory), use:

fablo generate [/path/to/fablo-config.json|yaml [/path/to/fablo/target]]

The default output directory is fablo-target in your current directory.

Step 3 — Tear Down the Network

When you’re done, stop the network and clean up:

fablo down

This downs the Hyperledger Fabric network for the configuration in the current directory (similar to docker-compose down).

To also remove all generated files, use:

fablo prune

prune downs the network and removes everything that generate/up created, leaving you back at just your fablo-config.json (or .yaml).