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 as a chaincode-as-a-service container that reloads on source changes, instead of a normal install.
• ccaas — adds a sample chaincode-as-a-service definition to the config. It does not copy any chaincode source, and it cannot be combined with node or dev.
• gateway — copies a sample Node.js gateway app into gateway/node, which is separate from Fablo REST.
• rest — enables Fablo REST for each organization in the config.

The fabric-x option works differently, because you get a whole different starter config instead of extra scaffolding on top of the default one:

fablo init fabric-x

Fablo writes a minimal config for the experimental Fabric-X provider, with global.provider set to fabric-x, a single organization (Org1) that has one BFT orderer and no peers, and a channel named mychannel. You cannot combine fabric-x with node, dev, ccaas, gateway or rest.

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, because orgs[0] is the orderer organization and has no peer block. If you add a peer block where there was none, for example with --set orgs[0].peer.db=CouchDb, Fablo rejects the result, because a peer block also needs instances. Every override is checked against the schema before anything is saved, so a config file is written only when the final config is valid.

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, and you can point it at another file with fablo up [/path/to/fablo-config.json|yaml]. 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 and commit). If the generated fablo-target files are missing, fablo up generates them for you before starting.

Once the network has been generated, fablo up compares your config with the copy it stored in fablo-target. If the two differ, it stops with an error instead of starting, and you then run fablo prune to remove the old network, or fablo recreate [/path/to/fablo-config.json|yaml] to prune and start again with the new config in one step.

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).