Note: Zetachain API is currently in beta. More updates will be performed regularly. Please check back frequently for updates.
Zetachain API is an open-source zetacoin blockchain REST and websocket API. Zetachain API runs in NodeJS and use LevelDB for storage. Zetachain is forked from bitpay's Insight API.
Zetachain API allows to develop zetacoin related applications such as wallets that require certain information from the blockchain that zetacoind does not provide.
A blockchain explorer front-end have been developed to top of Zetachain API, it can be downloaded at Github Zetachain Repository.
In v0.2 a new cache schema has been introduced. Only information from transactions with INSIGHT_SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS+ settings will be cached (by default SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS=6). There are 3 different caches:
- nr. of confirmations
- transaction spent information
- scriptPubKey for unspent transactions
Cache data is only populated on request, i.e., only after accessing the required data for
the first time, the information is cached, there is not pre-caching procedure. To ignore
cache by default, use INSIGHT_IGNORE_CACHE. Also, address related calls support ?noCache=1
to ignore the cache in a particular API request.
- zetacoind - Download and Compile Zetacoin from source zetacoin
Zetachain API needs a trusted zetacoind node to run. Zetachain API will connect to the node thru the RPC API, Peer-to-peer protocol and will even read its raw .dat files for syncing.
Configure zetacoind to listen to RPC calls and set txindex to true.
The easiest way to do this is by copying ./etc/zetacoind/zetacoin.conf to your
zetacoin data directory (usually "~/.zetacoin" on Linux, "%appdata%\zetacoin\" on Windows,
or "~/Library/Application Support/zetacoin" on Mac OS X).
zetacoind must be running and must have finished downloading the blockchain before running Zetachain API.
-
Node.js v0.10.x - Download and Install Node.js.
-
NPM - Node.js package manager, should be automatically installed when you get node.js.
Check the Prerequisites section above before installing.
To install Zetachain API, clone the main repository:
$ git clone https://github.com/zbad/zetachain-api && cd zetachain-api
Install dependencies:
$ npm install
Run the main application:
$ node insight.js
Then open a browser and go to:
http://localhost:3001
Please note that the app will need to sync its internal database with the blockchain state, which may take some time. You can check sync progress from within the web interface.
All configuration is specified in the config folder, particularly the config.js file. There you can specify your application name and database name. Certain configuration values are pulled from environment variables if they are defined:
ZETACOIND_HOST # RPC zetacoind host
ZETACOIND_PORT # RPC zetacoind Port
ZETACOIND_P2P_HOST # P2P zetacoind Host (will default to ZETACOIND_HOST, if specified)
ZETACOIND_P2P_PORT # P2P zetacoind Port
ZETACOIND_USER # RPC username
ZETACOIND_PASS # RPC password
ZETACOIND_DATADIR # zetacoind datadir. 'testnet3' will be appended automatically if testnet is used. NEED to finish with '/'. e.g: `/vol/data/`
INSIGHT_NETWORK [= 'livenet' | 'testnet']
INSIGHT_DB # Path where to store insight's internal DB. (defaults to $HOME/.insight)
INSIGHT_SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS=6 # Nr. of confirmation needed to start caching transaction information
INSIGHT_IGNORE_CACHE # True to ignore cache of spents in transaction, with more than INSIGHT_SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS confirmations. This is useful for tracking double spents for old transactions.
ENABLE_MESSAGE_BROKER # if "true" will enable message broker module
Make sure that zetacoind is configured to accept incoming connections using 'rpcallowip'.
In case the network is changed (testnet to livenet or vice versa) levelDB database needs to be deleted. This can be performed running:
util/sync.js -D and waiting for insight to synchronize again. Once the database is deleted, the sync.js process can be safely interrupted (CTRL+C) and continued from the synchronization process embedded in main app.
The initial synchronization process scans the blockchain from the paired zetacoind server to update addresses and balances. zetachain needs one (and only one) trusted zetacoind node to run. This node must have finished downloading the blockchain before running zetachain.
While zetachain is synchronizing the website can be accessed (the sync process is embedded in the webserver), but there may be missing data or incorrect balances for addresses. The 'sync' status is shown at the /api/sync endpoint.
The blockchain can be read from zetacoind's raw .dat files or RPC interface. Reading the information from the .dat files is much faster so it's the recommended (and default) alternative. .dat files are scanned in the default location for each platform (for example, ~/.zetacoin on Linux). In case a non-standard location is used, it needs to be defined (see the Configuration section). As of June 2014, using .dat files the sync process takes 9 hrs. for livenet and 30 mins. for testnet.
While synchronizing the blockchain, zetachain listens for new blocks and transactions relayed by the zetacoind node. Those are also stored on zetachain's database. In case zetachain is shutdown for a period of time, restarting it will trigger a partial (historic) synchronization of the blockchain. Depending on the size of that synchronization task, a reverse RPC or forward .dat syncing strategy will be used.
If zetacoind is shutdown, zetachain needs to be stopped and restarted once zetacoind is restarted.
Old blockchain data can be manually synced issuing:
$ util/sync.js
Check util/sync.js --help for options, particulary -D to erase the current DB.
NOTE that there is no need to run this manually since the historic synchronization is embedded on the web application, so by running you will trigger the historic sync automatically.
To store the blockchain and address related information, zetachain uses LevelDB. Two DBs are created: txs and blocks. By default these are stored on
~/.insight/
Please note that previous version's of zetachain-API store that on <insight's root>/db
this can be changed on config/config.js. As of June 2014, storing the livenet blockchain takes ~35GB of disk space (2GB for the testnet).
To run zetachain locally for development with grunt:
$ NODE_ENV=development grunt
To run the tests
$ grunt test
Contributions and suggestions are welcome at zetachain-api github repository.
By default, zetachain provides a REST API at /api, but this prefix is configurable from the var apiPrefix in the config.js file.
The end-points are:
/api/block/[:hash]
/api/block/00000000a967199a2fad0877433c93df785a8d8ce062e5f9b451cd1397bdbf62
/api/tx/[:txid]
/api/tx/525de308971eabd941b139f46c7198b5af9479325c2395db7f2fb5ae8562556c
/api/addr/[:addr][?noTxList=1&noCache=1]
/api/addr/mmvP3mTe53qxHdPqXEvdu8WdC7GfQ2vmx5?noTxList=1
/api/addr/[:addr]/utxo[?noCache=1]
Sample return:
[
{
address: "n2PuaAguxZqLddRbTnAoAuwKYgN2w2hZk7",
txid: "dbfdc2a0d22a8282c4e7be0452d595695f3a39173bed4f48e590877382b112fc",
vout: 0,
ts: 1401276201,
scriptPubKey: "76a914e50575162795cd77366fb80d728e3216bd52deac88ac",
amount: 0.001,
confirmations: 3
},
{
address: "n2PuaAguxZqLddRbTnAoAuwKYgN2w2hZk7",
txid: "e2b82af55d64f12fd0dd075d0922ee7d6a300f58fe60a23cbb5831b31d1d58b4",
vout: 0,
ts: 1401226410,
scriptPubKey: "76a914e50575162795cd77366fb80d728e3216bd52deac88ac",
amount: 0.001,
confirmation: 6
confirmationsFromCache: true,
}
]Please note that in case confirmations are cached (because the number of confirmations if bigger that INSIGHT_SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS) the return will include the pair confirmationsFromCache:true, and confirmations will equal INSIGHT_SAFE_CONFIRMATIONS. See noCache and INSIGHT_IGNORE_CACHE options for details.
GET method:
/api/addrs/[:addrs]/utxo
/api/addrs/2NF2baYuJAkCKo5onjUKEPdARQkZ6SYyKd5,2NAre8sX2povnjy4aeiHKeEh97Qhn97tB1f/utxo
POST method:
/api/addrs/utxo
POST params:
addrs: 2NF2baYuJAkCKo5onjUKEPdARQkZ6SYyKd5,2NAre8sX2povnjy4aeiHKeEh97Qhn97tB1f
/api/txs/?block=HASH
/api/txs/?block=00000000fa6cf7367e50ad14eb0ca4737131f256fc4c5841fd3c3f140140e6b6
/api/txs/?address=ADDR
/api/txs/?address=mmhmMNfBiZZ37g1tgg2t8DDbNoEdqKVxAL
/api/sync
/api/peer
/api/status?q=xxx
Where "xxx" can be:
- getInfo
- getDifficulty
- getTxOutSetInfo
- getBestBlockHash
- getLastBlockHash
The web socket API is served using socket.io at:
/socket.io/1/
zetacoin network events published are: 'tx': new transaction received from network. Data will be a app/models/Transaction object. Sample output:
{
"txid":"00c1b1acb310b87085c7deaaeba478cef5dc9519fab87a4d943ecbb39bd5b053",
"processed":false
...
}
'block': new block received from network. Data will be a app/models/Block object. Sample output:
{
"hash":"000000004a3d187c430cd6a5e988aca3b19e1f1d1727a50dead6c8ac26899b96",
"time":1389789343,
...
}
'sync': every 1% increment on the sync task, this event will be triggered.
Sample output:
{
blocksToSync: 164141,
syncedBlocks: 475,
upToExisting: true,
scanningBackward: true,
isEndGenesis: true,
end: "000000000933ea01ad0ee984209779baaec3ced90fa3f408719526f8d77f4943",
isStartGenesis: false,
start: "000000009f929800556a8f3cfdbe57c187f2f679e351b12f7011bfc276c41b6d"
}
(The MIT License)
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.