Setup a permissioned Ethereum blockchain on Kubernetes

Prerequisites

Kubernetes cluster

We need a Kubernetes cluster. Locally we stick with Minikube and in the cloud we use our self-rolled cluster on AWS.

Local setup

You can install Minikube with homebrew:

brew cask install minikube

Start Minikube and create the StorageClass which we will need later:

minikube start --memory 5120 --cpus=4
kubectl apply -f minikube-general-storageclass.yaml

Cloud setup

As for the cloud, we use AWS. In order to bootstrap and administrate clusters on AWS we use the kops tool, although via our opinionated wrapper k8s-aws.

kubectl

We also need kubectl. You can also install with homebrew:

brew install kubectl

envsubst

You will need envsubst for generating the Kubernetes manifest files. It's part of the gettext package which you can install e.g. with homebrew on macOS:

brew install gettext
brew link --force gettext

1. Generate Kubernetes manifest files

In order to generate our Kubernetes manifests, beneath kubernetes/, run ./generate-manifests.py.

2. Apply manifest files

./kubectl apply -f kubernetes/

3. Verify Ethereum network

./kubectl port-forward <ethstats-pod-id> 3000:3000

Open your web browser and navigate to localhost:3000. You should see that the authority nodes are mining blocks.

4. Delete Kubernetes resources

Once you are done, you can delete the Kubernetes resources:

./kubectl delete -f kubernetes/

To fully delete the blockchain you also need to delete the geth folders in the authority1 and authority2 directories.

5. Learn more

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