Private PoA Network

Using Kotal, you can create private cross-client Proof of Authority (Clique) networks.

Single signer network#

Here's an example of 2 nodes cross-client network, the first node node-1 is a signer.

# poa.yaml
apiVersion: ethereum.kotal.io/v1alpha1
kind: Network
metadata:
  name: poa-network
spec:
  consensus: poa
  id: 4444
  # Genesis block
  genesis:
    chainId: 4444
    clique:
      blockPeriod: 9
      signers:
        - "0xd2c21213027cbf4d46c16b55fa98e5252b048706"
    accounts:
      - address: "0x48c5F25a884116d58A6287B72C9b069F936C9489"
        balance: "0x152d02c7e14af6800000"
  # nodes
  nodes:
    - name: node-1
      client: besu
      bootnode: true
      nodekey: "0x608e9b6f67c65e47531e08e8e501386dfae63a540fa3c48802c8aad854510b4e"
    - name: node-2
      client: geth

In the example network above, we created a proof of authority network as indicated by consensus: poa, The most important setting in proof of authority network genesis is signers, we set the account 0xd2c21213027cbf4d46c16b55fa98e5252b048706 as the only signer. We also set the network id and chain id to 4444 and funding the account 0x48c5F25a884116d58A6287B72C9b069F936C9489 with 100,000 eth 💰

How node becomes a signer ✏️

Any node can be a signer by importing a private key that corresponds to an address in the genesis signers list. Hyperledger Besu must use the private key as nodekey to be a signer. Go-Ethereum must import the address private key and enable mining by miner to be a signer.

network with no signers or signer nodes 🔥

The network will be dysfunctional and blocks will not be generated if

There's no signers in the gensis.clique setting
No signer account is imported in any node

pre-funded accounts are important in PoA networks

Block signers are not rewarded by eth in PoA networks, so the only way source of eth in a private PoA network is genesis block funded accounts.

Note that we've left most of the genesis block config parameters like coinbase, nonce, difficulty ... etc. Kotal will default all these missing fields like setting coinbase to 0x00...00, nonce to 0x0 and difficulty to 0x0 ... etc. So you can set only parameters that are specific to your network like genesis and funded accounts in the example above.

Deploy this network manifest and 2 nodes will be deployed, using PoA clique consensus, the first node only is a signer, can produce and sign blocks, the second node is only syncing the blockchain and can submit and rely transactions.

$ kubectl apply -f poa.yaml

You can fetch deployed Blockchain networks using

$ kubectl get networks

NAME              CONSENSUS      NODES
poa-network       poa            2

check node-1 logs, and you will find that it produce a new block every 9 seconds as indicated by the blockPeriod: 9 above.

$ kubectl logs-f <node-1 pod name>

Let's delete the network before starting our next example.

$ kubectl delete -f poa.yaml

Multiple signers network#

Using kotal, you can create multiple signers cross-client network by creating a list of signers in the genesis block clique.signers setting.

note

You can use the client clique API to add more signers after the genesis block is created using

Hyperledger Besu Clique API
Go-Ethereum Clique API

In this example we're creating a PoA clique network of 2 signer nodes, the first node using hyperledger besu and using the first signer account private key as nodekey, the second node is using Go-Ethereum client and importing the second signer private key and turn on mining.

# poa.yaml
apiVersion: ethereum.kotal.io/v1alpha1
kind: Network
metadata:
  name: poa-network
spec:
  consensus: poa
  id: 4444
  # Genesis block
  genesis:
    chainId: 4444
    clique:
      blockPeriod: 9
      signers:
        - "0xd2c21213027cbf4d46c16b55fa98e5252b048706"
        - "0x2b3430337f12Ce89EaBC7b0d865F4253c7744c0d"
    accounts:
      - address: "0x48c5F25a884116d58A6287B72C9b069F936C9489"
        balance: "0x152d02c7e14af6800000"
  # nodes
  nodes:
    - name: node-1
      client: besu
      bootnode: true
      nodekey: "0x608e9b6f67c65e47531e08e8e501386dfae63a540fa3c48802c8aad854510b4e"
    - name: node-2
      client: geth
      import:
        privatekey: "0x5df5eff7ef9e4e82739b68a34c6b23608d79ee8daf3b598a01ffb0dd7aa3a2fd"
        password: "secret"

Deploy this network manifest and 2 nodes will be deployed, both of them are producing and signing blocks in their turn.