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Quick Start: Running Axon and BlockScan Locally with Docker

Run Axon and it's explorer (BlockScan) locally in Docker containers using docker-compose. Please read the docker-compose file to learn more about the services:

  • Axon node
  • BlockScan as the explorer of Axon
  • Postgres database

Note: This integration is not ready for production use.

Prerequisites​

Before getting started, ensure that you have the following prerequisites installed on your system:

  • Docker v20.10+
  • Docker-compose 2.x.x+

Run the Services​

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/axonweb3/axon.git
cd axon/devtools/chain
docker-compose up -d

Watch the Logs​

To monitor the logs of the running services, use the following command:

docker-compose logs -f --tail 1

This command will display the logs of the services, showing the latest log entries.

chain-axon-1  | [2023-08-25T08:45:29.751879179+00:00 INFO overlord::state::process] Overlord: achieve consensus in height 254, costs 1 round 4.499679ms time
postgres      | 2023-08-25 08:43:02.542 UTC [28] LOG:  checkpoint complete: wrote 134 buffers (0.8%); 0 WAL file(s) added, 0 removed, 0 recycled; write=13.325 s, sync=0.003 s, total=13.336 s; sync files=34, longest=0.003 s, average=0.001 s; distance=966 kB, estimate=966 kB
blockscan     | 2023-08-25T08:45:24.008 application=indexer fetcher=empty_blocks_to_refetch [info] Start sanitizing of empty blocks. Batch size is 100
...

Access the Chain​

Use Ethereum JSON-RPC API to interact with the Axon node. For instance, to get the chain ID of the Axon devnet, execute the following cURL command:

# Get the chain ID of the Axon devnet
curl --location --request POST 'http://127.0.0.1:8000' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-raw '{
    "id": 42,
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "method": "eth_chainId",
    "params": []
}'

# Result: a JSON response containing the chain ID of the Axon devnet.
{"jsonrpc":"2.0","result":"0x41786f6e","id":42}
# chainId: 0x41786f6e, which is the hexadecimal of ASCII string "Axon"

Access BlockScan​

To access the BlockScan explorer, open your browser and visit http://127.0.0.1:4020. This will allow you to explore the Axon blockchain using the BlockScan interface.

You Are Good to Go!​

Congratulations! You have successfully set up and run Axon and BlockScan locally in Docker containers. You can now start exploring the Axon blockchain and interacting with the services.

Next Steps: Deploy and Interact with a Solidity Contract