I'm working on Hyperledger Fabric and I'd like to know if it is possible to save a text file on my host that will be retrieved by the chaincode to be used. In this way I would obtain data resisting to procedures of restarting and anytime it is required, I could use.
You can have data in file on local disk and read it in chaincode, but remember chain code executes on every peer, and so the file would be read by each peer, not just once. Imagine you have 2 orgs and 3 peers per org, then we have 6 peers in total. So, this means that if you wrote a code to read the file, the file would be read by each peer once, i.e six times (assuming all peers are on same box).
Static data which can be read from file is best fed to chain code as parameters to avoid a file being read multiple times. This can easily cause resource contention (disk chokes and whole system performance goes down).
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I would like to leverage Hyperledger Fabric Peers (specifically identities) to communicate data that does not need to be recorded as a world state.
The Private Data Collection seems a step in that direction but everything is ordered and recorded.
Is there a way to send a payload between participants that does not get persisted?
Of course, every parameter sent is recorded in the channel's chain (but not in the world state unless your chaincode specifically does it).
Maybe you can save the payload (encrypted if you need it) in a distributed storage system (IPFS, for instance), share the IPFS hash/index via Fabric and delete from IPFS when it is no longer needed. I don't know if it fits your use case.
I am new in this field and therefore I am still doing studies and researches, I would like to know if JSON files can be imported in Hyperldeger Fabric--if it is better Hyperledeger Fabric or Fabric Composer. more precisely I would like to understand if there is a way to populate the DLT of Hyperledger Fabric automatically.
for now, I have only tried Hyperledger Composer online playground
Fabric don't have any feature to automatically populate the ledger.
You have to develop a solution in order to upoload each Json file and put that on the ledger state.
Any type of data can be inserted on the ledged because it stores byte arrays so its up to you how to serialize.
in case you're asking to making your chaincode or smart contract like talking to the file system and read file or even call some API to collect JSON files,
it could be done but this will break your transaction flow specially during the endorsement process due to during the endorsement process it's expected from each peer to return the same value after executing the transaction against the chaincode to consider the transaction is a valid transaction,
so in case one of the endorsers failed to call the API or failed to read file from file system the transaction will considered to be invalid.
so it's not recommended to do any third party activity in your chaincode or smart contract even if it's possible to do so.
about populating the ledger it can be done it's eventually a database so you can dump it's data, However, if you're trying to backup to recover the ledger in case the whole network down it's impossible due to when you'll reinstall the network the whole config and certificates which were bounded to the transaction will be changed so it has no sense to do it.
Suppose I have started fabric with two peers in a single organization. After running my application/rest-server through composer and submitting transactions. I was able to make changes in the values of Couchdb instance of peer1 by going on the address http://localhost:6984/_utils/#/_all_dbs. Now, the two peers are not in sync with each other - application should throw some error but it isn't. Mostly, because it is getting data just from the first peer i.e. peer1.
So, firstly how can I get data from multiple peers - if I want to get data from peer2 aswell?
Secondly, why it is getting data from state database not from ledger?
Thirdly, data should remain in sync even after committed how can I configure this? if some peer tampered its database it should be notified. I have read consensus part and got that it is for the correct order of transactions and blocks but what if someone tampered with the state database?
If you're able to change the entries in state database for 1 peer, with a strong endorsement policy such as AND, your transactions will fail validation because of difference in the data for the two peers. This is one of the most important pros of decentralized network.
State database and the Ledger are not same thing. this should help you in understanding the differences between the both.
Every participating member of a Hyperledger Fabric network is a known entity per se (since Fabric being a permissioned blockchain). Said that, a change in state database of a single peer will again lead to scenario #1 above, where the Read/Write sets in a transaction won't match for multiple peers (as their state databases contain different values of an asset). This will lead to invalidation of the transactions. Now it just becomes a question of how can the network know about the corrupted peer(and subsequent state db). There can be multiple solutions for the same.
But most importantly, Fabric being a permissioned blockchain network, the state databases must be very strictly access protected and authorized outside of the network too.
the fact that you modified the world db doesn't mean anything. any changes you make to that database are not a representation of the ledger.
The ledger itself, the blocks and the transactions they contain are stored in a physical file. The world state db is simply a collection of the current state for each asset. This is a good design because an application will not care about every state change an item went through, it will only care about the current state. The world state db can easily be recreated whenever there is a need for it.
Now, you should not make any changes directly to to the world state db, because that's useless. Any change needs to go through the proper process, via a proposal submitted by a peer which then goes through the orderer. Only when everything is followed, does a change go onto the ledger and get synced with every peer and the world state db will reflect that.
In terms of where you should get the data, the answer is that it doesn't matter. Each peer will have an exact copy of the ledger so if you get data from peer 1 or 2 is irrelevant, it will be the same thing.
Again, just because you changed the world state, that doesn't mean anything, the ledger is untouched, but your application reports the current state from the world state db, which is now incorrect because of your change.
What should be some of the best practices to follow to avoid bugs and write efficient Hyperledger Fabric Chaincode?
General Guidelines for writing Hyperledger Fabric Chaincodes.
Refer to the below link for a detailed description on the same:
https://gist.github.com/arnabkaycee/d4c10a7f5c01f349632b42b67cee46db
Some steps are concisely mentioned below:
Use Chaincode DevMode
Use Chaincode Logging
Using logging is simple and easy. Use Fabric's inbuilt logger. Fabric provides logging mechanism as follows:
For Golang: https://godoc.org/github.com/hyperledger/fabric/core/chaincode/shim#ChaincodeLogger
For NodeJS: https://fabric-shim.github.io/Shim.html#.newLogger__anchor
For Java: You can use any standard logging framework like Log4J
Avoid using Global Keys - Hyperledger Fabric uses an Optimistic Locking Model while committing transactions. In the two-stage process of endorsement & committment, if some versions of the keys that you had read in the Endorsement has changed till your transactions reach the committing stage, you get an MVCC_READ_CONFLICT error. This often is a probability when one or more concurrent transactions are updating the same key.
Use Couch DB Queries wisely
Couch DB Queries DO NOT alter the READ SET of a transaction -
Mongo Queries are for querying the Key Value store aka StateDB only. It does not alter the read set of a transaction. This might lead to phantom reads in the transaction.
Only the DATA that you have stored in the couchDB is searchable - Do not be tempted to search for a key by its name using the MangoQuery. Although you can access the Fauxton console of the CouchDB, you cannot access a key by querying a key by which it is stored in the database. Example : Querying by channelName\0000KeyName is not allowed. It is better to store your key as a property in your data itself.
Write Deterministic Chaincode - Never write chaincode that is not deterministic. It means that if I execute the chaincode in 2 or more different environments at different times, result should always be the same, like setting the value as the current time or setting a random number. For example: Avoid statements like calling rand.New(...) , t := time.Now() or even relying on a global variable (check ) that is not persisted to the ledger.
This is because, that if the read write sets generated are not the same, the Validation System chaincode might reject it and throw an ENDORSEMENT_POLICY_FAILURE.
Be cautions when calling Other Chaincodes from your chaincode. - Invoking a chaincode from another is okay when both chaincodes are on the same channel. But be aware that if it is on the other channel then you get only what the chaincode function returns (only if the current invoker has rights to access data on that channel). NO data will be committed in the other channel, even if it attempts to write some. Currently, cross channel chaincode chaincode invocation does not alter data (change writesets) on the other channel. So, it is only possible to write to one channel at a time per transaction.
Remember to Set Chaincode Execution Timeout - Often it might so happen that during high load your chaincode might not complete its execution under 30s. It is a good practice to custom set your timeout as per your needs. This is goverened by the parameter in the core.yaml of the peer. You can override it by setting the environment variable in your docker compose file :
Example: CORE_CHAINCODE_EXECUTETIMEOUT=60s
Refrain from Accessing External Resources - Accessing external resources (http) might expose vulnerability and security threats to your chaincode. You do not want malicous code from external sources to influence your chaincode logic in any way. So keep away from external calls as much as possible.
I built hyperledger fabric network using Kafka-based Ordering Service.
I thought that Orderer doesn't have Block data.
But, when I checked /var/hyperledger/production/orderer/chains/mychannel in Orderer server, I found blockfile_000000 file.
I checked this file using "less" command.
Then, I found key-value data which I registered by invoking chaincode.
What is this file?
This means that Orderer also maintain Block data(i.e. Ledger)?
The orderer has the blockchain of all channels it is part of.
However, it doesn't have the world state and it doesn't inspect the content of the transactions.
It just writes the blocks into the disk, to serve peers that pull the blocks from it.