Run a Node with Digital Ocean

Introduction

This is a step by step guide to deploy the Stacks Blockchain on DigitalOcean.

Build code is hosted on this Github repository using the methods from here.

Steps

1

Create the Droplet from the Marketplace

Go to the Stacks Blockchain page in DigitalOcean's marketplace. Click on Create Stacks Blockchain Droplet.

2

Choose plan and region

Choose a plan (it will only allow you to select a droplet that meets the minimum requirements) and your preferred datacenter region.

3

Authentication

Enter a root password or enable SSH keys if you prefer.

4

Create the Droplet

You can leave the rest of the options as they are and click on Create Droplet.

5

Wait for creation

You will need to wait a few seconds for the droplet to get created. Once created click on it to see more information.

6

Access the Droplet

Congratulations! You are now running the Stacks Blockchain. You can click on Console for a terminal window to open or login using SSH to the public IP you've been assigned to with user root.

Getting started after deploying Stacks Blockchain

Once the droplet is launched, the initial startup can take several minutes while BNS data is imported (this is a one time operation) and the Bitcoin headers are synced.

To keep track of the progress, you can SSH to the host and view logs:

ssh root@your_droplet_public_ipv4
/opt/stacks-blockchain-docker/manage.sh -n mainnet -a logs

After the stacks blockchain finishes the initial header sync and starts to sync with its peers, the application ports will open (20443 and 3999) and HTTP port 80 will now start proxying requests.

Use http://your_droplet_public_ipv4 to access the data directly, with output being similar to:

{
  "server_version": "stacks-blockchain-api v6.2.3 (master:77ab3ae2)",
  "status": "ready",
  "chain_tip": {
    "block_height": 91820,
    "block_hash": "0x06b276e85f238151414616618ae0adaf5eeda4eac6cad5bbefceeb37948ab275",
    "index_block_hash": "0x4d7c075d7ab0f90b1dbc175f5c42b7344265d00cfef202dd9681d95388eeed8c",
    "microblock_hash": "0xcf4f9037cc10696b2812b617ca105885be625c6acf8ad67e71bb4c09fa6ebb21",
    "microblock_sequence": 4
  }
}

For the full list of API endpoints for the Stacks Blockchain, consult the Hiro API Docs

All services are managed by a systemd unit file that is set to start on boot.

Manual control is also possible via the manage.sh script at /opt/stacks-blockchain-docker/manage.sh on the host.

Full details on how to use the manage.sh script is available here.

Launching a Droplet using the DigitalOcean API

In addition to creating a Droplet from the Stacks Blockchain 1-Click App via the control panel, you can also use the DigitalOcean API.

As an example, to create a 4GB Stacks Blockchain Droplet in the SFO2 region, you can use the following curl command. You’ll need to either save your API access token to an environment variable or substitute it into the command below.

The name, region and size values below are hardcoded, so adjust as desired.

$ export TOKEN=<digitalocean API token>
$ curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer '$TOKEN'' -d \
    '{"name":"stacks-blockchain","region":"sfo2","size":"s-2vcpu-4gb","image":"stacksfoundation-stacksblockchain"}' \
    "https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/droplets"