Official Developer’s Guide to Get Started with ArcBlock’s Blockchain Platform ABT Node

ABT node 1.0 has been officially released. This article is a quick how-to guide to help developers get started ArcBlock’s blockchain and Dapp platform — ABT Node.

The ABT node is a web-based developer platform that enables developers, teams and businesses to quickly create, deploy and manage applications and blockchains for the decentralized web using ArcBlock’s innovative software building blocks called Blocklets.

We’ll show users how to install ABT Node below, but anyeon can also follow this guide https://www.arcblock.io/en/post/2020/09/01/official-guide-to-deploy-abtnode-on-aws.

Sign in to the interface

Now, with your ABT Node installed, users will need to use their decentralized wallet — ABT Wallet — to secure and login to the ABT Node.

ABT Node Dashboard

The ABT node dashboard is a users “single pane of glass” providing meaningful data about the node, uptime, storage and other important properties such as the nodes Decentralized Identifier (DID) and owners DID.

Blocklets

Blocklets are the key building blocks for ABT Node and give stand-alone apps, reusable components and developer tools, or smart contracts that can be installed from the Blocklet Marketplace in a single click. Blocklets can be used out of the box, or combined together to create new functionality for any project or app.

Blocklet Marketplace

The Blocklet marketplace provides users with a one-stop shop for ArcBlock’s core blocklets that include:

• Blockchain Manager
• DID:Connect for decentralized identity
• AWS QLDB Manager
• and many more

Each Blocklet can be installed in a single click and upgraded/managed through the web-interface.

Blocklet Management

The Blocklet page consists of a list of installed Blocklets, where you can start, stop, restart, delete, and more.

The service gateway

ABT Node has integrated Nginx and makes it very easy for developers and users to define custom URL mapping, routing rules, adding new SSL certificates and more through the Service Gateway.

Install ABT Node

Now, let’s get started and this walk through shows you how to install ABT Node locally on your laptop/device. For production workloads, users are encouraged to setup ABT Node on Amazon Web Services using the ready-made images.

Step 1: Install nvm.

You can install nvm by following these commands:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/master/install.sh)"

Here is an example of what you will see:

Note: You may run into some limitations based on your operating system so be aware that these examples are using MacOS and Linux.

Step 2: Install Node.js and npm

Get the latest long-term support version of Node.js, using this command (you can also use this command to list all versions):nvm ls-remote

nvm ls-remote | grep 'Latest LTS'

Here is what you should see:

Then, as soon as Node.js is installed, npm is also installed automatically.

nvm install v12.18.3

You can verify your step using the image below:

Note: You can install the latest Node.js by running commands.

nvm install-latest-npm

Step 3: Install ABT node

The ABT node can now be installed by using npm to perform the following command:

npm install -g @abtnode/cli

Here is what you should see:

Step 4: Download and Setup your ABT wallet

Before you secure and login to your ABT Node, you will need to download and configure ArcBlock’s ABT Wallet. You can down it the wallet from https://www.abtwallet.io Then open the wallet and follow the wallet guide to complete the initialization of the wallet.

Step 5: Install an IDE

If you’re going to create your own Blocklet, we recommend that you install an IDE first. For example, Microsoft’s VS Code is a great place to start.

To get your ABT node up and running, you must initialize it.

If you have initialized the ABT node, you can start your node with , or you can reinitialize the ABT node by deleting the profile (if the data uses the default directory and profile).abtnode startrm /r /f ~/.abtnode*

Now, onitialize the ABT node by running the following command:

abtnode init

Now you need to start the node to use it. To start your node, run the following command:

abtnode start

Here is what you can expect to see:

Use your wallet to login to your ABT Node and you are ready to get started. As a first step, go ahead and install the Blockchain Manager Blocklet and create your first blockchain. It won’t take you more than 2-minutes to get it up and running. Here are the steps: https://www.arcblock.io/en/post/2020/06/04/step-by-step-tutorial-to-create-your-first-blockchain-on-abtnode