Introducing the Raiden Wizard
We are happy to introduce our latest on-boarding tool, the Raiden Wizard! The Raiden Wizard aims to make the installation of Raiden as easy as 1–2–3.
The Raiden Wizard will take care of all the necessary installation steps for you, so you can lean back and watch the progress while it is launching Raiden on your machine. All you need to do is:
- Download the Raiden Wizard for MacOS or Linux
- Have an Infura Project ID ready
- Start playing with Raiden on the testnet!
Please note, that the Raiden Wizard is in an early stage implementation and currently only designed for the Görli testnet. It’s available for MacOS and Linux.
When the wizard has been executed, Raiden is running on your machine with a new account connected via Infura to the Görli testnet, funded with Görli-ETH and Raiden Wizard [WIZ] testnet tokens to transfer. With one click you can access the WebUI and initiate transfers.
In this blog post, we will explain how to use the Raiden Wizard on Görli and elaborate on the magic that is going on under the hood.
Installing Raiden using the Raiden Wizard
Step 1: Download the Raiden Wizard.
→ MacOS download
→ Linux download
Step 2: Have Infura Project ID ready
Before you launch the Raiden Wizard, please make sure to have an Infura Project ID at hand.
If you do not have an Infura account yet, don’t worry. It’s very easy to set up a new account:
- Visit infura.io and click to sign up for a new account.
- Once you’ve accessed your account, click “create new project”.
- Now, view your project and you’ll find the Project ID and the endpoint under the “keys” section.
For the (DAppNode) nodlers, node runners and decentralization enthusiasts amongst you, don’t worry! This is only the very first version of the Raiden Wizard, aiming to make the on-boarding process as easy as possible. Should the Raiden Wizard be a success and we decide to take it to mainnet, we will enable additional options that let you connect Raiden to your own Ethereum node instead of connecting to Infura.
Step 3: Launch the Raiden Wizard
Once you have your Infura Project ID ready, you can launch the Raiden Wizard. The Raiden Wizard will automatically open in your default browser and ask for your Infura Project ID. Then click “create a new configuration”.
That’s it! Now wait until the Raiden WebUI opens in the browser. (The whole process shouldn’t take longer than 5mins!)
As soon as the WebUI is launched, Raiden is running on your machine and you can start by joining the [WIZ] token network and sending [WIZ] or other tokens with Raiden on the testnet.
Please note, that in its current state the wizard does not provide a way of shutting down the Raiden node through the user interface. To shut your Raiden node down, open your process manager (in MacOS “activity monitor”) and cancel the process called “raiden”.
The Raiden Wizard is both an installation wizard and a launcher, meaning that it can install Raiden with a new configuration or reuse already existing configurations to launch Raiden: If you’ve used the Raiden Wizard once and a setup configuration has been created, you can choose to either reuse the configuration the next time you launch the wizard or create a new configuration by simply running it again.
How does the Raiden Wizard work?
The Raiden Wizard is a web-based installation tool which provides quick and easy set up of a Raiden node and access to the Raiden WebUI.
In addition to downloading the latest version of Raiden, the Raiden Wizard also takes care of creating a keystore file and funding your account with testnet ETH as well as minting the necessary testnet tokens in order to successfully interact with Raiden.
This is what’s going on under the hood when launching the Raiden Wizard:
- When a user clicks the Raiden Wizard file, the installation wizard automatically opens in the default browser.
- The user provides Infura Project ID.
- The wizard creates a new keystore file:
→ on Mac it is located in /Users/<username>/Library/Ethereum/keystore
→ on Linux it is located in /home/<username>/.ethereum/keystore - The password for the keystore is generated automatically and stored in a plain text file next to the TOML configuration file. Raiden needs to read from this text file when launching.
- Then, the wizard creates a TOML configuration file with all necessary settings for firing up Raiden:
→ on Mac it is located in /Users/<username>/.local/share/raiden/
→ on Linux it is located in /home/<username>/.local/raiden - Before attempting to launch Raiden, the wizard will check if your account is funded with testnet ETH. If not, which will be the case if you set up an account for the first time, the wizard will acquire testnet ETH and mint testenet tokens for you.
- Consequently, the wizard checks if Raiden is already installed on the user’s system. If yes, it launches Raiden. If not, it downloads the latest version and then launches Raiden.
→ on Mac Raiden is stored in /Users/<name>/.local/bin/
→ on Linux Raiden is located in /home/<username>/.local/bin
If you want to learn more, feel free to check out the Raiden Wizard code on Github. We are looking forward to hearing your feedback. Should you encounter any problems, feel free to reach out to us via our Gitter technical help chat!
The Raiden Team
Disclaimer: Please note, that even though we do our best to ensure the quality and accuracy of the information provided, this publication may contain views and opinions, errors and omissions for which the content creator(s) and any represented organization cannot be held liable.
The wording and concepts regarding financial terminology (e.g. “payments”, “checks”, “currency”, “transfer” [of value]) are exclusively used in an exemplary way to describe technological principles and do not necessarily conform to the real world or legal equivalents of these terms and concepts.
The Raiden Wizard is experimental alpha software meant to be tested exclusively on the Görli testnet. Please be aware that we cannot be held liable for any damages whatsoever or any loss of funds you may incur when using the code and/or software. Use it at your own risk.
