Set Up Local Alphabill Devnet

The local devnet provides safe playground to run a local instance of the whole Alphabill platform without the need to interact with the public Alphabill testnet. Because devnet is running locally, you can reset or re-configure the network at any time.

This tutorial shows you how to set up a personal Alphabill devnet on your machine and claim local devnet funds to your wallet.

Prerequisites

You have set up an Alphabill CLI wallet.

Build Alphabill CLI Binary

Clone the remote alphabill repository:

git clone https://github.com/alphabill-org/alphabill.git

By default, git clone checks out the main development branch. To work with the code at version 0.4.0, create a new branch from the v0.4.0 tag and switch to that branch:
```
cd alphabill
git checkout -b 0.4.0 tags/v0.4.0
```
Important
To work with the CLI wallet, make sure both the alphabill and alphabill-wallet repositories use the same version of the code.
Once you have cloned the repository and checked out the desired branch, run the make build command in the new alphabill directory:
```
make build
```
This command will download all necessary build dependencies, run the tests, and build the alphabill binary. The output directory for the binary is alphabill/build.

Alphabill CLI Usage

To access the top-level help menu to see what Alphabill CLI commands and options are available, go to the alphabill/build directory and enter the following command:

./alphabill -h

The alphabill CLI includes commands for all different parts of the system: shard, core, wallet etc.

Usage:
  alphabill [command]

Available Commands:
  completion     Generate the autocompletion script for the specified shell
  evm            Starts an evm partition node
  evm-genesis    Generates a genesis file for the evm partition
  help           Help about any command
  identifier     Returns the ID of the node
  money          Starts a money node
  money-genesis  Generates a genesis file for the Alphabill Money partition
  root           Starts a root chain node
  root-genesis   Generates root chain genesis files
  tokens         Starts a User-Defined Token partition's node
  tokens-genesis Generates a genesis file for the User-Defined Token partition

Flags:
      --config string          config file URL (default is $AB_HOME/config.props)
  -h, --help                   help for alphabill
      --home string            set the AB_HOME for this invocation (default is /home/user/.alphabill)
      --log-file string        log file path or one of the special values: stdout, stderr, discard
      --log-format string      log format, one of: text, json, console, ecs
      --log-level string       logging level, one of: DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR
      --logger-config string   logger config file URL. Considered absolute if starts with '/'. Otherwise relative from $AB_HOME. (default "logger-config.yaml")
      --metrics string         metrics exporter, disabled when not set. One of: stdout, prometheus
      --tracing string         traces exporter, disabled when not set. One of: stdout, otlptracehttp, otlptracegrpc, zipkin

Use "alphabill [command] --help" for more information about a command.

The Alphabill CLI functions in two main modes:

Server modes enable to launch different parts of the Alphabill network using the following commands:
- alphabill money command starts a local Alphabill Money Partition.
- alphabill tokens command starts a local User Token Partition.
- alphabill evm command starts a local EVM Partition.
- alphabill root command starts a local Root Chain.
Client modes enable to set up configuration details, for example, helper functions that can be used for generating genesis configurations.

Run Local Devnet

The full network setup includes a cluster of Alphabill Money Partition validators, a separate cluster of validators for the User Token and EVM Partitions, and a Root Chain.

Go back to the alphabill directory and run the following script to generate testab structure, log configuration, and genesis files for root and partition nodes.
```
./setup-testab.sh
```
Node configuration files are located in testab directory.
To start up the local devnet, you need to launch several nodes of different types. Run the following script, which configures and launches the necessary processes:
```
./start.sh -r -p money -p tokens -p evm
```
The script starts root and specified partition nodes. With the local devnet running, the pidof alphabill command should return 12 process IDs:
```
pidof alphabill
```
Example response:
3614 3590 3570 3569 3568 3489 3488 3487 3406 3405 3404 3345
These represent 3 root nodes, 3 money nodes, 3 tokens nodes, and 3 evm nodes.

tip
If you are on macOS, the utility pidof does not come installed with your operating system, but you can install it with Homebrew.

To stop the local devnet, run the following script to safely shut down all root and partition nodes:
```
./stop.sh -a
```

Claim Local Devnet Funds

When you start the local Alphabill devnet, the initial value of the entire network is contained in a single bill worth 10 billion ALPHA.

To claim these funds to your wallet's account, a specific script is available in the alphabill directory:

go run scripts/money/spend_initial_bill.go \
--pubkey WALLET_DEFAULT_PUBKEY \
--alphabill-uri localhost:26766 \
--bill-id 1 \
--bill-value 1000000000000000000 \
--timeout 10

tip

Remember to replace the placeholder WALLET_DEFAULT_PUBKEY with your actual wallet's public key.

To list your wallet's public keys, go to the alphabill-wallet/build directory and run the following command:

./abwallet wallet get-pubkeys

If the transaction succeeds, the following messages are returned:

2024/02/28 13:19:28 sent transferFC transaction
2024/02/28 13:19:30 confirmed transferFC transaction
2024/02/28 13:19:30 sent addFC transaction
2024/02/28 13:19:32 confirmed addFC transaction
2024/02/28 13:19:32 successfully sent initial bill transfer transaction

Go to the alphabill-wallet/build directory and check your wallet balance using the wallet get-balance command:
```
./abwallet wallet get-balance
```
Example response:
#1 9'999'999'999.999'999'97 #2 0.000'000'00 Total 9'999'999'999.999'999'97
You should see that after the transaction your wallet's balance is actually smaller than the original bill. This is because with every transaction, a small fee will be charged to cover the cost of recording the transaction onto the blockchain.

Logging Configuration

The logging configuration for Alphabill is defined in a YAML file. To set up the configuration and logging defaults for your local devnet, run the following commands in the alphabill directory:

cp cli/alphabill/config/config.props.example ~/.alphabill/config.props
cp cli/alphabill/config/logger-config.yaml ~/.alphabill/

important

These commands will work only if you have already set up a wallet, or the ~/.alphabill directory is present.

Prerequisites​

Build Alphabill CLI Binary​

Alphabill CLI Usage​

Run Local Devnet​

Claim Local Devnet Funds​

Logging Configuration​