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Create a permissioned network with basic permissioning

This tutorial shows you how to create a permissioned network with basic permissioning.

1. Initialize chain​

The first step is to generate the genesis block.

The 7nodes directory in the quorum-examples repository contains several keys (using an empty password) that are used in the example genesis file:

key1    vote key 1
key2    vote key 2
key3    vote key 3
key4    block maker 1
key5    block maker 2

Example genesis file (copy to genesis.json):

"config": {
    "homesteadBlock": 0,
    "byzantiumBlock": 0,
    "chainId": 10,
    "eip150Block": 0,
    "eip155Block": 0,
    "eip150Hash": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
    "eip158Block": 0,
    "isQuorum": true
  },

Initialize geth:

geth init genesis.json

2. Setup bootnode​

Optionally you can set up a bootnode that all the other nodes will first connect to in order to find other peers in the network. You will first need to generate a bootnode key:

  1. To generate the key for the first time:

    bootnode -genkey tmp_file.txt  // this will start a bootnode with an enode address and generate a key inside a “tmp_file.txt” file`

  2. To later restart the bootnode using the same key (and hence use the same enode url):

    bootnode -nodekey tmp_file.txt

    or

    bootnode -nodekeyhex 77bd02ffa26e3fb8f324bda24ae588066f1873d95680104de5bc2db9e7b2e510 // Key from tmp_file.txt

3. Start node​

Starting a node is as simple as geth. This will start the node without any of the roles and makes the node a spectator. If you have setup a bootnode then be sure to add the --bootnodes param to your startup command:

geth --bootnodes $BOOTNODE_ENODE

Adding new nodes​

Any additions to the permissioned-nodes.json file are dynamically picked up by the server when subsequent incoming/outgoing requests are made. The node does not need to be restarted in order for the changes to take effect.

Removing existing nodes​

Removing existing connected nodes from the permissioned-nodes.json file does not immediately drop those existing connected nodes.

However, if the connection is dropped for any reason, and a subsequent connect request is made from the dropped node ids, it is rejected as part of that new request.

Enhanced permissioning​

Enhanced network permissioning uses a smart contract permissioning model. Enhanced permissioning enables significant flexibility to manage nodes, accounts, and account-level access controls.