The APIs supported by abeychain are mainly based on function modules: admin, miner, personal, etc. These APIs are provided using JSON-RPC.
Enabling the management APIs
gabey comes with a JavaScript console that supports all of the APIs described here. To provide these APIs through gabey RPC, specify them with the --${interface}api command line argument. Where ${interface} can be HTTP rpc, WebSocket ws and Unix socket ipc or Windows pipe
For example: gabey --ipcapi admin, abey,miner --rpc api abey,web3 --rpc
Enable administrators, official DApp and miner APIs via IPC interface
Enable official DApp and web3 API via HTTP interface
The HTTP RPC interface must be explicitly enabled using the --rpc flag.
Please note, offering an API over the HTTP (rpc) or WebSocket (ws) interfaces will give everyone access to the APIs who can access this interface (DApps, browser tabs, etc). Be careful which APIs you enable. By default gabey enables all APIs over the IPC (ipc) interface and only the db, abey, net and web3 APIs over the HTTP and WebSocket interfaces.
To determine which APIs an interface provides, the modules JSON-RPC method can be invoked. For example over an ipc interface on unix systems:
The admin API gives you access to several non-standard RPC methods, which will allow you to have a fine grained control over your gabey instance, including but not limited to network peer and RPC endpoint management.
admin_addPeer
The addPeer administrative method requests adding a new remote node to the list of tracked static nodes. The node will try to maintain connectivity to these nodes at all times, reconnecting every once in a while if the remote connection goes down.
The method accepts a single argument, the enode URL of the remote peer to start tracking and returns a BOOL indicating whether the peer was accepted for tracking or some error occurred.
The nodeInfo administrative property can be queried for all the information known about the running gabey node at the networking granularity. These include general information about the node itself as a participant of the P2P overlay protocol, as well as specialized information added by each of the running application protocols (e.g. abey, les, shh).
The startRPC administrative method starts an HTTP based JSON RPC API webserver to handle client requests. All the parameters are optional:
host: network interface to open the listener socket on (defaults to "localhost")
port: network port to open the listener socket on (defaults to 8545)
cors: cross-origin resource sharing header to use (defaults to "")
apis: API modules to offer over this interface (defaults to "abey,net,web3")
The method returns a boolean flag specifying whether the HTTP RPC listener was opened or not. Please note, only one HTTP endpoint is allowed to be active at any time.
Client
Method invocation
Go
admin.StartRPC(host *string, port *rpc.HexNumber, cors *string, apis *string) (bool, error)
The startWS administrative method starts an WebSocket based JSON RPC API webserver to handle client requests. All the parameters are optional:
host: network interface to open the listener socket on (defaults to "localhost")
port: network port to open the listener socket on (defaults to 8546)
cors: cross-origin resource sharing header to use (defaults to "")
apis: API modules to offer over this interface (defaults to "abey,net,web3")
The method returns a boolean flag specifying whether the WebSocket RPC listener was opened or not. Please note, only one WebSocket endpoint is allowed to be active at any time.
Client
Method invocation
Go
admin.StartWS(host *string, port *rpc.HexNumber, cors *string, apis *string) (bool, error)
The stopRPC administrative method closes the currently open HTTP RPC endpoint. As the node can only have a single HTTP endpoint running, this method takes no parameters, returning a boolean whether the endpoint was closed or not.
Client
Method invocation
Go
admin.StopRPC() (bool, error)
Console
admin.stopRPC()
RPC
{"method": "admin_stopRPC"
Example
> admin.stopRPC()
true
admin_stopWS
The stopWS administrative method closes the currently open WebSocket RPC endpoint. As the node can only have a single WebSocket endpoint running, this method takes no parameters, returning a boolean whether the endpoint was closed or not.
Client
Method invocation
Go
admin.StopWS() (bool, error)
Console
admin.stopWS()
RPC
{"method": "admin_stopWS"
Example
> admin.stopWS()
true
Miner
The miner API allows you to remote control the node's mining operation and set various mining specific settings.
miner_setExtra
Sets the extra data string that is included when this miner mines a block.
Client
Method invocation
Go
miner.setExtra(extra string) (bool, error)
Console
miner.setExtra(string)
RPC
{"method": "miner_setExtra", "params": [string]}
Example
> miner.setExtra("it's my block")
true
miner_setGasPrice
Sets the minimal accepted gas price when mining transactions. Any transactions that are below this limit are excluded from the mining process.
Generates a new private key and stores it in the key store directory. The key file is encrypted with the given passphrase. Returns the address of the new account.
At the gabey console, newAccount will prompt for a passphrase when it is not supplied as the argument.
Decrypts the key with the given address from the key store.
Both passphrase and unlock duration are optional when using the JavaScript console. If the passphrase is not supplied as an argument, the console will prompt for the passphrase interactively.
The unencrypted key will be held in memory until the unlock duration expires. If the unlock duration defaults to 300 seconds. An explicit duration of zero seconds unlocks the key until gabey exits.
The account can be used with abey_sign and abey_sendTransaction while it is unlocked.
Validate the given passphrase and submit transaction.
The transaction is the same argument as for abey_sendTransaction and contains the fromaddress. If the passphrase can be used to decrypt the private key belogging to tx.from the transaction is verified, signed and send onto the network. The account is not unlocked globally in the node and cannot be used in other RPC calls.
> var tx = {from: "0x391694e7e0b0cce554cb130d723a9d27458f9298", to: "0xafa3f8684e54059998bc3a7b0d2b0da075154d66", value: web3.toWei(1.23, "abey")}
undefined
> personal.sendTransaction(tx, "passphrase")
0x8474441674cdd47b35b875fd1a530b800b51a5264b9975fb21129eeb8c18582f
personal_sign
The sign method calculates an abeychain specific signature with:sign(keccack256("\x19abeychain Signed Message:\n" + len(message) + message))).
By adding a prefix to the message makes the calculated signature recognisable as an abeychain specific signature. This prevents misuse where a malicious DApp can sign arbitrary data (e.g. transaction) and use the signature to impersonate the victim.
The txpool API gives you access to several non-standard RPC methods to inspect the contents of the transaction pool containing all the currently pending transactions as well as the ones queued for future processing.
txpool_content
Content returns the transactions contained within the transaction pool.
The inspect inspection property can be queried to list a textual summary of all the transactions currently pending for inclusion in the next block(s), as well as the ones that are being scheduled for future execution only. This is a method specifically tailored to developers to quickly see the transactions in the pool and find any potential issues.
The result is an object with two fields pending and queued. Each of these fields are associative arrays, in which each entry maps an origin-address to a batch of scheduled transactions. These batches themselves are maps associating nonces with transactions summary strings.
Please note, there may be multiple transactions associated with the same account and nonce. This can happen if the user broadcast mutliple ones with varying gas allowances (or even complerely different transactions).
The status inspection property can be queried for the number of transactions currently pending for inclusion in the next block(s), as well as the ones that are being scheduled for future execution only.
The result is an object with two fields pending and queued, each of which is a counter representing the number of transactions in that particular state.
Client
Method invocation
Go
txpool.Status() (map[string]*rpc.HexNumber)
Console
txpool.status
RPC
{"method": "txpool_status"}
Example
> txpool.status
{
pending: 100,
queued: 0
}
Fruitpool
fruitpool_content
Content returns the pendingFruits contained within the snail pool.
The debug API gives you access to several non-standard RPC methods, which will allow you to inspect, debug and set certain debugging flags during runtime.
debug_backtraceAt
Sets the logging backtrace location. When a backtrace location is set and a log message is emitted at that location, the stack of the goroutine executing the log statement will be printed to stderr.
Turns on block profiling for the given duration and writes profile data to disk. It uses a profile rate of 1 for most accurate information. If a different rate is desired, set the rate and write the profile manually using debug_writeBlockProfile.
Fetches and retrieves the seed hash of the block by number
Client
Method invocation
Go
debug.SeedHash(number uint64) (string, error)
Console
debug.seedHash(number, [options])
RPC
{"method": "debug_seedHash", "params": [number]}
debug_setHead
Sets the current head of the local snail chain by snailBlock number. Note, this is a destructive action and may severely damage your snail chain. Use with extreme caution.
Client
Method invocation
Go
debug.SetHead(number uint64)
Console
debug.setHead(number)
RPC
{"method": "debug_setHead", "params": [number]}
warn: it may cause the console quit and may destory the database,just for debug and test.
debug_setBlockProfileRate
Sets the rate (in samples/sec) of goroutine block profile data collection. A non-zero rate enables block profiling, setting it to zero stops the profile. Collected profile data can be written using debug_writeBlockProfile.
Returns a printed representation of the stacks of all goroutines. Note that the web3 wrapper for this method takes care of the printing and does not return the string.
Client
Method invocation
Console
debug.stacks()
RPC
{"method": "debug_stacks", "params": []}
debug_startCPUProfile
Turns on CPU profiling indefinitely, writing to the given file.
The traceBlock method will return a full stack trace of all invoked opcodes of all transaction that were included included in this block. Note, the parent of this block must be present or it will fail.
The traceTransaction debugging method will attempt to run the transaction in the exact same manner as it was executed on the network. It will replay any transaction that may have been executed prior to this one before it will finally attempt to execute the transaction that corresponds to the given hash.
In addition to the hash of the transaction you may give it a secondary optional argument, which specifies the options for this specific call. The possible options are:
disableStorage: BOOL. Setting this to true will disable storage capture (default = false).
disableMemory: BOOL. Setting this to true will disable memory capture (default = false).
disableStack: BOOL. Setting this to true will disable stack capture (default = false).
tracer: STRING. Setting this will enable JavaScript-based transaction tracing, described below. If set, the previous four arguments will be ignored.
timeout: STRING. Overrides the default timeout of 5 seconds for JavaScript-based tracing calls. Valid values are described here.
Specifying the tracer option in the second argument enables JavaScript-based tracing. In this mode, tracer is interpreted as a JavaScript expression that is expected to evaluate to an object with (at least) two methods, named step and result.
stepis a function that takes two arguments, log and db, and is called for each step of the EVM, or when an error occurs, as the specified transaction is traced.
log has the following fields:
pc: Number, the current program counter
op: Object, an OpCode object representing the current opcode
gas: Number, the amount of gas remaining
gasPrice: Number, the cost in wei of each unit of gas
memory: Object, a structure representing the contract's memory space
stack: array[big.Int], the EVM execution stack
depth: The execution depth
account: The address of the account executing the current operation
err: If an error occured, information about the error
If err is non-null, all other fields should be ignored.
For efficiency, the same log object is reused on each execution step, updated with current values; make sure to copy values you want to preserve beyond the current call. For instance, this step function will not work:
toString() - returns the string representation of the opcode
toNumber() - returns the opcode's number
log.memory has the following methods:
slice(start, stop) - returns the specified segment of memory as a byte slice
length() - returns the length of the memory
log.stack has the following methods:
peek(idx) - returns the idx-th element from the top of the stack (0 is the topmost element) as a big.Int
length() - returns the number of elements in the stack
db has the following methods:
getBalance(address) - returns a big.Int with the specified account's balance
getNonce(address) - returns a Number with the specified account's nonce
getCode(address) - returns a byte slice with the code for the specified account
getState(address, hash) - returns the state value for the specified account and the specified hash
exists(address) - returns true if the specified address exists
The second function, 'result', takes no arguments, and is expected to return a JSON-serializable value to return to the RPC caller.
If the step function throws an exception or executes an illegal operation at any point, it will not be called on any further VM steps, and the error will be returned to the caller.
Note that several values are Golang big.Int objects, not JavaScript numbers or JS bigints. As such, they have the same interface as described in the godocs. Their default serialization to JSON is as a Javascript number; to serialize large numbers accurately call .String() on them. For convenience, big.NewInt(x) is provided, and will convert a uint to a Go BigInt.
Usage example, returns the top element of the stack at each CALL opcode only:
Sets the logging verbosity ceiling. Log messages with level up to and including the given level will be printed.
The verbosity of individual packages and source files can be raised using debug_vmodule.
Client
Method invocation
Console
debug.verbosity(level)
RPC
{"method": "debug_vmodule", "params": [number]}
debug_vmodule
Sets the logging verbosity pattern.
Client
Method invocation
Console
debug.vmodule(string)
RPC
{"method": "debug_vmodule", "params": [string]}
Examples
If you want to see messages from a particular Go package (directory) and all subdirectories, use:
> debug.vmodule("abey/*=6")
If you want to restrict messages to a particular package (e.g. p2p) but exclude subdirectories, use:
> debug.vmodule("p2p=6")
If you want to see log messages from a particular source file, use
> debug.vmodule("server.go=6")
You can compose these basic patterns. If you want to see all output from peer.go in a package below abey (abey/peer.go, abey/downloader/peer.go) as well as output from package p2p at level <= 5, use:
debug.vmodule("abey/*/peer.go=6,p2p=5")
debug_writeBlockProfile
Writes a goroutine blocking profile to the given file.
Writes an allocation profile to the given file. Note that the profiling rate cannot be set through the API, it must be set on the command line using the --memprofilerate flag.
GetStorageAt returns the storage from the state at the given address, key and block number. The rpc.LatestBlockNumber and rpc.PendingBlockNumber meta block numbers are also allowed.
Returns code at a given address. Divided into ordinary account and contract account address Ordinary account return "0x" Where the contract account returns the binary code
The sign method calculates an abeychain specific signature with: sign(keccak256("\x19abeychain Signed Message:\n" + len(message) + message))).
By adding a prefix to the message makes the calculated signature recognisable as an abeychain specific signature. This prevents misuse where a malicious DApp can sign arbitrary data (e.g. transaction) and use the signature to impersonate the victim.
Creates new message call transaction or a contract creation, if the data field contains code.
params:
Object - The transaction object from: DATA, 20 Bytes - The address the transaction is send from. to: DATA, 20 Bytes - (optional when creating new contract) The address the transaction is directed to. gas: QUANTITY - (optional, default: 90000) Integer of the gas provided for the transaction execution. It will return unused gas. gasPrice: QUANTITY - (optional, default: To-Be-Determined) Integer of the gasPrice used for each paid gas value: QUANTITY - (optional) Integer of the value sent with this transaction data: DATA - The compiled code of a contract OR the hash of the invoked method signature and encoded parameters. For details see abeychain Contract ABI nonce: QUANTITY - (optional) Integer of a nonce. This allows to overwrite your own pending transactions that use the same nonce.
SendRawTransaction will add the signed transaction to the transaction pool. The sender is responsible for signing the transaction and using the correct nonce.
Call executes the given transaction on the state for the given block number. It doesn't make and changes in the state/blockchain and is useful to execute and retrieve values.
Parameters Object - The transaction call object from: DATA, 20 Bytes - (optional) The address the transaction is sent from. to: DATA, 20 Bytes - The address the transaction is directed to. gas: QUANTITY - (optional) Integer of the gas provided for the transaction execution. abey_call consumes zero gas, but this parameter may be needed by some executions. gasPrice: QUANTITY - (optional) Integer of the gasPrice used for each paid gas value: QUANTITY - (optional) Integer of the value sent with this transaction data: DATA - (optional) Hash of the method signature and encoded parameters. For details see abeychain Contract ABI QUANTITY|TAG - integer block number, or the string "latest", "earliest" or "pending", see the default block parameter
Generates and returns an estimate of how much gas is necessary to allow the transaction to complete. The transaction will not be added to the blockchain. Note that the estimate may be significantly more than the amount of gas actually used by the transaction, for a variety of reasons including EVM mechanics and node performance.
GetWork returns a work package for external miner. The work package consists of 3 strings result[0], 32 bytes hex encoded current block header pow-hash result[1], 32 bytes hex encoded seed hash used for DAG result[2], 32 bytes hex encoded boundary condition ("target"), 2^256/difficulty
Client
Method invocation
Console
abey.getWork
RPC
{"method": "abey_getWork", "params": []}
Example
> abey.getWork
function()
abey_defaultBlock
Return latest block marking
Client
Method invocation
Console
abey.defaultBlock
RPC
{"method": "abey_defaultBlock", "params": []}
Example
> abey.defaultBlock
"latest"
abey_PendingTransactions
PendingTransactions returns the transactions that are in the transaction pool and have a from address that is one of the accounts this node manages.
