Deploy Stacks RPC Node

Stacks node requires a Bitcoin node to connect to on the back-end for Proof of Transfer. You can deploy a Bitcoin node using Kotal operator like we did in this guide. In this tutorial, we will be using Bitcoin node hosted by Stacks Foundation.

Make sure Bitcoin node is fully synced before deploying your Stacks node.

Bitcoin node JSON-RPC user password

Let's store Stacks Foundation Bitcoin node JSON-RPC password in a Kubernetes secret to be used by our node:

bitcoin-node-rpc-password.yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: bitcoin-node-rpc-password
stringData:
  password: blockstacksystem

Apply bitcoin-node-rpc-password.yaml to create the password secret:

kubectl apply -f bitcoin-node-rpc-password.yaml

Deploy Stacks RPC Node

The following manifest describes a Stacks node that syncs Stacks mainnet network: mainnet, and connects to the bitcoin node using configurations in bitcoinNode: ... for Proof of Transfer:

stacks.yaml

apiVersion: stacks.kotal.io/v1alpha1
kind: Node
metadata:
  name: stacks-node
spec:
  network: mainnet
  bitcoinNode:
    endpoint: bitcoin.blockstack.com
    rpcPort: 8332
    p2pPort: 8333
    rpcUsername: blockstack
    rpcPasswordSecretName: bitcoin-node-rpc-password

Apply stacks.yaml manifest:

kubectl apply -f stacks.yaml

Kotal operator will notice your stacks-node and will create all the necessary pods, persistent volumes, services, configmaps, and secrets neccessary.

You can fetch the deployed Stacks Node using:

kubectl get nodes.stacks

It will return an output similar to the following:

NAME            NETWORK    CLIENT    MINER
stacks-node     mainnet    stacks    false

Fetch Node Logs

Get the pods that has been created by Kotal for the node:

kubectl get pods

It will return an output similar to the following:

NAME             READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
stacks-node-0    1/1     Running   0          1m

Get the logs of the running node:

kubectl logs -f stacks-node-0

It will return node logs similar to the following:

INFO [1649597250.010714] [testnet/stacks-node/src/main.rs:113] [main] Loading config at path /home/stacks/kotal-config/config.toml
INFO [1649597250.599067] [testnet/stacks-node/src/run_loop/neon.rs:341] [main] Start syncing Bitcoin headers, feel free to grab a cup of coffee, this can take a while
INFO [1649597251.949664] [src/burnchains/bitcoin/spv.rs:923] [main] Syncing Bitcoin headers: 0.3% (2000 out of 731268)
INFO [1649597253.010039] [src/burnchains/bitcoin/spv.rs:923] [main] Syncing Bitcoin headers: 0.5% (4000 out of 731268)
INFO [1649597254.019798] [src/burnchains/bitcoin/spv.rs:923] [main] Syncing Bitcoin headers: 0.8% (6000 out of 731268)
INFO [1649597254.992070] [src/burnchains/bitcoin/spv.rs:923] [main] Syncing Bitcoin headers: 1.1% (8000 out of 731268)
INFO [1649597256.214756] [src/burnchains/bitcoin/spv.rs:923] [main] Syncing Bitcoin headers: 1.4% (10000 out of 731268)
INFO [1649597257.276950] [src/burnchains/bitcoin/spv.rs:923] [main] Syncing Bitcoin headers: 1.6% (12000 out of 731268)
INFO [1649597258.383248] [src/burnchains/bitcoin/spv.rs:923] [main] Syncing Bitcoin headers: 1.9% (14000 out of 731268)
...

Call JSON-RPC Method

By default, Stacks node JSON-RPC server port is 20443, which can be changed using rpcPort.

Forward localhost:20443 calls to the node pod:

kubectl port-forward bitcoin-node-0 20443

HTTP server will start after Bitcoin headers sync, till then you will get the following error if you tried to send JSON-RPC calls:

curl: (52) Empty reply from server

In another terminal window call info JSON-RPC method to retrieve information about the Core API including the server version:

curl localhost:20443/v2/info

You will get JSON result similar to the following:

{
  "peer_version": 402653189,
  "pox_consensus": "9bed78c9f02d2ba5a5950fe88c4746436b47c730",
  "burn_block_height": 666051,
  "stable_pox_consensus": "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
  "stable_burn_block_height": 666050,
  "server_version": "stacks-node No Version Info (No Branch Info:No Commit Info, release build, linux [x86_64])",
  "network_id": 1,
  "parent_network_id": 3652501241,
  "stacks_tip_height": 0,
  "stacks_tip": "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
  "stacks_tip_consensus_hash": "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
  "genesis_chainstate_hash": "74237aa39aa50a83de11a4f53e9d3bb7d43461d1de9873f402e5453ae60bc59b",
  "unanchored_tip": null,
  "unanchored_seq": null,
  "exit_at_block_height": null
}

Finally you can delete the node by:

kubectl delete -f stacks.yaml

Kubernetes garbage collector will delete all the resources that has been created by Stacks Node controller.