vipnode

README

vipnode

Status: Pre-alpha. Big pieces are implemented but it's not fully functional yet.

• vipnode pool - Run your own vipnode pool.
• vipnode host - Host a vipnode by connecting your full node to a pool.
• vipnode client - Connect to a vipnode with your light node (or full node).

Quickstart

This release has demo support for all commands, and defaults are hardcoded to the temporary deployed pool.

WARNING: Everything here is temporary and unstable, don't rely on it in production. Payment is not implemented.

Installing

1. Grab the latest binary release from here: https://github.com/vipnode/vipnode/releases

2. Extract it (tar xvf vipnode-*.tgz) and move the binary in your $PATH somewhere (sudo mv vipnode/vipnode-* /usr/local/bin/vipnode).

You can run vipnode --help to see the commands. While exploring, use the -vv flag for extra verbose output.

How to connect as a client

1. Run a local geth in light mode, something like: geth --syncmode=light --rpc --nodiscover --verbosity 7
2. vipnode client -vv

It should automatically find the RPC and nodekey. If it doesn't, it will fail with a useful error message for how to provide those paths.

How to connect as a full node host

1. Run a local geth in full mode with lightserv enabled, something like: geth --lightserv=60 --rpc
2. vipnode host -vv

How to run your own pool

1. vipnode pool -vv --bind "0.0.0.0:8080"

Design

Clients are designed to connect to a set of hosts discovered via the pool, but the client can also connect to a host directly as if it were a dummy pool.

Pools are designed to provide an economic incentive between the client and host. Clients provide a deposit of a spending balance to the pool, and the pool keeps track of which hosts the client is connected to. At the end of some period (e.g. a week), the pool withdraws the necessary balances from the clients' deposits to settle the hosts' earnings.

The payment mechanism is managed by a smart contract maintained here: https://github.com/vipnode/vipnode-contract

The goal is to keep the payment and pool registration optional and replaceable.

License

MIT