Set up your development environment

Introduction

This course introduces students to blockchain development for enterprise environments. Before you can develop software applications, you need to ensue your development environment is in place. That means you’ll need all the tools and infrastructure installed and configured to support enterprise blockchain software development projects.

In this lab you’ll set up your own Hyperledger Fabric development environment and install the course software from the textbook. When you finish this lab, you’ll have a working development environment and will be ready to start running and modifying blockchain applications.

The instructions in your textbook are for Mac and Linux computers. However, there is no guarantee that your installation of MacOS or Linux is completely compatible with the environment in which the commands from the textbook work properly. For that reason, I STRONGLY SUGGEST that you acquire an Ubuntu 16.04 Virtual Machine (VM) for your labs. Using an Ubuntu 16.04 VM will make the labs far easier to complete.

The instructions in this course’s labs assume that your computer runs the Windows operating system. If you run MacOS or Linux, you can get Vagrant and VirtualBox for those operating systems and follow the gist of the “Initial setup for Windows computers”. The only real difference is that you won’t have PuTTY in non-Windows operating systems. That’s OK – just use any terminal emulation software to connect to your Ubuntu VM.

Lab Deliverables:

To complete this lab, you must create a Lab Report file and submit the file in iLearn. The Lab Report file must be a Microsoft Word format (.docx), and have the filename with the following format:

BLCN532_SECTION_STUDENTID_LASTNAME_FIRSTNAME_Lab01.docx

• SECTION is the section number of your current course (2 digits)
• STUDENTID is your student ID number (with leading zeros)
• LASTNAME is your last name, FIRSTNAME is your first name

To get started, create a Microsoft Word document (.docx) with the correct filename for this lab. You’ll be asked to enter text and paste screenshots into the lab report file.

NOTE: All screenshots MUST be readable. A screenshot that I cannot read (i.e. cannot read the text you are capturing) will not count for any points.

SECTION 1: Initial setup for Windows computers (Chapter 3)

Step 1.1: Install Oracle Virtualbox (Windows, Linux, MacOS)

Oracle Virtualbox is an open source virtualization environment that allows you to run multiple virtual machines and containers on a single personal computer. Virtualbox is free and it is easy to install.

In your favorite web browser, navigate to: https://www.virtualbox.org/ and click the “Download Virtualbox” button. Click the “Windows hosts” link to download the main installation executable. You should also click the “All supported platforms” under the “Extension Pack” heading to download extra software support for devices.

After you download the two files, double click each one to run the install procedure.

Step 1.2: Install Vagrant (Windows, Linux, MacOS)

Vagrant is a free virtual environment management utility. It makes the process of starting, stopping, and managing virtual machines easier. In your web browser, navigate to https://www.vagrantup.com/ then click the “Download” button, and click the version of the Windows executable you’d like to install. (Most of you should select the “64-bit” version.)

Once you download the install program, double-click the file you just downloaded to install Vagrant.

If you want more information on Vagrant and tips on getting the most out of the software, navigate to:

https://www.sitepoint.com/getting-started-vagrant-windows/ .

Step 1.3: Install PuTTY (Windows only)

Later in this lab you’ll launch several Linux virtual machines. These VMs won’t have a graphical user interface, so you’ll need a way to log in and use the VM’s command line. You’ll use a terminal emulator program, called PuTTY to do that. PuTTY is a free and is one of the most popular terminal emulator programs.

To download and install PuTTY, navigate to https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/, then download and install the PuTTY program.

Step 1.4: Set up your Vagrant project

After installing all the pre-requisite pieces, you need to set up your Vagrant project. A Vagrant project defines your virtual machine environment and helps you organize your collection of VMs into a group that is easy to manage.

We’ll use the Windows PowerShell as our Windows command prompt environment. PowerShell is a very powerful command line interface that is available on all Windows computers.

To launch PowerShell, click the Windows key, type PowerShell, then click the Windows PowerShell menu entry. The figure below shows a portion of the Windows PowerShell command prompt window.

Note that PowerShell uses your user’s home directory as its starting directory. In my case, C:\Users\micha is my home directory. For the rest of the lab, I’ll refer to this a %HOME%. Your %HOME% directory will be different.

1.4.1: Remove existing Vagrant projects

Follow these steps ONLY if you already have a previous Vagrant project you want to remove: (Assume the project you want to remove is located in the %HOME%\vagrant\Hyperledger directory.)

If you DO NOT have an existing Vagrant project that you need to remove, skip to the next paragraph.

1. PS %HOME%\vagrant\Hyperledger> vagrant global-status

                Note the id of the listed VM(s). You’ll use this id in the next command, in place of xxxxxxx.

2. PS %HOME%\vagrant\\Hyperledger> vagrant destroy xxxxxxx
3. PS %HOME%\vagrant\\Hyperledger> vagrant box remove ubuntu/xenial64

1.4.2: Create a new Vagrant project for Hyperledger

Launch PowerShell and enter the following commands: (Don’t type ‘PS %HOME%>’, that’s just the PowerShell prompt. Just type the characters in bold.)

1. PS %HOME%> mkdir vagrant
2. PS %HOME%> cd vagrant
3. PS %HOME%\vagrant> mkdir Hyperledger
4. PS %HOME%\vagrant> cd Hyperledger
5. PS %HOME%\vagrant\Hyperledger> vagrant init ubuntu/xenial64
6. PS %HOME%\vagrant\Hyperledger> vagrant up

NOTE: To stop your VM, exit from PuTTY shell, then type vagrant halt in PowerShell

1.4.3: Set up PuTTY SSH connection

Now that you have a working VM, you need to set up PuTTY to be able to easily log into your VM. That’s how you’ll access your VM’s command line to enter commands for the rest of the class. In this lab step you’ll set up PuTTY to allow you to login using a private key, instead of having to enter a userid and password every time you connect. You’ll use a PuTTY utility, PuTTYGen, to generate your public/private key pair, and then load your key into PuTTY’s configuration.

1. Ensure that your VM is started (PS %HOME%\vagrant\Hyperledger> vagrant up)
2. PS %HOME%\vagrant\Hyperledger> vagrant ssh-config
3. Launch PuTTYGen (type puttygen at the PowerShell prompt)
4. Click Load, then navigate to %HOME%\vagrant\hyperledger\.vagrant\machines\default\virtualbox\private_key

Make sure to select All Files (*.*) to the right of the filename input

5. Select OK -> Save Private Key -> Yes -> private_key_putty -> Save -> File -> Exit
6. Launch PuTTY
7. Type the following information, then click Save:

Host Name (or IP address):         127.0.0.1

Port:      2222

Saved Sessions:                Vagrant Hyperledger

8. Click Connection -> SSH -> Auth -> Browse -> %HOME%\vagrant\hyperledger\.vagrant\machines\default\virtualbox\private_key_putty
9. Click Connection -> Data -> Auto-login username: vagrant
10. Open connection

You should see a command prompt like this: (I’ve changed my font and colors, so yours will look appear different, but the contents should be the same.)