geth-dev-assistant

Quickly configure and launch a geth --dev ephemeral POA network. Helpful when using geth in CI.

• Pulls a specified geth docker image from Docker Hub
• Launches a docker geth instance as a background process
• Waits until geth is ready to receive calls over http / websockets
• (Optionally) creates, unlocks and funds some password generated accounts
• (Optionally) mines blocks with no-op txs until a gas limit target is reached.

Geth --dev seeds with a single funded account and has a relatively low default block gas limit (~ 6 mil). If the client's mining period is set to 0, it needs to be spun with transactions before a higher gas limit target is reached.

Install

npm install --save-dev geth-dev-assistant

Run

npx geth-dev-assistant [options]

Usage Example

npx geth-dev-assistant \
    --launch \
    --tag 'latest' \
    --accounts 5 \
    --balance 50 \
    --gasLimit 7000000

# Run tests
npx mocha

# Clean-up
docker stop geth-client

Options

| Option | Description | Type | Default | | -------- | ------------------------------------------- | ------ | ---------------------- | | accounts | number of accounts to create / unlock | number | 0 (use default acct) | | password | for geth accounts | string | "left-hand-of-darkness"| | balance | new account starting balances (in ETH) | number | 100 | | gasLimit | block gas limit target to mine towards | number | 5900000 | | launch | pull and launch a geth docker instance | bool | true | | repo | root docker repo (useful for forks) | string | 'ethereum/client-go' | | tag | geth version / docker tag to fetch | string | 'stable' | | offline | do not pull image from docker hub | bool | false | | sleep | max seconds to wait for geth to spin up | number | 10 | | period | automining interval | number | 0 (insta-mine) | | port | port to connect to client with | number | 8545 | | help | show help | bool | false |

Other resources

• A POA network setup using genesis.json at 0xProject.
• ethnode a zero config tool to run a local Ethereum dev node (geth & parity!)
• Geth client options wiki