Hyperledger Fabric Peer

Hyperledger Fabric Peer is the node type responsible for endorsing transactions and recording them on the Blockchain for the Hyperledger Fabric permissioned blockchain framework.

TL;DR;

$ helm install stable/hlf-peer

Introduction

The Hyperledger Fabric Peer can either use a goleveldb or a CouchDB database for holding the ledger data.

This Peer can receive transaction requests, which it checks and signs, endorsing them. These endorsements can then be sent to the Ordering Service (one or more Orderer nodes), which will package them and return blocks that the Peer can then commit to their own Ledger.

Prerequisites

• Kubernetes 1.9+
• PV provisioner support in the underlying infrastructure.
• Three K8S secrets containing:
  • the channel transaction for the Peer
  • the certificate of the Peer Organisation Admin
  • the private key of the Peer Organisation Admin (needed to join the channel)
• A running HLF-CouchDB Chart if you are using the CouchDB database.

Installing the Chart

To install the chart with the release name peer1:

$ helm install stable/hlf-peer --name peer1

The command deploys the Hyperledger Fabric Peer on the Kubernetes cluster in the default configuration. The Configuration section lists the parameters that can be configured during installation.

Custom parameters

Specify each parameter using the --set key=value[,key=value] argument to helm install. For example:

$ helm install stable/hlf-peer --name peer1 --set caUsername=peer1,caPassword=secretpassword

The above command specifies (but does not register/enroll) a Peer username of peer1 with password secretpassword.

Alternatively, a YAML file can be provided while installing the chart. This file specifies values to override those provided in the defualt values.yaml. For example,

$ helm install stable/hlf-peer --name peer1 -f my-values.yaml

Updating the chart

When updating the chart, make sure you provide the caPassword, otherwise helm update will generate a new random (and invalid) password.

$ export CA_PASSWORD=$(kubectl get secret --namespace {{ .Release.Namespace }} peer1-hlf-peer -o jsonpath="{.data.CA_PASSWORD}" | base64 --decode; echo)
$ helm upgrade peer1 stable/hlf-peer --set caPassword=$CA_PASSWORD

Uninstalling the Chart

To uninstall/delete the peer1 deployment:

$ helm delete peer1

The command removes all the Kubernetes components associated with the chart and deletes the release.

Configuration

The following table lists the configurable parameters of the Hyperledger Fabric Peer chart and default values.

Parameter	Description	Default
image.repository	hlf-peer image repository	hyperledger/fabric-peer
image.tag	hlf-peer image tag	x86_64-1.1.0
image.pullPolicy	Image pull policy	IfNotPresent
service.portRequest	TCP port for requests to Peer	7051
service.portEvent	TCP port for event service on Peer	7053
service.type	K8S service type exposing ports, e.g. ClusterIP	ClusterIP
persistence.accessMode	Use volume as ReadOnly or ReadWrite	ReadWriteOnce
persistence.annotations	Persistent Volume annotations	{}
persistence.size	Size of data volume (adjust for production!)	1Gi
persistence.storageClass	Storage class of backing PVC	default
caAddress	Address of CA to register/enroll with	hlf-ca.local
caUsername	Username for registering/enrolling with CA	peer1
caPassword	Password for registering/enrolling with CA	Random 24 alphanumeric characters
peer.hlfToolsVersion	Which version of HLF tools we use (e.g. CA client)	1.1.0
peer.databaseType	Database type to use (goleveldb or CouchDB)	goleveldb
`peer.couchdbInstance	CouchDB chart name to use cdb-peer1	cdb-peer1
peer.mspID	ID of MSP the Peer belongs to	Org1MSP
secrets.channel	Secret containing Channel tx for peer to create/join	``
secrets.adminCert	Secret containing Peer Org admin certificate	``
secrets.adminCert	Secret containing Peer Org admin private key	``
secrets.caServerTls	Secret containing CA Server TLS certificate	ca--tls
resources	CPU/Memory resource requests/limits	{}
nodeSelector	Node labels for pod assignment	{}
tolerations	Toleration labels for pod assignment	[]
affinity	Affinity settings for pod assignment	{}

Persistence

The volume stores the Fabric Peer data and configurations at the /var/hyperledger path of the container.

The chart mounts a Persistent Volume at this location. The volume is created using dynamic volume provisioning through a PersistentVolumeClaim managed by the chart.

Feedback and feature requests

This is a work in progress and we are happy to accept feature requests. We are even happier to accept pull requests implementing improvements :-)