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Becoming a Babylon Vigilante

Learn how to run the Babylon Vigilante program.

Vigilante programs are standalone programs that are run along-side with Babylon nodes. People run a vigilante program in three modes, reporter, submitter, and monitor, each responsible to different aspects to the security of the Babylon network.

vigilante

Prerequisites​

First we need to have the access to a synced Babylon full node and a synced BTC full node. To run a BTC full node, please follow the instructions of running a bitcoind full node or the instructions of running a btcd full node (an alternative full node bitcoin implementation written in Golang). We support the connections to both. To run a Babylon full node, please follow this guide.

We specify the following paths:

BABYLON_PATH="path_where_babylon_is_built" # example: $HOME/Projects/Babylon/babylon
VIGILANTE_PATH="root_vigilante_dir" # example: $HOME/Projects/Babylon/vigilante
TESTNET_PATH="path_where_the_testnet_files_will_be_stored" # example: $HOME/Projects/Babylon/babylon/.testnet

Configuration​

Create a directory which will store the vigilante configuration, copy the sample vigilante configuration into a vigilante.yml file, and adapt it to the specific requirements.

Currently, the vigilante configuration should be edited manually. In the future, we will add functionality for generating this file through a script. For Docker deployments, we have created the sample-vigilante-docker.yaml file which contains a configuration that will work out of this box for this guide.

cp sample-vigilante.yml $VIGILANTE_PATH/vigilante.yml
nano $VIGILANTE_PATH/vigilante.yml # edit the config file to replace $TESTNET instances

Deploy Vigilante Locally​

Reporter​

Run the vigilante reporter

go run $VIGILANTE_PATH/cmd/main.go reporter \
         --config $VIGILANTE_PATH/vigilante.yml \
         --babylon-key $BABYLON_KEY_DIR

where $BABYLON_KEY_DIR stores the keyring that will be used to submit BTC headers and checkpoints to Babylon.

Submitter​

Similarly, run the vigilante submitter

go run $VIGILANTE_PATH/cmd/main.go submitter \
         --config $VIGILANTE_PATH/vigilante.yml

Monitor​

The monitor mode requires the genesis file of Babylon as an additional parameter, which is stored under $BABYLON_NODE_PATH/config/genesis.json. So, run the vigilante monitor

go run $VIGILANTE_PATH/cmd/main.go monitor \
         --genesis $BABYLON_NODE_PATH/config/genesis.json
         --config $VIGILANTE_PATH/vigilante.yml

Deploy Vigilante Using Docker​

Reporter​

Initially, build a Docker image named babylonchain/vigilante-reporter

cp sample-vigilante-docker.yml $VIGILANTE_PATH/vigilante.yml
make reporter-build

Afterwards, run the above image and attach the directories that contain the configuration for Babylon, Bitcoin, and the vigilante.

docker run --rm \
         -v $TESTNET_PATH/bitcoin:/bitcoin \
         -v $BABYLON_NODE_PATH:/babylon \
         -v $VIGILANTE_PATH:/vigilante \
         babylonchain/vigilante-reporter

Submitter​

Follow the same steps as above, but with the babylonchain/vigilante-submitter Docker image.

docker run --rm \
         -v $TESTNET_PATH/bitcoin:/bitcoin \
         -v $BABYLON_NODE_PATH:/babylon \
         -v $VIGILANTE_PATH:/vigilante \
         babylonchain/vigilante-submitter

Monitor​

Follow the same steps as above, but with the babylonchain/vigilante-monitor Docker image.

docker run --rm \
         -v $TESTNET_PATH/bitcoin:/bitcoin \
         -v $BABYLON_NODE_PATH:/babylon \
         -v $VIGILANTE_PATH:/vigilante \
         babylonchain/vigilante-monitor

Buildx​

The above Dockerfiles are also compatible with Docker's buildx feature that allows multi-architectural builds. To have a multi-architectural build,

docker buildx create --use
make reporter-buildx  # for the reporter
make submitter-buildx # for the submitter
make monitor-buildx # for the monitor