Gridcoin HUG REST API

The purpose of the Gridcoin HUG REST API is to provide an open-source high performance interface to the Gridcoin network through simple GET requests.

By following this guide, you can easily recreate the API in your own control. Do remember to change the API key and rpc details you've configured in the gridcoinresearch.conf file.

You can find the code within the Gridcoin-Community github org.

About: HUG

Embrace the APIs of the future

Drastically simplify API development over multiple interfaces. With hug, design and develop your API once, then expose it however your clients need to consume it. Be it locally, over HTTP, or through the command line - hug is the fastest and most modern way to create APIs on Python3.

Unparalleled performance

hug has been built from the ground up with performance in mind. It is built to consume resources only when necessary and is then compiled with Cython to achieve amazing performance. As a result, hug consistently benchmarks as one of the fastest Python frameworks and without question takes the crown as the fastest high-level framework for Python 3.

Source: Official website.

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Install guide

This is an install guide for Ubuntu 17.10. The HUG REST API uses Python3, HUG, Gunicorn & NGINX. If you change the OS or server components then the following guide will be less applicable, if you succeed please do provide a separate readme for alternative implementation solutions.

Setup dependencies & Python environment

We create the 'grcapi' user, however you could rename this to whatever you want, just remember to change the NGINX & Gunicorn configuration files.

Setup a dedicated user

adduser grcapi
<ENTER NEW PASSWORD>
<CONFIRM NEW PASSWORD>
usermod -aG sudo grcapi
sudo usermod -a -G www-data grcapi
su - grcapi

Install required applications

sudo apt-get install libffi-dev libssl-dev python3-pip python3-dev build-essential git nginx python3-setuptools virtualenv libcurl4-openssl-dev

Create Python virtual environment

mkdir HUG
virtualenv -p python3 HUG
echo "source ./HUG/bin/activate" > access_env.sh
chmod +x access_env.sh
source access_env.sh

Install Python packages

pip3 install --upgrade pip
pip3 install --upgrade setuptools
pip3 install --upgrade wheel
pip3 install requests
pip3 install hug
pip3 install gunicorn
pip3 install json

Configure NGINX

NGINX serves as a reverse web proxy to Gunicorn & uses an UNIX socket instead of an IP address for referencing Gunicorn.

Copy the nginx.conf file to /etc/nginx/
Reset nginx (sudo service nginx restart)

sudo mv default /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Implement SSL Cert

You aught to implement a free LetsEncrypt SSL certificate, this requires a domain name (they don't sign IP addresses) and it needs to be renewed every few months by running certbot again. NOTE: Replace api.domain.tld with your own full domain path.

https://certbot.eff.org/

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-certbot-nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d api.domain.tld

Configure Gunicorn

Official website: http://gunicorn.org/

Documentation: http://docs.gunicorn.org/en/stable/

Gunicorn is used to provide scalable worker process management and task buffering for the HUG REST API. Gunicorn's documentation states that each CPU can provide roughly 2-3+ Gunicorn workers, however it may be able to achieve a higher quantity (worth testing).

cp gunicorn.service /etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.service
sudo systemctl start gunicorn
sudo systemctl enable gunicorn

MISC

If you make changes to the service or the hug script:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart gunicorn

If you want to monitor Gunicorn:

tail -f gunicorn_access_log
tail -f gunicorn_error_log
sudo systemctl status gunicorn

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Available HUG REST API functionality

This section will detail the functionality which will be available to the public through GET requests.

The functions are currently all read-only functions, enabling the public to request data from the network without the risk of exposing critical wallet controls.

grc_command

All GRC functions which don't require any input parameters can be called through this function.

Parameters

function string

beaconreport
currentneuralhash
currentneuralreport
getmininginfo
neuralreport
superblockage
upgradedbeaconreport
validcpids
getbestblockhash
getblockchaininfo
getblockcount
getconnectioncount
getdifficulty
getinfo
getnettotals
getnetworkinfo
getpeerinfo
getrawmempool
listallpolldetails
listallpolls
listpolldetails
listpolls
networktime
getwalletinfo

api_key string

Usage

https://subdomain.domain.tld/grc_command?api_key=123abc&function=getinfo

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Have a need for the GRC HUG REST API? Or have any questions about the project, post a reply below!