Initializing a Kiwi News node

Using Terraform to create a VM and Ansible scripts to install and run the Kiwi News app. Each node participates in the decentralized Kiwi News network for crypto-related news.

As-is the scripts will create a small VM with a KN node in reconcile mode. In this mode the node will participate in the network and provide the HTTP API for interaction with the data, but not the built-in web frontend for story submission and voting.

To use the web frontend, you'll have to make changes to settings in the ecosystem.config.js file. See the Getting started section of the Kiwistand Github repository and the config files there for more information.

Creating a VM with Terraform

This example uses the Hetzner Cloud, but since the requirements are minimal, other providers could be used easily instead.

The recipe creates one small VM with 4GB RAM and 40GB disk space.

cd tf
terraform init                  # Initialize and download providers
terraform plan                  # Check to see if your definitions are ok
terraform apply -auto-approve   # Create the resources

Terraform will respond with the IP address of the created VM:

knnode_ip4 = "XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX"

Adding the Kiwi News software with Ansible

Install the required Ansible modules

cd ansible
ansible-galaxy install -r requirements.yml

Check the Ansible inventory for the new node

Due to our configuration, Ansible can access information about the resources we just created with Terraform.

Executing

cd ansible
ansible-inventory -i terraform.yml --graph --vars

should produce something like this:

@all:
  |--@ungrouped:
  |  |--kn-node
  |  |  |--{ansible_host = XX.XXX.XXX.XX}
  |  |  |--{ansible_ssh_private_key_file = ~/.ssh/id_rsa}
  |  |  |--{ansible_user = knuser}

Install node.js

ansible-playbook nodejs-playbook

This playbook installs Node JS, NPM and PM2.

Install the Kiwi News software

cp vars-template.yml vars.yml
# edit vars.yml to add your Alchemy API key
ansible-playbook kiwistand-playbook

Installs the Kiwi News app and its dependencies.

Run the Kiwi News app

Initialize the database by running the sync script for some time:

mkdir bootstrap cache
npm run sync

Cancel the script and start the app:

pm2 start ecosystem.config.js

PM2 will start the app in the background and manage it. Use the commands pm2 monit or pm2 logs to see what is going on.

For more log output uncomment the line

// DEBUG: "attestate",

in ecosystem.config.js.