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Version: IOTA

Post-installation

Once you have deployed Hornet, you can set all the parameters using configuration files.

Configuration Files​

The most important configuration files are:

  • config.json - Includes all configuration flags and their values.
  • peering.json - Includes all connection details to your static peers (neighbors).
note

Hornet version 0.5.x targets the legacy IOTA 1.0 network. Hornet version 1.x.x targets the IOTA 1.5 network, also known as Chrysalis, which is the focus of this documentation.

Depending on the installation path you selected, default configuration files may also be part of the installation process. So, you may see the following configuration files in your deployment directory:

config.json
config_devnet.json
peering.json
profiles.json

Default Configuration​

By default, Hornet searches for configuration files in the working directory and expects default names, such as config.json and peering.json.

You can change this behavior by running Hornet with some altering arguments.

Please see the config.json article for more information regarding the respective configuration file.

Once you have executed Hornet, it will output all loaded configuration parameters to stdout to show what configuration Hornet actually loaded (omitting sensitive values for things like passwords).

You can see a list of all the other altering command line parameters by running:

hornet --help

If you want a more detailed output you can run:

hornet --help --full

Dashboard​

By default, an admin dashboard (web interface) plugin is available on port 8081. This provides useful information regarding the node's health, peering/neighbors, overall network health, and consumed system resources.

The dashboard plugin only listens on localhost:8081 by default. If you want to make it accessible from the Internet, you will need to change the default configuration. It can be changed using the following config.json file section:

"dashboard": {
  "bindAddress": "localhost:8081",
  "auth": {
    "sessionTimeout": "72h",
    "username": "admin",
    "passwordHash": "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
    "passwordSalt": "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
  }
}

Change dashboard.bindAddress to either 0.0.0.0:8081 to listen on all available interfaces, or the specific interface address accordingly.

Even if it is accessible from the Internet, any visitor will still need a valid username and password combination to access the management section of the dashboard.

The password, hash, and salt can be generated using the integrated pwd-hash CLI tool:

./hornet tools pwd-hash

Output example:

Enter a password:
Re-enter your password:
Success!
Your hash: 24c832e35dc542901b90888321dbfc4b1d9617332cbc124709204e6edf7e49f9
Your salt: 6c71f4753f6fb52d7a4bb5471281400c8fef760533f0589026a0e646bc03acd4
note

The pwd-hash tool outputs the passwordHash and passwordSalt based on your input password.

Copy both values to their corresponding configuration options: dashboard.auth.passwordHash and dashboard.auth.passwordSalt respectively.

For the new password to take effect, you must restart Hornet.

Configuring HTTP REST API​

One of the tasks the the node is responsible for is exposing API to clients that would like to interact with the IOTA network, such as crypto wallets, exchanges, IoT devices, etc.

By default, Hornet will expose the REST API on port 14265. If you use the recommended setup the API will be exposed on the default HTTPS port (443) and secured using an SSL certificate.

Since offering the HTTP REST API to the public can consume your node's resources, there are options to restrict which routes can be called and other request limitations:

Routes​

  • restAPI.publicRoutes defines which routes can be called without JWT authorization.
  • restAPI.protectedRoutes defines which routes require JWT authorization.
  • All other routes will not be exposed.

JWT Auth​

To generate a JWT-token to be used with the protected routes you can run:

./hornet tool jwt-api --databasePath <path to your p2pstore> --salt <restAPI.jwtAuth.salt value from your config.json>

If you are running our recommended setup then see here.

Proof-of-Work​

If you are concerned with resource consumption, consider turning off restAPI.pow.enabled. This way, the clients must perform proof of work locally before submitting a block for broadcast. If you would like to offer proof of work to clients, consider increasing the restAPI.pow.workerCount to provide a faster block submission experience.

Reverse Proxy​

We recommend that you provide your HTTP REST API behind a reverse proxy, such as HAProxy, Traefik, Nginx, or Apache configured with TLS. When using our recommended setup this is done for you automatically.

You can explore more details regarding different API calls at the IOTA client library documentation.