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Aries Cloud Agents Demo

Note

This demo is incomplete and will soon be updated.

Demonstrating an entire decentralised identity scenario involving AEAs and instances of Aries Cloud Agents (ACAs).

Discussion

This demo corresponds with the one here from Aries cloud agent repository .

The aim of this demo is to illustrate how AEAs can connect to ACAs, thus gaining all of their capabilities, such as issuing and requesting verifiable credentials, selective disclosure and zero knowledge proofs.

sequenceDiagram participant faea as Faber_AEA participant faca as Faber_ACA participant aaca as Alice_ACA participant aaea as Alice_AEA activate faea activate faca activate aaca activate aaea Note right of aaea: Shows P2P ID faea->>faca: Request status? faca->>faea: status faea->>faca: Register schema faca->>faea: schema_id faea->>faca: Register credential definition faca->>faea: credential_definition_id faea->>faca: create-invitation faca->>faea: connection inc. invitation faea->>aaea: invitation detail aaea->>aaca: receive-invitation deactivate faea deactivate faca deactivate aaca deactivate aaea

There are two AEAs:

  • Alice_AEA
  • Faber_AEA

and two ACAs:

  • Alice_ACA
  • Faber_ACA

Each AEA is connected to its corresponding ACA: Alice_AEA to Alice_ACA and Faber_AEA to Faber_ACA.

The following lists the sequence of interactions between the four agents:

  • Alice_AEA: starts
  • Alice_AEA: shows its P2P address in the terminal and waits for an invitation detail from Faber_AEA.
  • Alice_AEA: registers itself on the SOEF.
  • Faber_AEA: starts
  • Faber_AEA: searches the SOEF and finds Alice_AEA.
  • Faber_AEA: tests its connection to Faber_ACA.
  • Faber_ACA: responds to Faber_AEA.
  • Faber_AEA: registers a DID on the ledger.
  • Faber_AEA: request Faber_ACA to register a schema on the ledger.
  • Faber_ACA: responds by sending back the schema_id.
  • Faber_AEA: request Faber_ACA to register a credential definition on the ledger.
  • Faber_ACA: responds by sending back the credential_definition_id.
  • Faber_AEA: requests Faber_ACA to create an invitation.
  • Faber_ACA: responds by sending back the connection detail, which contains an invitation field.
  • Faber_AEA: sends the invitation detail to Alice_AEA.
  • Alice_AEA: receives invitation detail from Faber_AEA.
  • Alice_AEA: requests Alice_ACA to accept the invitation, by passing it the invitation detail it received in the last step.

All messages from an AEA to an ACA are http requests (using http_client connection).

All messages from an AEA to another AEA utilise the P2P communication network accessed via the p2p_libp2p connection.

All messages initiated from an ACA to an AEA are webhooks (using webhook connection).

This is the extent of the demo at this point. The rest of the interactions require an instance of the Indy ledger to run. This is what will be implemented next.

The rest of the interactions are broadly as follows:

  • Alice_ACA: accepts the invitation.
  • Alice_ACA: sends a matching invitation request to Faber_ACA.
  • Faber_ACA: accepts

At this point, the two ACAs are connected to each other.

  • Faber_AEA: requests Faber_ACA to issue a credential (e.g. university degree) to Alice_AEA, which Faber_ACA does via Alice_ACA.
  • Faber_AEA: requests proof that Alice_AEA's age is above 18.
  • Alice_AEA: presents proof that it's age is above 18, without presenting its credential.

Preparation Instructions

Dependencies

Follow the Preliminaries and Installation sections from the AEA quick start.

Install Aries cloud-agents (for more info see here) if you do not have it on your machine:

pip install aries-cloudagent

This demo has been successfully tested with aca-py version 0.4.5.

This demo requires an instance of von network running in docker locally (for more info see here)

This demo has been successfully tested with the von-network git repository pulled on 07 Aug 2020 (commit number ad1f84f64d4f4c106a81462f5fbff496c5fbf10e).

Terminals

Open five terminals. The first terminal is used to run an instance of von-network locally in docker. The other four terminals will be used to run each of the four agents in this demo.

VON Network

In the first terminal move to the von-network directory and run an instance of von-network locally in docker.

This tutorial has information on starting (and stopping) the network locally.

./manage build
./manage start --logs
Once the ledger is running, you can see the ledger by going to the web server running on port 9000. On localhost, that means going to http://localhost:9000.

Alice and Faber ACAs

To learn about the command for starting an ACA and its various options:

aca-py start --help

Faber_ACA

In the first terminal:

aca-py start --admin 127.0.0.1 8021 --admin-insecure-mode --inbound-transport http 0.0.0.0 8020 --outbound-transport http --webhook-url http://127.0.0.1:8022/webhooks

Make sure the ports above are unused.

Take note of the specific IP addresses and ports you used in the above command. We will refer to them by the following names:

  • Faber admin IP: 127.0.0.1
  • Faber admin port: 8021
  • Faber webhook port: 8022

The admin IP and port will be used to send administrative commands to this ACA from an AEA.

The webhook port is where the ACA will send notifications to. We will expose this from the AEA so it receives this ACA's notifications.

Alice_ACA

In the second terminal:

aca-py start --admin 127.0.0.1 8031 --admin-insecure-mode --inbound-transport http 0.0.0.0 8030 --outbound-transp http --webhook-url http://127.0.0.1:8032/webhooks

Again, make sure the above ports are unused and take note of the specific IP addresses and ports. In this case:

  • Alice admin IP: 127.0.0.1
  • Alice admin port: 8031
  • Alice webhook port: 8032

Alice and Faber AEAs

Now you can create Alice_AEA and Faber_AEA in terminals 3 and 4 respectively.

Alice_AEA

In the third terminal, fetch Alice_AEA and move into its project folder:

aea fetch fetchai/aries_alice:0.32.0
cd aries_alice
Alternatively, create from scratch.

The following steps create Alice_AEA from scratch: 

aea create aries_alice
cd aries_alice
aea add connection fetchai/p2p_libp2p:0.26.0
aea add connection fetchai/soef:0.27.0
aea add connection fetchai/http_client:0.24.0
aea add connection fetchai/webhook:0.20.0
aea add skill fetchai/aries_alice:0.25.0

Configure the aries_alice skill:

(configuration file: alice/vendor/fetchai/skills/aries_alice/skill.yaml)

Ensure admin_host and admin_port values match with the values you noted above for Alice_ACA. You can use the framework's handy config CLI command to set these values:

aea config set vendor.fetchai.skills.aries_alice.models.strategy.args.admin_host 127.0.0.1

aea config set --type int vendor.fetchai.skills.aries_alice.models.strategy.args.admin_port 8031

Configure the webhook connection:

(configuration file: alice/vendor/fetchai/connections/webhook/connection.yaml).

First ensure the value of webhook_port matches with what you used above for Alice_ACA.

aea config set --type int vendor.fetchai.connections.webhook.config.webhook_port 8032

Next, make sure the value of webhook_url_path is /webhooks/topic/{topic}/.

aea config set vendor.fetchai.connections.webhook.config.webhook_url_path /webhooks/topic/{topic}/

Configure the p2p_libp2p connection:

aea config set --type dict vendor.fetchai.connections.p2p_libp2p.config \
'{
  "delegate_uri": "127.0.0.1:11000",
  "entry_peers": [],
  "local_uri": "127.0.0.1:7000",
  "log_file": "libp2p_node.log",
  "public_uri": "127.0.0.1:7000"
}'

Install the Dependencies and Run Alice_AEA:

Now install all the dependencies:

aea install
aea build

Finally run Alice_AEA:

aea run

Once you see a message of the form To join its network use multiaddr 'SOME_ADDRESS' take note of the address. (Alternatively, use aea get-multiaddress fetchai -c -i fetchai/p2p_libp2p:0.26.0 -u public_uri to retrieve the address.) We will refer to this as Alice_AEA's P2P address.

Faber_AEA

In the fourth terminal, fetch Faber_AEA and move into its project folder:

aea fetch fetchai/aries_faber:0.32.0
cd aries_faber
Alternatively, create from scratch.

The following steps create Faber_AEA from scratch: 

aea create aries_faber
cd aries_faber
aea add connection fetchai/p2p_libp2p:0.26.0
aea add connection fetchai/soef:0.27.0
aea add connection fetchai/http_client:0.24.0
aea add connection fetchai/webhook:0.20.0
aea add skill fetchai/aries_faber:0.23.0

Configure the aries_faber skill:

(configuration file: faber/vendor/fetchai/skills/aries_alice/skill.yaml)

Ensure admin_host and admin_port values match with those you noted above for Faber_ACA.

aea config set vendor.fetchai.skills.aries_faber.models.strategy.args.admin_host 127.0.0.1

aea config set --type int vendor.fetchai.skills.aries_faber.models.strategy.args.admin_port 8021

Configure the webhook connection:

(configuration file: faber/vendor/fetchai/connections/webhook/connection.yaml).

First, ensure the value of webhook_port matches with what you used above for Faber_ACA.

aea config set --type int vendor.fetchai.connections.webhook.config.webhook_port 8022

Next, make sure the value of webhook_url_path is /webhooks/topic/{topic}/.

aea config set vendor.fetchai.connections.webhook.config.webhook_url_path /webhooks/topic/{topic}/

Configure the p2p_libp2p connection:

aea config set --type dict vendor.fetchai.connections.p2p_libp2p.config \
'{
  "delegate_uri": "127.0.0.1:11001",
  "entry_peers": ["SOME_ADDRESS"],
  "local_uri": "127.0.0.1:7001",
  "log_file": "libp2p_node.log",
  "public_uri": "127.0.0.1:7001"
}'

where SOME_ADDRESS is Alice_AEA's P2P address as displayed in the third terminal.

Install the Dependencies and Run Faber_AEA:

Now install all the dependencies:

aea install
aea build

Finally run Faber_AEA:

aea run

You should see Faber_AEA running and showing logs of its activities. For example:

Aries demo: Faber terminal

Looking now at Alice_AEA terminal, you should also see more activity by Alice_AEA after Faber_AEA was started. For example:

Aries demo: Alice terminal

The last error line in Alice_AEA's terminal is caused due to the absence of an Indy ledger instance. In the next update to this demo, this will be resolved.

Terminate and Delete the Agents

You can terminate each agent by pressing Ctrl+C.

To delete the AEAs, go to the projects' parent directory and delete the AEAs:

aea delete aries_faber
aea delete aries_alice

Further developments

In the next update to this demo, the remaining interactions between AEAs and ACAs must be implemented. This means:

  • An instance of Indy ledger must be installed and running. See here for more detail.
  • The commands for running the ACAs need to be adjusted. Additional options relating to a wallet (wallet-name, type, key, storage-type, configuration, credentials) need to be fed to the ACAs as well as the ledger's genesis file so the ACAs can connect to the ledger.
  • The remaining interactions between the AEAs and ACAs as described here need to be implemented.
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