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P2P Connection

The fetchai/p2p_libp2p:0.26.0 connection allows AEAs to create a peer-to-peer communication network. In particular, the connection creates an overlay network which maps agents' public keys to IP addresses.

Local demo

First, make sure you have installed the crypto plugin of the target test-net. E.g. for Fetch.AI: 

pip install aea-ledger-fetchai

Create and run the genesis AEA

Create one AEA as follows:

aea create my_genesis_aea
cd my_genesis_aea
aea add connection fetchai/p2p_libp2p:0.26.0
aea config set agent.default_connection fetchai/p2p_libp2p:0.26.0
aea install
aea build

Establish the proof of representation:

aea generate-key fetchai
aea add-key fetchai fetchai_private_key.txt
aea generate-key fetchai fetchai_connection_private_key.txt
aea add-key fetchai fetchai_connection_private_key.txt --connection
aea issue-certificates

Run the AEA:

aea run --connections fetchai/p2p_libp2p:0.26.0

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.) This is the entry peer address for the local agent communication network created by the genesis AEA.

Create and run another AEA

Create a second AEA:

aea create my_other_aea
cd my_other_aea
aea add connection fetchai/p2p_libp2p:0.26.0
aea config set agent.default_connection fetchai/p2p_libp2p:0.26.0
aea install
aea build

Establish the proof of representation:

aea generate-key fetchai
aea add-key fetchai fetchai_private_key.txt
aea generate-key fetchai fetchai_connection_private_key.txt
aea add-key fetchai fetchai_connection_private_key.txt --connection
aea issue-certificates

Provide the AEA with the information it needs to find the genesis:

aea config set --type dict vendor.fetchai.connections.p2p_libp2p.config \
'{
  "delegate_uri": "127.0.0.1:11001",
  "entry_peers": ["SOME_ADDRESS"],
  "local_uri": "127.0.0.1:9001",
  "log_file": "libp2p_node.log",
  "public_uri": "127.0.0.1:9001"
}'
Here SOME_ADDRESS needs to be replaced with the list of multi addresses displayed in the log output of the genesis AEA.

Run the AEA:

aea run --connections fetchai/p2p_libp2p:0.26.0

You can inspect the libp2p_node.log log files of the AEA to see how they discover each other.

Note

Currently p2p_libp2p connection limits the total message size to 3 MB.

Local demo with skills

Explore the demo section for further examples.

Deployed agent communication network

You can connect to the deployed public test network by adding one or multiple of the following addresses as the p2p_libp2p connection's entry_peers:

/dns4/acn.fetch.ai/tcp/9000/p2p/16Uiu2HAkw1ypeQYQbRFV5hKUxGRHocwU5ohmVmCnyJNg36tnPFdx

/dns4/acn.fetch.ai/tcp/9001/p2p/16Uiu2HAmVWnopQAqq4pniYLw44VRvYxBUoRHqjz1Hh2SoCyjbyRW

Specifically, in an AEA's configuration aea-config.yaml add the above addresses for entry_peers as follows: 

---
public_id: fetchai/p2p_libp2p:0.26.0
type: connection
config:
  delegate_uri: null
  entry_peers: [/dns4/acn.fetch.ai/tcp/9000/p2p/16Uiu2HAkw1ypeQYQbRFV5hKUxGRHocwU5ohmVmCnyJNg36tnPFdx,/dns4/acn.fetch.ai/tcp/9001/p2p/16Uiu2HAmVWnopQAqq4pniYLw44VRvYxBUoRHqjz1Hh2SoCyjbyRW]
  public_uri: null
  local_uri: 127.0.0.1:9001

Note, this configuration change must be made for all agents attempting to communicate with each other via the Agent Communication Network. For example, in demos involving two agents, both agents will need the above modifications to their respective aea-config.yaml file. However, remember to use different ports in local_uri. This will allow both agents to default to this communication network without the added overhead of opening ports and specifying hosts on the individual host machines running each agent.

Configuring the connection.yaml entries:

To learn more about how to configure your fetchai/p2p_libp2p:0.26.0 connection consult the README.md file supplied with the connection package.

Running Go peer standalone

You can run a peer node in standalone mode; that is, as a Go process with no dependency on the AEA framework. To facilitate such a deployment, we provide a script run_acn_node_standalone.py and a corresponding Dockerfile.

First, you need to build the node's binary (libp2p_node) either:

  • locally 
    svn export https://github.com/fetchai/agents-aea.git/trunk/packages/fetchai/connections/p2p_libp2p
cd p2p_libp2p
go build
chmod +x libp2p_node
    Make sure you satisfy the system requirements.
  • or within a docker image using the provided Dockerfile: 
    docker build -t acn_node_standalone -f scripts/acn/Dockerfile .

Next, to run the node binary in standalone mode, it requires values for the following entries:

  • AEA_P2P_ID: the node's private key, will be used as its identity
  • AEA_P2P_URI: the local host and port to use by node
  • AEA_P2P_URI_PUBLIC: the URI under which the peer is publicly reachable
  • AEA_P2P_DELEGATE_URI: the URI under which the peer receives delegate connections
  • AEA_P2P_ENTRY_URIS: an optionally supplied list of comma-separated (,) entry Multiaddresses for the peer to bootstrap

The script allows different methods to pass these values to the node:

  • As environment variables exported in the format <ENTRY_KEYWORD>=<ENTRY_VALUE> for each entry. Then: 
    python3 run_acn_node_standalone.py libp2p_node --config-from-env
  • Using an environment file containing the entries and their values in the format <ENTRY_KEYWORD>=<ENTRY_VALUE>, one entry per line. Then: 
    python3 run_acn_node_standalone.py libp2p_node --config-from-file <env-file-path>
    or 
    docker run -v <acn_config_file>:/acn/acn_config -it acn_node_standalone --config-from-file /acn/acn_config
  • Using command line arguments: 
    python3 run_acn_node_standalone.py libp2p_node --key-file <node_private_key.txt> \
  --uri <AEA_P2P_URI> --uri-external <AEA_P2P_URI_PUBLIC>  \
  --uri-delegate <AEA_P2P_DELEGATE_URI> \
  --entry-peers-maddrs <AEA_P2P_ENTRY_URI_1> <AEA_P2P_ENTRY_URI_2> ...
    or 
    docker run -v <node_private_key.txt>:/acn/key.txt -it acn_node_standalone --key-file /acn/key.txt \
  --uri <AEA_P2P_URI> --uri-external <AEA_P2P_URI_PUBLIC>  \
  --uri-delegate <AEA_P2P_DELEGATE_URI> \
  --entry-peers-maddrs <AEA_P2P_ENTRY_URI_1> <AEA_P2P_ENTRY_URI_2> ...

Note that the script will always save the configuration of the running node as a file under the name .acn_config in the current working directory. This can be handy when you want the exact same configuration for future runs of the node.

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