Console Overview

Accessing and using the Canton Console for validator and SV node operations

For more involved debugging and disaster recovery, direct access to the console of a Canton node (participant, sequencer, mediator) might be required. Steps to obtain such access:

Requirements:

• Direct access to the Canton node process
• Canton binary

Once you see the following banner for the console you have successfully gained access

_____            _
/ ____|          | |
| |     __ _ _ __ | |_ ___  _ __
| |    / _` | '_ \| __/ _ \| '_ \
| |___| (_| | | | | || (_) | | | |
\_____\__,_|_| |_|\__\___/|_| |_|

Welcome to Canton!

Participant console

1. Obtain an authentication token as specified in the Canton authentication docs

2. Ensure you can access the participant’s ports 5001 and 5002

3. Add the configuration to a local file console.conf

           canton {
             remote-participants {
               participant {
                 admin-api {
                   port = 5002
                   address = localhost
                 }
                 ledger-api {
                   port = 5001
                   address = localhost
                 }
                 token = "<auth token>"
               }
             }
             features.enable-preview-commands = yes
             features.enable-testing-commands = yes
             features.enable-repair-commands = yes
           }
   
   

4. Run the docker command

If you run the participant using the docker compose setup the docker command must be run with the docker network used by the participant. Adjust the configuration to connect to the participant container:

canton {
  remote-participants {
    participant {
      admin-api {
        port = 5002
        address = participant
      }
      ledger-api {
        port = 5001
        address = participant
      }
      token = "<auth token>"
    }
  }
  features.enable-preview-commands = yes
  features.enable-testing-commands = yes
  features.enable-repair-commands = yes
}

Running docker with the default network (splice-validator):

Sequencer console

Mediator console

Access in a K8s cluster

In a K8s cluster you can use a debug pod to access the console directly from the cluster.

First you can create a pod running the right canton version using:

    kubectl debug "${POD_NAME}" --image "$(kubectl get pod "${POD_NAME}" -o json | jq -re '.spec.containers[0].image')" -i -t -- bash

where POD_NAME is the name of the participant/sequencer/mediator pod.

Once you are inside the running pod you can install a text editor and create the config file console.conf that is described above.

    $ apt-get update
    $ apt-get install -y vim
    $ vim console.conf # paste in the config from above
    $ /app/bin/canton -v -c console.conf