Advanced Topics

Genesis block configuration

The genesis block is the first block created on a new chain according to a predefined specification. If you want to bootstrap your own Aergo blockchain, you will need to configure and create the genesis block. All nodes producing blocks and syncing with the network need to use the same genesis block.

You can find an example genesis configuration json file here. It is the one used for the public testnet.

Key	Type	Explanation
chain_id	obj
– magic	string	A name identifier used to distinguish different chains. Example: testnet.aergo.io
– public	bool	If this chain is for a public (true) or private network. This may affect certain features.
– mainnet	bool	If this is the main network (true) or a sidechain for another network.
– consensus	string	This blockchain’s consensus type (dpos)
– coinbasefee	string	The default transaction fee amount
timestamp	number	The genesis block’s creation timestamp in nanoseconds
balance	obj	A mapping of addresses and allocated balances
bps	list	A list of fallback block producer peer ids.

Manually creating peer identification

Every peer (i.e. instance of aergosvr) is identified by a peer id, derived from its public key. If unspecified, aergosvr creates these automatically, but you may want to do it manually to control the generation of keys and make backups. You can use the CLI to do that:

aergocli keygen your-keyname

# Using Docker:
docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/tools/ aergo/tools aergocli keygen your-keyname

You then need to specify the path to the generated your-keyname.key file in the Aergo configuration:

...
[p2p]
npkey = "/aergo/your-keyname.key"
...