NodeJs blockchain on private ethereum

Question

I have created simple blockchain application using NodeJS. The blockchain data file is getting stored on local File System. There is no mining blocks, no difficulty level involved in this blockchain.

Please suggest, if I can host this application on private ethereum / hyperledge, and what all changes I would need to do for this? Below code I'm using for creating blocks.

Sample Genesis Block

[{"index":0,"previousHash":"0","timestamp":1465154705,"transaction":{"id":"0","transactionHash":"0","type":"","data":{"StudInfo":[{"id":"","studentId":"","parenterId":"","schemeId":"","batchId":"","instructorId":"","trainingId":"","skillId":""}]},"fromAddress":""},"hash":"816534932c2b7154836da6afc367695e6337db8a921823784c14378abed4f7d7"}]

Sample Code(NodeJS)

var generateNextBlock = (blockData) => {
    var previousBlock = getLatestBlock();
    var nextIndex = previousBlock.index + 1;
    var nextTimestamp = new Date().getTime() / 1000;
    var nextHash = calculateHash(nextIndex, previousBlock.hash, nextTimestamp, blockData);

    return new Block(nextIndex, previousBlock.hash, nextTimestamp, blockData, nextHash);
};

var calculateHashForBlock = (block) => {
    return calculateHash(block.index, block.previousHash, block.timestamp, block.transaction);
};

var calculateHash = (index, previousHash, timestamp, transaction) => {
    return CryptoJS.SHA256(index + previousHash + timestamp + transaction).toString();
};

var addBlock = (newBlock) => {
    if (isValidNewBlock(newBlock, getLatestBlock())) {
        blockchain.push(newBlock);
        blocksDb.write(blockchain);
    }
};

var isValidNewBlock = (newBlock, previousBlock) => {
    if (previousBlock.index + 1 !== newBlock.index) {
        console.log('invalid index');
        return false;
    } else if (previousBlock.hash !== newBlock.previousHash) {
        console.log('invalid previoushash');
        return false;
    } else if (calculateHashForBlock(newBlock) !== newBlock.hash) {
        console.log(typeof (newBlock.hash) + ' ' + typeof calculateHashForBlock(newBlock));
        console.log('invalid hash: ' + calculateHashForBlock(newBlock) + ' ' + newBlock.hash);
        return false;
    }
    return true;
};

Answer 1

Congratulations if you have gotten this far you have successfully setup Geth on AWS. Now we will go over how to configure an Ethereum node. Make sure you are in your home directory on your cloud server with the pwd command and then create a new folder called whatever you want to create the genesis block of your Ethereum blockchain. You can do this with the following commands. The first command is to create the folder, change directory into the folder and then create a file called genesis.json.

mkdir mlg-ethchain cd mlg-ethchain nano genesis.json

To create a private blockchain you need to define the genesis block. Genesis blocks are usually embedded in the client but with Ethereum you are able to configure a genesis block using a json object. Paste the following JSON object into your genesis.json file and we explain each variable in the following section.

{
"nonce": "0xdeadbeefdeadbeef",
"timestamp": "0x0",
"parentHash": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
"extraData": "0x0",
"gasLimit": "0x8000000",
"difficulty": "0x400",
"Mixhash": 
"0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000", "coinbase": "0x3333333333333333333333333333333333333333",
"alloc": {
}
}

The coinbase is the default address of the mining address. Because you have not created a wallet yet this can be set to whatever you want provided that it is a valid Ethereum address. Difficulty is how hard it is for a miner to create a new block. For testing and development purposes it is recommended that you start with a low difficulty and then increase it. The parentHash is the hash of the parent block which doesnt exist because this is the first block in the chain. The gasLimit is the maximum amount of gas that is required to execute a transaction or send tokens from one account to another. The nonce is a random number for this block. This is the number that every miner has to guess to define the block but for the first block it must be hardcoded. You are able to provide any extraData is the extraData section. In the alloc section you can allocate a number of premined tokens or ether to certain addresses at the beginning of the blockchain. We do not want to do this so we will keep it blank.

After you have confirmed this you can check the file to make sure it has been configured correctly with the cat command. From the same directory input this command.

cat genesis.json