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Post-installation

Once you have deployed HORNET, you can set all the parameters using configuration files.

Configuration Files​

The most important configuration files are:

  • config.json - Includes all configuration flags and their values.
  • peering.json - Includes all connection details to your static peers (neighbors).

Default Configuration​

There are default configuration files available that you can use:

  • config_testnet.json - Includes the default values required to join the Shimmer Testnet.
  • config_defaults.json - Includes all default parameters used by HORNET. You can use this file as a reference when customizing your config.json

You can pick one of these files and use it as your config.json to join the configured network.

Please see the config.json and peering.json articles for more information about the contents of the configuration files.

Configuring HTTP REST API​

One of the tasks the the node is responsible for is exposing API to clients that would like to interact with the IOTA network, such as crypto wallets, exchanges, IoT devices, etc.

By default, HORNET will expose the Core REST API v2 on port 14265. If you use the recommended setup the API will be exposed on the default HTTPS port (443) and secured using an SSL certificate.

Since offering the HTTP REST API to the public can consume your node's resources, there are options to restrict which routes can be called and other request limitations:

Routes​

  • restAPI.publicRoutes defines which routes can be called without JWT authorization.
  • restAPI.protectedRoutes defines which routes require JWT authorization.
  • All other routes will not be exposed.

JWT Auth​

To generate a JWT-token to be used with the protected routes you can run:

./hornet tool jwt-api --databasePath <path to your p2pstore> --salt <restAPI.jwtAuth.salt value from your config.json>

If you are running our recommended setup then see here.

Proof-of-Work​

If you are concerned with resource consumption, consider turning off restAPI.pow.enabled. This way, the clients must perform proof of work locally before submitting a block for broadcast. If you would like to offer proof of work to clients, consider increasing the restAPI.pow.workerCount to provide a faster block submission experience.

Reverse Proxy​

We recommend that you provide your HTTP REST API behind a reverse proxy, such as HAProxy, Traefik, Nginx, or Apache configured with TLS. When using our recommended setup this is done for you automatically.

Other​

You can find all the HTTP REST API related options in the config.json reference

Update to 2.x.x​

You can update HORNET to the latest stable version with no breaking updates by running the following command:

docker compose down && docker compose pull && docker compose up -d