Operate Iroha 2 via CLI

You can perform most operations in an Iroha 2 network using the Iroha Client CLI. This tutorial guides you through setting it up, configuring it, and executing basic operations on the network.

1. Set Up Iroha Client CLI

INFO

To set up the Iroha Client CLI, an instance of the Iroha network must be launched and operational.

Create a new directory and copy the client.toml configuration file there:

$ cp path_to_iroha_repo/defaults/client.toml path_to_new_directory/

2. Configure Iroha Client CLI

1. Navigate to the directory with the copied client.toml configuration file.

2. Run the Iroha Client CLI:

   $ iroha

   Expected result

   Iroha CLI Client lets you interact with Iroha Peers Web API without direct network usage
   
   Usage: iroha [OPTIONS] <COMMAND>
   
   Commands:
     domain   The subcommand related to domains
     account  The subcommand related to accounts
     asset    The subcommand related to assets
     peer     The subcommand related to p2p networking
     events   The subcommand related to event streaming
     wasm     The subcommand related to Wasm
     blocks   The subcommand related to block streaming
     json     The subcommand related to multi-instructions as Json or Json5
     help     Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
   
   Options:
     -c, --config <PATH>  Path to the configuration file [default: client.toml]
     -v, --verbose        More verbose output
     -h, --help           Print help
     -V, --version        Print version

By default, the Iroha Client searches for a configuration in the client.toml file located in its current working directory. We already copied it there, so we're all set.

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To run any of the Iroha client commands with some other configuration file, use the following syntax:

$ iroha --config path/to/client.toml <COMMAND>

This is a non-persistent configuration: each time you run iroha, you must add the --config path/to/client.toml command-line argument, unless the client.toml config file is in the working directory.

The account specified in the [account] section of client.toml is preregistered in the default genesis block of the blockchain. Only it can interact with the blockchain for now. If you change the keys or the domain of the account in the configuration file, make sure that they are preregistered on the blockchain too.

To check that a configuration works, run the following query:

$ iroha domain list all

The output should contain several preregistered domains.

Expected result

  {
    "id": "garden_of_live_flowers",
    "logo": null,
    "metadata": {},
    "owned_by": "ed01204164BF554923ECE1FD412D241036D863A6AE430476C898248B8237D77534CFC4@genesis"
  },
  {
    "id": "genesis",
    "logo": null,
    "metadata": {},
    "owned_by": "ed01204164BF554923ECE1FD412D241036D863A6AE430476C898248B8237D77534CFC4@genesis"
  },
  {
    "id": "wonderland",
    "logo": null,
    "metadata": {
      "key": "value"
    },
    "owned_by": "ed0120CE7FA46C9DCE7EA4B125E2E36BDB63EA33073E7590AC92816AE1E861B7048B03@wonderland"
  }

3. Register a Domain

INFO

A domain is a group of entities like asset definitions, accounts, and other objects grouped logically. These are described in greater detail in the Blockchain section of the documentation.

To register a new domain, run:

$ iroha domain register --id="looking_glass"

Once executed, a confirmation message appears. However, since the details of the new domain are not directly readable in that message, to confirm that you have successfully created the new looking_glass domain, run:

$ iroha domain list all

Expected result

  {
    "id": "looking_glass",
    "logo": null,
    "metadata": {},
    "owned_by": "ed0120CE7FA46C9DCE7EA4B125E2E36BDB63EA33073E7590AC92816AE1E861B7048B03@wonderland"
  },

Note that the owner of the new domain is the account specified in our config file. They performed the registration.

With a domain available, it is time to register an account in it.

4. Register an Account

To register a new account, you need a cryptographic key pair consisting of a public and a private key. You will use it to establish a secure communication channel between yourself and the network.

For users' convenience, Iroha comes with kagami, a built-in key generator tool. To generate a new key pair with kagami, run the following command:

$ kagami crypto

TIP

To customize the generated keys, you can specify a number of parameters. For instance, kagami can use one of four available algorithms to generate cryptographic keys.

To learn more about generating cryptographic keys with kagami, available algorithms, and other parameters, see Generating Cryptographic Keys with Kagami

For the purposes of this tutorial, we iuse the following key pair:

Public key (multihash): "ed0120ABA0446CFBD4E12627FFA870FB37993ED83EB1AE0588184B90D832A64C24C379"
Private key (multihash): "802620CBD3D701B561FE98463767729176404DC757D690F78980B8FDD40C171CCB8EB5"

To register a new account within the looking_glass domain, run:

$ iroha account register --id="ed0120ABA0446CFBD4E12627FFA870FB37993ED83EB1AE0588184B90D832A64C24C379@looking_glass"

The --id argument in the above code snippet specifies the account id, the unique identifier of the account. It consists of the user public key (generated using kagami) and the domain it is associated with.

If the account registration is successful, you receive a confirmation message. Similar to the domain registration, to confirm that you have successfully created a new account within the looking_glass domain, run:

$ iroha account list all

Expected result

[
  {
    "id": "ed0120E9F632D3034BAB6BB26D92AC8FD93EF878D9C5E69E01B61B4C47101884EE2F99@garden_of_live_flowers",
    "metadata": {}
  },
  {
    "id": "ed01204164BF554923ECE1FD412D241036D863A6AE430476C898248B8237D77534CFC4@genesis",
    "metadata": {}
  },
  {
    "id": "ed0120ABA0446CFBD4E12627FFA870FB37993ED83EB1AE0588184B90D832A64C24C379@looking_glass",
    "metadata": {}
  },
  {
    "id": "ed012004FF5B81046DDCCF19E2E451C45DFB6F53759D4EB30FA2EFA807284D1CC33016@wonderland",
    "metadata": {
      "key": "value"
    }
  },
  {
    "id": "ed0120CE7FA46C9DCE7EA4B125E2E36BDB63EA33073E7590AC92816AE1E861B7048B03@wonderland",
    "metadata": {
      "key": "value"
    }
  }
]

5. Transfer a Domain

The account we just created is part of the looking_glass domain but doesn't own it, so it can't manage the domain. To enable this, we'll transfer looking_glass ownership to our new account.

We could change the keys and domain in client.toml at this point and continue working with the account we just created, but we wouldn't be able to do much in the looking_glass domain, as our new account is not the owner of the looking_glass domain, and therefore cannot manage it.

To transfer a domain, perform the following:

1. Run the transfer command:

   $ iroha domain transfer --id="looking_glass" --from "ed0120CE7FA46C9DCE7EA4B125E2E36BDB63EA33073E7590AC92816AE1E861B7048B03@wonderland" --to "ed0120ABA0446CFBD4E12627FFA870FB37993ED83EB1AE0588184B90D832A64C24C379@looking_glass"

2. Check that the ownership changed:

   $ iroha domain list all

3. Switch to the newly created account. For this, we need to modify the public_key, private_key, and domain in the client.toml config file with the credentials of the user we want to act as.

Note that here the domain of the user that we are switching to matches the one we just transferred. However, this is not a requirement. A user may be registered in one domain and own multiple others. When setting the domain in the configuration file, always use the one that your user is registered with.

Expected result

The account section of your updated client.toml file:

[account]
domain = "looking_glass"
public_key = "ed0120ABA0446CFBD4E12627FFA870FB37993ED83EB1AE0588184B90D832A64C24C379"
private_key = "802620CBD3D701B561FE98463767729176404DC757D690F78980B8FDD40C171CCB8EB5"

TIP

Permissions determine accounts rights within Iroha. Domain owners have the most rights in a domain by default, but permission configuration in Iroha is very flexible and can be customized to your needs.

Now that we control the domain, we can define and manage assets in it.

6. Register and Mint Assets

To mint an asset, its asset definition must be registered first.

To register a tea token within the looking_glass domain, run:

$ iroha asset definition register --id="tea#looking_glass" --type="Numeric"

The numeric tea asset is now registered within the looking_glass domain.

If you open the terminal where the Iroha network runs, you will see that all our activity caused numerous pipeline events there.

To mint tea tokens run:

$ iroha asset mint --id="tea##ed0120ABA0446CFBD4E12627FFA870FB37993ED83EB1AE0588184B90D832A64C24C379@looking_glass" --quantity="100"

After minting one hundred tea, more pipeline events are expected, and you can also query the assets that you have just minted:

$ iroha asset list all

Expected result

[
  {
    "id": "tea##ed0120ABA0446CFBD4E12627FFA870FB37993ED83EB1AE0588184B90D832A64C24C379@looking_glass",
    "value": {
      "Numeric": "100"
    }
  },
  {
    "id": "cabbage#garden_of_live_flowers#ed0120CE7FA46C9DCE7EA4B125E2E36BDB63EA33073E7590AC92816AE1E861B7048B03@wonderland",
    "value": {
      "Numeric": "44"
    }
  },
  {
    "id": "rose##ed0120CE7FA46C9DCE7EA4B125E2E36BDB63EA33073E7590AC92816AE1E861B7048B03@wonderland",
    "value": {
      "Numeric": "13"
    }
  }
]

7. Transfer Assets

After minting the assets, you can transfer some of your tea to another account:

$ iroha asset transfer --to="ed0120CE7FA46C9DCE7EA4B125E2E36BDB63EA33073E7590AC92816AE1E861B7048B03@wonderland" --id="tea##ed0120ABA0446CFBD4E12627FFA870FB37993ED83EB1AE0588184B90D832A64C24C379@looking_glass"  --quantity=33

8. Burn Assets

Burning assets is quite similar to minting them:

$ iroha asset burn --id="tea##ed0120ABA0446CFBD4E12627FFA870FB37993ED83EB1AE0588184B90D832A64C24C379@looking_glass" --quantity="15"

9. Visualize Outputs

Although you will get a constant data feed of the network within the terminal running docker compose, you can also configure an output to listen to events of several types on the network: blocks generation, transactions, data events and triggers.

We will set up an event listener for the block pipeline.

From a new terminal tab/window run:

$ iroha events block-pipeline

Expected result

Listening to events with filter: Pipeline(Block(BlockEventFilter { height: None, status: None }))
{
  "Pipeline": {
    "Block": {
      "header": {
        "height": 14,
        "prev_block_hash": "AF1ABC889019971D4C4E8866C347367D63A024319E50AEF989DB255F761E9D1D",
        "transactions_hash": "7F2091D887BF9DBF6100DFEA696B06AE269C288AE55F1D281D9FDDAD93D1B8F1",
        "creation_time_ms": 1721132667162,
        "view_change_index": 1,
        "consensus_estimation_ms": 4000
      },
      "hash": "1CC6256356418D02F19B17487AD4F7F105AE6CD3FD129760C575066484F3EF97",
      "status": "Approved"
    }
  }
}
{
  "Pipeline": {
    "Block": {
      "header": {
        "height": 14,
        "prev_block_hash": "AF1ABC889019971D4C4E8866C347367D63A024319E50AEF989DB255F761E9D1D",
        "transactions_hash": "7F2091D887BF9DBF6100DFEA696B06AE269C288AE55F1D281D9FDDAD93D1B8F1",
        "creation_time_ms": 1721132667162,
        "view_change_index": 1,
        "consensus_estimation_ms": 4000
      },
      "hash": "99D30F9DD159A397A76E4A37143433BD302264F7509B6E154CA9C18263543857",
      "status": "Committed"
    }
  }
}
{
  "Pipeline": {
    "Block": {
      "header": {
        "height": 14,
        "prev_block_hash": "AF1ABC889019971D4C4E8866C347367D63A024319E50AEF989DB255F761E9D1D",
        "transactions_hash": "7F2091D887BF9DBF6100DFEA696B06AE269C288AE55F1D281D9FDDAD93D1B8F1",
        "creation_time_ms": 1721132667162,
        "view_change_index": 1,
        "consensus_estimation_ms": 4000
      },
      "hash": "99D30F9DD159A397A76E4A37143433BD302264F7509B6E154CA9C18263543857",
      "status": "Applied"
    }
  }
}

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To find out how to listen to other types of events, run the iroha events help command.

What's Next

Now that you understand the basics, you can explore these advanced documentation:

• Learn how to build on Iroha 2 with our SDK turorials.
• Understand the fundamental concepts behind Iroha 2 in the Blockchain section.
• Build more complex networks using the Configuration and Management section.