The Blockstack Browser

Blockstack Browser

The Blockstack Browser allows you to explore the Blockstack internet.

Table of contents

Releases

Download the latest release

Developing

macOS

*Please note these instructions have only been tested on macOS 10.13*

Linux

*Note: npm dev runs a BrowserSync process that watches the assets in /app, then builds them and places them in /build, and in turn serves them up on port 3000. When changes are made to the original files, they are rebuilt and re-synced to the browser frames you have open.*

##### Troubleshooting

Common problems and solutions:

mode, which uses a different port (3000) than the production mode (8888).

However, existing applications will direct you to http://localhost:8888 on

sign-in. You will need to *manually* edit the URL to change 8888 to 3000

and refresh the page.

above step and the page still does not load, check your auth= query

parameter. If it starts with any number of / characters, remove them and

reload the page. For example, if your auth= query looks like

auth=///abcdef..., then you will need to change it to auth=abcdef....

Building for macOS

*Note: This has only been tested on macOS High Sierra 10.13*

Building a macOS release for distribution

Building for Windows

Prerequisites:

Run npm run win32.

This will:

The output file can be found at native\windows\BlockstackSetup\bin\Release\en-us\BlockstackSetup.msi.

This does not perform any code or installer file signing.

Building for the Web

Building for Linux (dpkg)

Contributing

We do project-wide sprints every two weeks and we're always looking for more help.

If you'd like to contribute, head to the contributing guidelines. Inside you'll find directions for opening issues, coding standards, and notes on development.

Logging

The Browser uses log4js for logging. The macOS app uses macOS's unified logging

API, os_log for logging.

macOS

On macOS, the Browser sends log events to the macOS app's log server. These are

then included in macOS's unified logging API. You can view logs by starting

Console.app.

To see only Blockstack process logs, filter by process by typing

process: Blockstack in the search box. You can also filter for only log

entries proactively generated by the BLockstack project using this query:

subsystem:org.blockstack.portal subsystem:org.blockstack.core subsystem:org.blockstack.mac

If you'd like to see more detail, enable the inclusion of Info and Debug

messages in the Action menu. Please note that in our experience, Console.app

doesn't always show debug messages in real time and only shows them when doing a

log dump as described below.

#### Sending logs to developers

Blockstack logs are included in macOS's unified logging system. This allows us

to easily collect a large amount of information about the user's system when we

need to troubleshoot a problem while protecting their privacy.

The most important file in this archive is system_logs.logarchive, which will

include recent system logs including Blockstack's logs. You can open it on

a Mac using Console.app. The other files include information about your computer

that may help in diagnosing problems.

If you're worried about inadvertently sending some private information,

you can select the log entries you'd like to send inside Console.app and copy

them into an email or github issue. To help us debug your problem, we ask that

at a minimum you enable Info and Debug messages and filter by process: Blockstack.

More technical users (with admin permission) can use the sysdiagnose command

to generate a custom dump of information.

Tech Stack

This app uses the latest versions of the following libraries:

And a few other smaller modules (these can be found in package.json).

Maintainer

This repository is maintained by hankstoever.id.

Testing

Run all tests in the test/ directory with the npm run test command. A single

file can be run by specifing an -f flag: npm run test .

*Note: When running tests, code coverage will be automatically calculated and output to an HTML file using the Istanbul library. These files can be seen in the generated __coverage__/ directory.*

App Development

Run the browser in the Blockstack Test Environment

When developing apps, the browser can be run in a Docker test environment that

is backed by the regtest bitcoin network, hence no real money involved.

Note: The Dockerfile creates an image that release on AMD64 architecture.

The easiest way to get that setup is through Docker containers for the api, the

browser and the cors-proxy. There is a

docker-compose.yaml file

published in the Blockstack todo app repo that does this. To use it, first install Docker

and stop any running Blockstack applications (blockstack-browser or blockstack

api) then:

$ docker-compose up -d

This brings up

The initialization script generates 50 BTCs for the core wallet.

The easiest way to work with this setup is in Incognito mode in your browser. Once the images have been pulled down and the containers are started you can open http://localhost:8888.

Choose the Advanced Mode setup and enter the API Password as blockstack_integration_test_api_password

Common Tasks

Official Resources