Condenser

Condenser is the react.js web interface to the world's first and best blockchain-based social media platform, steemit.com. It uses STEEM, a blockchain powered by DPoS Governance and ChainBase DB to store JSON-based content for a plethora of web applications.

Why would I want to use Condenser (steemit.com front-end)?

• Learning how to build blockchain-based web applications using STEEM as a content storage mechanism in react.js
• Reviewing the inner workings of the steemit.com social media platform
• Assisting with software development for steemit.com

Installation

Docker

We highly recommend using docker to run condenser in production. This is how we run the live steemit.com site and it is the most supported (and fastest) method of both building and running condenser. We will always have the latest version of condenser (master branch) available on Docker Hub. Configuration settings can be set using environment variables (see configuration section below for more information). If you need to install docker, you can get it at https://get.docker.com

To bring up a running container it's as simple as this:

docker run -it -p 8080:8080 steemit/condenser

Environment variables can be added like this:

docker run -it --env SDC_DATABASE_URL="mysql://user:pass@hostname/databasename" -p 8080:8080 steemit/condenser

If you would like to modify, build, and run condenser using docker, it's as simple as pulling in the github repo and issuing one command to build it, like this:

git clone https://github.com/steemit/condenser
cd condenser
docker build -t="myname/condenser:mybranch" .
docker run -it -p 8080:8080 myname/condenser:mybranch

Building from source without docker (the 'traditional' way):

(better if you're planning to do condenser development)

Clone the repository and make a tmp folder

git clone https://github.com/steemit/condenser
cd condenser
mkdir tmp

Install dependencies

Install at least Node v8.7 if you don't already have it. We recommend using nvm to do this as it's both the simplest way to install and manage installed version(s) of node. If you need nvm, you can get it at https://github.com/creationix/nvm.

Condenser is known to successfully build using node 8.7, npm 5.4.2, and yarn 1.3.2.

Using nvm, you would install like this:

nvm install v8.7

We use the yarn package manager instead of the default npm. There are multiple reasons for this, one being that we have steem-js built from source pulling the github repo as part of the build process and yarn supports this. This way the library that handles keys can be loaded by commit hash instead of a version name and cryptographically verified to be exactly what we expect it to be. Yarn can be installed with npm, but afterwards you will not need to use npm further.

npm install -g yarn
yarn global add babel-cli
yarn install --frozen-lockfile
yarn run build

To run condenser in production mode, run:

yarn run production

When launching condenser in production mode it will automatically use 1 process per available core. You will be able to access the front-end at http://localhost:8080 by default.

To run condenser in development mode, run:

yarn run start

It will take quite a bit longer to start in this mode (~60s) as it needs to build and start the webpack-dev-server.

By default you will be connected to steemit.com's public steem node at wss://steemd.steeemit.com. This is actually on the real blockchain and you would use your regular account name and credentials to login - there is not an official separate testnet at this time. If you intend to run a full-fledged site relying on your own, we recommend looking into running a copy of steemd locally instead https://github.com/steemit/steem.

Debugging SSR code

yarn debug will build a development version of the codebase and then start the local server with --inspect-brk so that you can connect a debugging client. You can use Chromium to connect by finding the remote client at chrome://inspect/#devices.

Configuration

The intention is to configure condenser using environment variables. You can see the names of all of the available configuration environment variables in config/custom-environment-variables.json. Default values are stored in config/defaults.json.

Environment variables using an example like this:

export SDC_CLIENT_STEEMD_URL="wss://steemd.steemit.com"
export SDC_SERVER_STEEMD_URL="wss://steemd.steemit.com"

Keep in mind environment variables only exist in your active session, so if you wish to save them for later use you can put them all in a file and source them in.

If you'd like to statically configure condenser without variables you can edit the settings directly in config/production.json. If you're running in development mode, copy config/production.json to config/dev.json with cp config/production.json config/dev.json and adjust settings in dev.json.

If you're intending to run condenser in a production environment one configuration option that you will definitely want to edit is server_session_secret which can be set by the environment variable SDC_SESSION_SECRETKEY. To generate a new value for this setting, you can do this:

node
> crypto.randomBytes(32).toString('base64')
> .exit

Install mysql server

If you've followed the instructions up until this point you will already have a running condenser installation which is entirely acceptable for development purposes. It is not required to run a SQL server for development. If you're running a full-fledged site however, you will want to set one up.

Once set up, you can set the mysql server configuration option for condenser using the environment variable SDC_DATABASE_URL, or alternatively by editing it in config/production.json. You will use the format mysql://user:pass@hostname/databasename.

Example:

export SDC_DATABASE_URL="mysql://root:password@127.0.0.1/steemit_dev"

Here are instructions for setting up a mysql server and running the necessary migrations by operating system:

OS X:

brew update
brew doctor
brew upgrade
brew install mysql
mysql.server restart

Debian based Linux:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mysql-server

On Ubuntu 16.04+ you may be unable to connect to mysql without root access, if so update the mysql root user as follows:

sudo mysql -u root
DROP USER 'root'@'localhost';
CREATE USER 'root'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY '';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'root'@'%';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Now launch mysql client and create steemit_dev database:

mysql -u root
> create database steemit_dev;
> quit

Database migrations

This is a required step in order for the database to be 'ready' for condenser's use.

Edit the file src/db/config/config.json using your favorite command line text editor being sure that the username, password, host, and database name are set correctly and match your newly configured mysql setup.

Run sequelize db:migrate in src/db directory, like this:

cd src/db
yarn exec sequelize db:migrate

Style Guides For Submitting Pull Requests

File naming and location

• Prefer CamelCase js and jsx file names
• Prefer lower case one word directory names
• Keep stylesheet files close to components
• Component's stylesheet file name should match component name

Js & Jsx

We use prettier to autofromat the code, with this configuration. Run yarn run fmt to format everything in src/, or yarn exec -- prettier --config .prettierrc --write src/whatever/file.js for a specific file.

CSS & SCSS

If a component requires a css rule, please use its uppercase name for the class, e.g. "Header" class for the header's root div. We adhere to BEM methodology with exception for Foundation classes, here is an example for the Header component:

<!-- Block -->
<ul class="Header">
  ...
  <!-- Element -->
  <li class="Header__menu-item">Menu Item 1</li>
  <!-- Element with modifier -->
  <li class="Header__menu-item--selected">Element with modifier</li>
</ul>

Storybook

yarn run storybook

Testing

Run test suite

yarn test

will run jest

Test endpoints offline

If you want to test a server-side rendered page without using the network, do this:

yarn build
OFFLINE_SSR_TEST=true SDC_DATABASE_URL="mysql://root@127.0.0.1/steemit_dev" NODE_ENV=production node --prof lib/server/index.js

This will read data from the blobs in api_mockdata directory. If you want to use another set of mock data, create a similar directory to that one and add an argument OFFLINE_SSR_TEST_DATA_DIR pointing to your new directory.

Run blackbox tests using nightwatch

To run a Selenium test suite, start the condenser docker image with a name condenser (like docker run --name condenser -itp 8080:8080 steemit/condenser:latest) and then run the blackboxtest image attached to the condneser image's network:

docker build -t=steemit/condenser-blackboxtest blackboxtest/
docker run --network container:condenser steemit/condenser-blackboxtest:latest

Issues

To report a non-critical issue, please file an issue on this GitHub project.

If you find a security issue please report details to: security@steemit.com

We will evaluate the risk and make a patch available before filing the issue.