Host Guide

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction

  2. Installation

  3. Usage

  4. Functions

  5. Payment

Introduction

The host is the service that executes tasks submitted by clients. This guide will walk you through the process of setting up and managing a host using the CLI. You can also check out the MECAnywhere Desktop application for a more user-friendly experience.

Installation

  1. To install the host, you will need to have Docker installed on your machine. You can download Docker from the official Docker website.

  2. Start and serve the host container. (see pymeca-actors readme)

  3. Build the task executor.

  4. Ensure that you have a valid connection to IPFS for retrieval (see https://docs.ipfs.tech/quickstart/retrieve/#ipfs-retrieval-methods).

Usage

The host CLI will look like this:

PS > docker run -it --rm -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock mock_actor mock_host.py
Started host with address: 0x5aad26e6aDc5ade3f7FBD70faEB5A3598414DD2C

Host is not registered. Registering...
Enter block timeout limit: (10)
Enter public key: (0xefb690cea3ef14b607f1b5d49b4112f77c604fa3ff38a1ff05e13a6214e4c199346da45151ce3d59827f7d14b5ae24baa95fd349c6cfa0457ec83454fca6f846)
Enter initial deposit: (100)
Host registered.

0. _bytes_from_hex_public_key
1. add_task
2. delete_task
3. get_my_tasks
4. get_my_towers
5. get_task_block_timeout
6. get_task_fee
7. increase_stake
8. is_registered
9. register
10. register_for_tower
11. register_task_output
12. unregister
13. update_block_timeout_limit
14. update_public_key
15. update_task_block_timeout
16. update_task_fee
17. wrong_input_hash
18. wait_for_my_task
19. get_tasks
20. get_towers
x. Exit
Enter action:

The CLI will prompt you to enter the necessary information to register the host if not yet done so. Then there are options to manage tasks and towers registered with the host. A task will be relayed through the tower-server automatically when a client submits a task to a host registered with the tower.

When a host registers with the tower, the tower will have to accept it before the host can start receiving tasks.

The host can only receive tasks that have been added. get_tasks to see tasks made available by task developers.

Finally, wait_for_my_task to start receiving and processing tasks, which will be started and computed by the task executor which uses Docker.

Functions

https://sbip-sg.github.io/pymeca/autoapi/pymeca/host/index.html

Additional non-util functions

  • wait_for_my_task(tower_address: str) -> None

    Sets up a threaded websocket connection to the given tower to receive tasks.

    Parameters:

    tower_address - The address of the tower to connect to. Host must be registered with the tower.

    Returns: None if the connection was successful.

Payment

Payment for blockchain transactions and fees are done using the account associated with the private key in the environment variables.