B&C Exchange needs people to host seed nodes

[Cybnate]

A block explorer is necessary

@JetJet13 Is Johny no longer around to get http://bcblockexplorer.com/ going?

[JetJet13]

Hey guys,

I just wanted to remind you guys that I am still obliged to maintain bcblockexplorer.com for 6 more months (until August 2017).

Unfortunately, I’ve been really busy with work so I haven’t had time to periodically check the state of the explorer. I am currently in the process of getting it synced up again.

One issue I am currently having is displayed in this image.

As you can see, the bcexchange daemon is occupying 62% of the server memory. I am running into segmentation faults when running the parser scripts.

An obvious solution to this issue is to scale the server up one tier to 4GB memory & 40GB SSD storage for $40USD/month. The current server costs $20USD/month.

Let me know what you guys think,
Cheers.

[Cybnate]

Let me know what you guys think,

I think it is worth to upgrade infrastructure for blockexplorer and with that having a good chance on a listing. If not immediately, then in a few months. Not doing this would just diminish any remaining value in the token close to zero. I believe a blockchain without blockexplorer is basically dead. It is like a house without doors and windows in colder climates. Some rudimentary shelter in some corners, but basically useless.

@phoenix will need to advise whether he would support the idea and how funds can be arranged. Do we need a motion for this?

@JetJet13 BTW the site is now entirely down

[JetJet13]

Alright,

Give me shout when you guys are ready to move forward. The sooner the better.

Cheers.

[Phoenix]

I would still like @JetJet13 to provide his block explorer, but given the trouble we have had keeping them up some redundancy might be in order. I have secured an agreement with @woolly_sammoth to host a B&C explorer on an going basis as well as perform block explorer maintenance and feature implementation. I know he has made progress on it in the last day. I would guess he will giving us a url and more info soon.

Thank you @woolly_sammoth and kudos to @JetJet13 for the original and ongoing work you do to provide us with a block explorer.

If Nu is even modestly successful and NuShares get up to $5 per voting block (around $1.40 now), I suspect we will see B&C Exchange completed. It is important and practical. The design is solid. It just needs funding. Right now NSR funding is what we have, so we have to get that up.

It is unfortunate the senseless and illegal Augeas default halted B&C development last year.

[Phoenix]

I should also mention that once we get the block explorer back up we plan to list BlockShares on Cryptopia.

As an aside, @backpacker is currently working to get the Nu explorer back up after we struck an agreement to complete the work.

[Phoenix]

@JetJet13 are you asking for an additional $120 ($20 X 6 months) to help with hosting?

[JetJet13]

Yes, $120USD will cover the additional cost of hosting for the next 6 months.

[Phoenix]

@JetJet13 am happy to pay an additional $120 to buy better hardware for the B&C explorer you host. Where would you like your US-NBT payment from B&C shareholder funds sent to?

[woolly_sammoth]

As mentioned above, I’ve taken a look at hosting a backup B&C blockexporer using the existing code from https://github.com/JetJet13/BCExplorer_OS. It’s currently hosted here https://bc-xplor.mj2p.co.uk although that will change in the future as that is a personal domain.
I was hitting a fair few errors with earlier blocks in the block chain (Uknown Address Type). There are also some issues with some of the javascript for pulling data to the front end. I’m putting in fixes that work for me as I go and will feed that code back into the main github Repo through a pull request when ready. One important change is to read the blkindex file byte by byte which makes it a lot less memory intensive than the current method.
As mentioned, some of the earlier blocks are missing as the code hits an error before saving them to the database. Once I know the full extent of how many are missing I will report back here. I’ll likely write a patch script to pull the missing blocks straight from the B&C daemon rather than parsing them out of the blkindex file.
I’ve also put a bit of work into getting the various services running under supervisor which can automatically restart them if they fail (should make it a bit more stable as a block explorer) as well as covering the service with an Nginx reverse proxy. That means that the block explorer itself can be run as a non-root user which increases the security a bit. It also means I can enable HTTPS with a certificate from LetsEncrypt. I’ll feed the information on that as well as the config files back into the main project too. Just need to check over the code and write the pull request.

Edit: here is the pull request https://github.com/JetJet13/BCExplorer_OS/pull/3
The Block explorer is still up and the latest changes to the block import script seem to have done the trick.

[crypto_coiner]

Is the client up and running?
Can we expect a service coming up soon?

[woolly_sammoth]

Yes, up and running. Recently moved to a server under Nu team control.
https://bc-xplor.mj2p.co.uk.
Daemon seems stable and the block parser is working. I’m putting in work at the moment to increase the level of validation that is carried out on the parsed blockchain which should make the service more stable again and less error prone.

[crypto_coiner]

0 active connections —
What do i solve that?

[woolly_sammoth]

0 connections in your B&C daemon?
You could try connecting to the block explorer daemon. Add this line to your bcexchange.conf file

addnode=bc-xplor.mj2p.co.uk

I have seen a few occasions when restarting the daemon has resulted in it not being able to make any connections. The only fix for that that worked for me was to redownload the blockchain. You could try removing the addr.dat file and restarting the daemon to see if that works?

[crypto_coiner]

Let me try

[Cybnate]

Any interest on having the B&C blockchain files available as a torrent? We did the same for Nu here: Download NuBits blockchain (bootstrap)

[Cybnate]

Yes, up and running.

It appears to be down right now.

[woolly_sammoth]

Oh? It’s working for me. https://bc-xplor.mj2p.co.uk
What do you see when accessing the site?

A torrent of the B&C files would be very handy indeed. The Nu files have been a great help several time already.

[Cybnate]

What do you see when accessing the site?

Odd. It doesn’t work for me.
Can’t make a screenshot quickly, here is a part copy/paste and all is empty like:

            Conn. 
            {{ws.status_list.connections}}
        
    
        
            Height 
            {{ws.status_list.height | number}}
        
    
        
            BKS Supply 
            ~ {{ws.status_list.moneysupply | number}}
        
    
        
            BKC Supply 
            ~ 0
        
    
        
            BKS Price 
            NA
        
    
        
            BKC Price 
            NA

[woolly_sammoth]

Hmm. That seems like the page is being served but the angular stuff isn’t being populated. Do you have javascript tuned off in your browser?