After what feels like an eternity, but in reality is only around six weeks of meddling I have finally brought the Holy Trinity of Hive Servers together. They are
Hivemind instance
https://hivemind.c0ff33a.uk/
FAT Full information server
https://hivefat.c0ff33a.uk/
Account history server
https://hiveaccounthistory.c0ff33a.uk/
Individually they supply access to specific information and services on the Hive Blockchain - but they are at their best when they work together combined with the magic of Jussi to provide one single entry node
FULL RPC Node
https://api.c0ff33a.uk/
It is live and online and ready to fulfil your needs, as an entry point to the blockchain I expect it to be most useful for dapps and services, I have been running a number of my own existing services exclusively on my own RPC node for a week now and all are working perfectly to scan the blockchain, upvote, comment and reblog.
The above grab from @someguy123 RPC-Scanner shows my server is online and ready for action.
This is all lovely but what does it mean?
When any of us access the blockchain through a front end like peakd.com or hive.blog it connects to an RPC Server - most will default to the most reliable and then fall back to others if the main one is unavailable for any reason. Hive Blockchain has many existing RPC nodes which is it's strength - the load is spread and every user is not trying to use a single node to access data and make transactions. Some services will allow you to choose the node you wish to use for your access such as
Adding my own RPC Node is helping to support the Hive Blockchain and spread the load, it is available to manually add wherever you can so our main nodes are not put under too much pressure. And as Hive grows, as we all wish it too, more users will mean even more demands and having extra server capacity will help ensure the Hive experience remains smooth as silk.
@c0ff33a Witness FOUR exclusive servers running the Hive Blockchain
From starting with the Blockchain in early 2017, to setting up a Witness in 2018 I have continued to grow and evolve my position in the infrastructure of the Blockchain because I believe we all have a role in making Hive an incredible user experience. And this investment includes bringing online 4 dedicated servers for the Hive Blockchain - all on UK based IP's - @c0ff33a is a 100% 🇬🇧 Witness including my servers - as Witness's go I don't know if there are any other UK based IP Witnesses - But I am sure there is only ONE UK RPC Node - https://api.c0ff33a.uk/
Account History Server - 96gb Ram, 2TB storage, Dual Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2450L 0 @ 1.80GHz Processors
FAT Full information Server - 64gb Ram, 2TB storage, Dual Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5640 @ 2.27GHz Processors
Primary Witness Server - 48gb Ram, 1TB storage, Dual Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5620 @ 2.40GHz Processors
Hivemind and Backup Witness Server - 32gb Ram, 2TB storage, AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 6136
Credit where credit is due
Without a doubt this would never have even started without this awesome details of the setup of my public node by @pharesim - it is incredibly detailed and provided the entry point for my setting up all the services required. There are some parts you need to work around - I think they might be deliberate challenges to test the mettle of any that might brave trying to run an RPC Node. Hivemind totally hated me, after seven days running it caught up with the Blockchain and then spat out a load of errors and refused to do what it was supposed to. In the end I used @drakos Hivemind Docker and that worked straight off, with the added bonus it downloads snapshots of Hivemind from @emrebeyler in hours instead of waiting 7 days to build your own - great work fella's! And a second thank you to @drakos because Jussi also was being a total PITA and never completing the build - and in the end after googling all the errors I found @drakos post fixing Jussi build and it did exactly what it said in the title 👌🏼
Life is a journey - how you experience it is up to you
It's been a long hard slog getting all this work together, mainly because with HF24 deep in the works I did not want to disturb anyone and instead just looked up the problems, found where dependencies had issues and solved them, worked round the crazy issues nginx and certbot caused with my set up - just spent many late nights slogging away trying to make it work because nights is all I had free to work on it.
And I have learned a lot, through the guides on chain, through the ample resources available with simple Google searches - it has been a learning experience and I like to learn - even at my age understanding new technology and learning how it works can be very fulfilling.
Is your Node any good?
Honestly, it works - that it has going for it. When I announced it in the Witness Hive Chat I asked for anyone to stress test if possible and @drakos helped out
2020/07/17 16:38:44 Wall clock time: 16.114869933s. Successes: 812/4096
2020/07/17 16:38:44 Blocks per second: 50
9:39 PM
you have a rate limit i guess
9:39 PM
compared to my rpc:
2020/07/17 16:39:13 Wall clock time: 5.387310305s. Successes: 4096/4096
2020/07/17 16:39:13 Blocks per second: 760
So compared to https://api.hivekings.com it's slow and limited. Limits are bandwidth, server processor power, plus any rate limits you set in configurations yourself. certainly this set up is not going to run any front end access, but it will support any dapps and other services that need to access the Hive Blockchain - spreading the load instead of the main servers doing all the work.
Because I am funding all this out of my own pocket, server costs are a big consideration and right now Hive has no issue with RPC Nodes anyway - so there is no reason to build something that out performs our main access points. But now I have learned the process, it would actually be trivial to build up a far more powerful set of servers - as Hive Blockchain grows and demands increase we will need more back end support to cope with the increased user demand - and I am now ready to support this.
Set the date 19th September 2020 Hive UK Northern Meet Up
People always want to know what a #witness does for a Blockchain, and as our user base grows just running a Witness node alone isn't going to cut it for the masses. Stepping up the UK Hive game I'm backing up the hard work of @shanibeer who has organised many UK Meet up events for the Blockchain, and had one set for April 2020 I was booked to attend..and then Coronavirus messed everything up. The UK has a small but active Hive UK base - @steevc recently attended an open air London meet-up organised by @nathanmars
HIVE UK will be meeting up in the heart of Yorkshire UK, Halifax in my coffee shed for a full on day of Hive discussion, onboarding, building user base and retention plus unlimited coffee, a selection of locally sourced drinks and food buffet, coffee roasting and even taking home Hive Blockchain coffee we roast on the day.
And it's entirely free! Just look out for my weekly posts building up to the date and comment if you are going to attend so I can judge how much food and drink I need to get ready - heaven forbid I end up ordering too much and have to eat and drink it all myself 😋
tldr
@c0ff33a and @derangedvisions joint Witness team now run primary and back up Witness Servers under the account @c0ff33a, AND a full RPC Node https://api.c0ff33a.uk/ plus @c0ff33a is bringing together our UK Hiveians through TeamUK Community and #teamuk tag supported by @teamuksupport upvotes PLUS a UK Hive meet up on 19th September 2020.
The Sun goes down on another day, thank you all for your continued support of my Witness on the Hive Blockchain - together we can make this an incredible experience.
Active HIVE Witness alongside @derangedvisions, if you appreciate the effort and work we put into the HIVE blockchain please consider giving us a Witness vote.
Proud sponsor with @derangedcontests of @brosino , free to play and cash out HIVE rewards, head to Brosino Website now and start playing.
Visit #brits Discord Channel Join #teamuk and make your posts easily found, post with the tag or create a post in teamuk community so your fellow Brits can easily find and support your work. Let's work together to make #hiveuk an active community on the Hive Blockchain.
I distribute coffee roasting machines and also espresso coffee machines and roast my own Speciality Coffee Range. being one of the premium coffee suppliers Yorkshire including a wide range of filter coffee sachets. Finally I have a dedicated website to my Artisan small batch roasted coffee featuring roast and post packs and super easy coffee subscriptions.
Become a White Rose Coffee Roasters affiliate and earn a percentage of the sales you bring in for sharing your affiliate page links Become A White Rose Coffee Roasters Affiliate now payout available via Pay Pal or HIVE based on the current exchange rate.
The Coffee Break Discord Voice Chat Show, in @thealliance Mondays 10pm UTC hosted by @c0ff33a and @enginewitty
Catch me live and unleashed every week on @threespeak with my c0ff33 vlogs
