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Explorer Backend

Alephium's explorer backend is an indexer that provides a RESTful API to query the Alephium blockchain.

It serves https://explorer.alephium.org/ as well as our wallets.

Find more information in the Alephium Explorer Backend repository.

Prerequisites​

Download Application File​

Download file explorer-backend-x.x.x.jar from Github release.

Create the database​

  1. Start the postgresql service.
  2. Login to the PostgreSQL shell with the default postgres user: 
    psql postgres # or `psql -U postgres` depending on your OS
  3. Ensure that the postgres role exists, and if not, create it. List all roles: 
    postgres=# \du
    Create postgres role: 
    postgres=# CREATE ROLE postgres WITH LOGIN;
  4. Then, create the database: 
    postgres=# CREATE DATABASE explorer;

Start your explorer-backend​

java -jar explorer-backend-x.x.x.jar

Your explorer-backend will start to sync with the full node. When syncing for the first time the process might take long. To speed it up you can start from a snapshot.

Configuration​

The default configuration is available in application.conf.

Everything can be overridden in two ways:

user.conf file​

You can change the config in the ~/.alephium-explorer-backend/user.conf file. e.g:

alephium {
  explorer {
      port = 9191 //Change default 9090 port
  }
}

Environment variables​

Every value has a corresponding environment variable, you can find all of them in the application.conf. e.g:

export EXPLORER_PORT=9191

Start from a snapshot​

Alephium archives repository also contain the snapshots for explorer backend database. The snapshot can be loaded in the postgresql database of the explorer backend at the first run, using the command below.

warning
  • Make sure to use the network you want to load the snapshot for, and the correct database name and user.
  • The database must be created before running the command and must be empty.
alephium_network=mainnet
pg_user=postgres
database=explorer
curl -L $(curl -L -s https://archives.alephium.org/archives/${alephium_network}/explorer-db/_latest.txt) | gunzip -c | psql -U $pg_user -d $database