Steem Testnet launched
Developments on Steem are now moving forward, not least thanks to the proposals funded by the DAO.
Among other things, there are proposals that, in my view, could offer great added value and a boost for the blockchain. These include the development of a sidechain and a blockchain based game. A few weeks ago, I said in the witness channel that I thought a testnet would also be necessary to test new developments.
I had been playing with the idea of setting up a test network for some time and had read many posts and looked at githup repositories. In any case, it seemed to me to be a major effort that I didn't want to take on if it wasn't going to be used after all. However, futureshock (the developer of the sidechain) then said that he wanted to use the testnet for his sidechain tests. Steemit, on the other hand, had stated that there were currently no plans to set up a public testnet.
So I set to work... and I was successful.
I don't want to write any instructions here, but rather roughly outline the steps.
Compiling steemd
First of all, I needed the blockchain code. Even if there had been a ready-to-use container for it, I wouldn't have wanted to use it because I wanted to define my own parameters for the Chain. As I had already compiled the production code several times, building the testnet was the easiest task.
Unfortunately, I didn't have enough RAM on my available server, which I wanted to use. I therefore had to switch to another server to build the testnet.
Tinman
Theoretically, this would have been enough to operate a test network. The chain would have started with block 1 and could have been used immediately. However, there are no user accounts on this chain yet. There are only five initial accounts that could be used for further manual operations.
only 5 accounts on the chain
But my aim was that all accounts that exist on the mainnet could also be used on the testnet. There is Tinman for this purpose. This tool creates a snapshot of all accounts in the mainnet and sends them (with the necessary adjustments) to the testnet.
What sounds so simple here was unfortunately not quite so easy. I only wanted to use the tool in Docker. This was not intended so far. In addition, there were errors in the tool with the dependencies and with the key creation for the testnet. It took a while to clear these hurdles out of the way...
Key substitutions and submit transactions in progress
But in the end it was successful!
all accounts from the mainnet created
Testnet
The testnet is running!
To make the network a little redundant, I have set up a seed (with all necessary witnesses) and a complete RPC node. The seed produces the blocks and the RPC node collects them from it. The RPC node can also be queried with the usual API calls.
The testnet is configured so that I can leave it running for some time. I have increased the block limit accordingly and have plenty of coins (TESTS and TDB) on the initminer account, which I can dispose of as I wish.
Initially, futureshock will probably be the main user of the testnet. If other developers also want to test, please contact me.
There are many scenarios that could be tested. For example: What happens if the witnesses set an interest rate?
However, I don't want to provide a public test network. My resources are limited for this. This includes time and server capacity.
But you are welcome to support me with your witness vote.
Steem Search on https://moecki.online/ |  |
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12.05.2025
Hab ja vor ein paar Tagen in einem deiner Kommentare gelesen, dass bei dir was im Gebüsch ist, aber - holla die Waldfee, das hätte ich nicht gedacht. Langsam glaub ich, du kennst wirklich jede Schraube hier im System :-)
Hoffe nur, futureshock schockiert dein Testnet nicht all zu sehr!
0.00 SBD,
3.24 STEEM,
3.24 SP
Wohl doch nicht jede Schraube, aber einige... :-)
Und warum die Schrauben da sitzen, wo sie sind, ist auch noch nicht immer klar... aber Rom wurde ja auch nicht an einem Tag erbaut ;-)
Och doch, ich denke, er wird das Potenzial nicht ausreizen. Aber genau weiß ich es natürlich noch nicht. Wir werden sehen...
Im Moment kann man ja wirklich nur per API damit kommunizieren, so dass der Nutzerkreis doch recht klein sein sollte. Es fehlt eine entsprechende UI. Ich hatte da an steemdb gedacht, dass auch auf https://steemdb.io beheimatet ist, und das sich - soweit ich das aktuell beurteilen kann - gut für das Testnet eignen würde. Aber ich weiß noch nicht, ob es wirklich funktioniert. Idealerweise wäre ja eine Option in Steemworld, aber der Chiller ist im Moment sehr ausgelastet, und der Aufwand würde den Nutzen im Moment wohl nicht rechtfertigen...
0.00 SBD,
0.34 STEEM,
0.34 SP
Ah, jetzt weiß ich, weshalb du für nix anderes mehr Zeit hast... ;-)
Vermutlich ein ziemlich großartiger Entwickler-Coup, Glückwunsch!
Im Laufe der Zeit werde ich dich sicherlich - mit vielen Zwinkersmileys versehen - öfter fragen, was man in so einem Testnetz so alles üben kann. Mir fiele bereits eine Menge ein, aber eben "nur" auf Blogger-Ebene. Bis dahin halte ich nun lieber meine Klappe und überlasse dich all dem Lob jener, die wirklich einschätzen können, was du mit diesem Projekt geleistet hast!
P.S.: Sir, can you give me some TESTS and TDB, please?
0.00 SBD,
0.72 STEEM,
0.72 SP
Danke, ja, es erfordert schon ein wenig Zeit. Allein schon, um sich einen Überblick über die Möglichkeiten zu verschaffen und dann die beste Vorgehensweise herauszufinden.
Ich praktiziere sozusagen Learning by doing. :-)
Die Testchain ermöglicht schon sehr umfangreiches Testen, ohne die Mainchain zuzuspammen. Du hast bestimmt auch schon öfter Test-Posts oder Test-Comments gesehen, die nicht erforderlich wären, wenn Steemit das offizielle Testnet beibehalten hätte. Zudem ist es auch viel besser auf der Testchain zu testen, denn es gibt einige Einstellungen, die hierfür verändert sind (z. B. ein kürzerer Payout-Zeitraum).
... und unverzichtbar ist es, wenn eine Hardfork ansteht...
Auf Blogger-Ebene gibt es bestimmt auch das eine oder andere What-if-Szenario. Wenn es was gibt, du weißt ja, wie du mich erreichen kannst. :-)
P.S. Gut, dass wir nicht in der NO Community sind ;-)
Some great work here, it is awesome to see people like you here, doing their best for the future of STEEM!
I agree with you 100% and I am really looking forward to a proper sidechain, I believe it will open a huge door for many new dApps and games to be developed and ran on STEEM and thus this will attract new real investors and younger users.
Stay safe!
0.00 SBD,
0.66 STEEM,
0.66 SP
Thank you. We certainly still have one or two hurdles to overcome, but I think we've been heading in the right direction for a long time... even if there is still a long way to go.
For example, we still need more people to work on the backend. At the moment, a lot of work is being done on the frontend. When I look at the dev chat on the other chain, we still have potential...
I will surely use it!
0.00 SBD,
0.35 STEEM,
0.35 SP
Contact me, when you need it.
!thumbup
0.00 SBD,
0.30 STEEM,
0.30 SP
I am greedy to get the testnet live link 😁
0.00 SBD,
0.29 STEEM,
0.29 SP
What would you do with it?
That's awesome!
0.00 SBD,
0.29 STEEM,
0.29 SP
Great!
0.00 SBD,
0.29 STEEM,
0.29 SP
Hello @moecki! You are Majestic!
command: !thumbup is powered by witness @justyy and his contributions are: https://steemyy.com
More commands are coming!
Huge props for setting this up — it takes some motivation to do it. Now that we have an entire alternate reality for Steem, all devs can plays the mad scientists and experiment without spamming the mainnet.
Thanks again for your work.