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Drone is an API caching layer application for the Hive blockchain. It is built using Rust with Actix Web, and its primary purpose is to cache and serve API requests for a specific set of methods. Drone is totally meant to be a Jussi replacement, it aims to improve API node performance.

The purpose of this document is to help developers and node operators set up their own drone node within a docker container.

Note: Drone is the modern replacement for Jussi, offering better performance and reliability through Rust.

Intro

Drone is a reverse proxy that sits between the API client and the hived server. It allows node operators to route an API call to nodes that are optimized for the particular call, as if they are all hosted from the same place.

Sections

Features

Installation

To run drone using Docker:
git clone https://gitlab.syncad.com/hive/drone.git
cd drone
cp config.example.yaml config.yaml
# Edit config.yaml to configure your endpoints
docker-compose up --build -d

The docker-compose setup will:

Native

To run drone natively, you’ll need Rust installed on your system.

git clone https://gitlab.syncad.com/hive/drone.git
cd drone
cp config.example.yaml config.yaml
# Edit config.yaml to configure your endpoints
cargo run --release

For production deployments, you can build the binary:

cargo build --release
./target/release/drone
Try out your local configuration:
curl -s --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0", "method":"condenser_api.get_block", "params":[8675309], "id":1}' http://localhost:9000

Configuration

Drone uses a YAML configuration file (config.yaml) instead of JSON. The configuration is divided into several sections:

Drone Settings

drone:
  port: 9000                        # Port to listen on
  hostname: 0.0.0.0                # Bind address
  cache_max_capacity: 4294967296   # Max cache size (4GB)
  operator_message: "Drone by Deathwing"
  middleware_connection_threads: 8  # HTTP connection pool size

Backend Configuration

Define your backend servers:

backends:
  hived: http://haproxy:7008
  hivemind: http://haproxy:7002
  hafah: http://haproxy:7003
  hived-sync: http://haproxy:7006

URL Routing

Route specific API methods to appropriate backends:

urls:
  bridge: hivemind
  hived: hived
  appbase.condenser_api.get_block: hived
  appbase.block_api.get_block: hafah
  # ... more routes

TTL Configuration

Set cache TTL (Time To Live) for different methods:

ttls:
  hived: 3
  hived.login_api: NO_CACHE
  hived.network_broadcast_api: NO_CACHE
  hived.database_api.get_block: EXPIRE_IF_REVERSIBLE
  bridge.get_discussion: 6
  # ... more TTL settings

TTL values can be:

Timeouts

Configure request timeouts:

timeouts:
  hived: 5
  hived.network_broadcast_api: 0  # 0 = no timeout
  bridge: 30

Cached API Methods

The list of which methods are cached and their cache TTL is configured in the config.yaml file. The keys used to specify the method names in the config file follow Jussi’s rules for parsing method names, so you should be able to port your existing Jussi config.json easily.

Endpoints

The application has the following two primary endpoints:

GET /: Health check endpoint that returns the application status, version, and operator message in JSON format.

Example response:

{
  "status": "OK",
  "version": "0.3.0",
  "operator_message": "Drone by Deathwing"
}

POST /: API call endpoint that takes the JSON-RPC request, caches the response (if supported), and returns the response data.

Example request:

curl -s --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0", "method":"condenser_api.get_dynamic_global_properties", "params":[], "id":1}' http://localhost:9000

Repository

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