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What is Status Backend Server

Status Backend Server is a http server that runs status-go, it exposed endpoints come from mobile/status.go so that you can call them through http requests. It brings the following benefits:

  • When verifying changes made in status-go, you only need to run these commands once (unless modifying Kotlin/Objective-C code):
    • make clean && make run-clojure
    • make run-android or make run-ios This avoids repeatedly rebuilding and saves development time.
  • Debug status-go while running status mobile app

Solution to use Status Backend Server for mobile development

StatusBackendClient is the entry point to use Status Backend Server. We need always to call status-im.setup.status-backend-client/init whether STATUS_BACKEND_SERVER_ENABLED is 1 or not. If it's not enabled, the invocation to functions in native-module.core will be delegated to built-in status-go library, otherwise it will be delegated to status-go running in status-backend server. Currently, all functions has usages in native-module.core should be supported delegated to. NOTE: not all the native functions used StatusBackendClient, only the corresponding functions in native-module.core has usages should be supported delegated to ATM.

related PR

Usage

Add environment variables to your local machine:

# enable using status backend server or not, otherwise it will use built-in status-go library
export STATUS_BACKEND_SERVER_ENABLED=1

#The host should contain an IP address and a port separated by a colon. 
#The port comes from your running status backend server. 
#If you run it by PORT=60000 make run-status-backend , then host will likely be 127.0.0.1:60000
export STATUS_BACKEND_SERVER_HOST="127.0.0.1:60000" 

export STATUS_BACKEND_SERVER_ROOT_DATA_DIR="/path/to/your/root/data/dir"

You need to change STATUS_BACKEND_SERVER_ROOT_DATA_DIR to your preferred directory and ensure it exists, it should be in absolute path. All the db files and log files(requests.log/geth.log) and keystore files etc will be stored in this directory.

Start the status backend server:

PORT=60000 make run-status-backend

MAKE SURE the status-backend is checked out to a revision that's at least compatible with the revision in status-mobile/status-go-version.json before starting the server.

For the Android simulator, you need to reverse the port:

adb reverse tcp:60000 tcp:60000

However, there is restriction when use adb reverse, we use random port for media server. So I'd suggest use "10.0.2.2:60000" as STATUS_BACKEND_SERVER_HOST.

Debug status-go using IDEA

Assume you've already set up the development environment for status-go, open status-go project use IDEA, run make generate with terminal in the status-go project root directory to ensure all the generated files are up to date, then open cmd/status-backend/main.go file, navigate to function main(), click the green play button on the left of main(), choose Modify Run Configuration, in Program arguments section, add --address=localhost:60000 --media-https=false, then click OK, finally click the green play button on the left of main() again and choose Debug .... Basically, you don't have to run make generate again and again, just run it once at the beginning. So you can re-run and debug it faster!

Known Android simulator issues

  • Issue#1: Android simulator may not display images due to TLS certificate validation issues with the image server
    • solution: use http instead of https for media server with set env: export STATUS_BACKEND_SERVER_MEDIA_SERVER_ENABLE_TLS=0, you also need to set env variable STATUS_BACKEND_SERVER_IMAGE_SERVER_URI_PREFIX to "http://10.0.2.2:" so that image_server.cljs can work, and to make /accountInitials work, you need to copy Inter-Medium.ttf to your host machine from the android simulator, let's say you store it in /Users/mac/Downloads/Inter-Medium.ttf, then you need to update get-font-file-ready manually in image_server.cljs to return the correct path so that status backend server can access it.
  • Issue#2: exportUnencryptedDatabaseV2/import-multiaccount does not work for android, probably cause of tech debt, I found it during creating the draft PR.
  • Issue#3: unable to invoke multiaccounts_storeIdentityImage to change avatar image.
    • The reason is that we path the absolute path of the image to the backend server, but the image file is stored in the android simulator. the backend server cannot access it as it runs in the host machine.

If you're using ios simulator, you can skip above issues!

Details for issue#1 if you're interested

  • we use react-native-fast-image which use okhttpclient behind
  • we were using custom cert for https
  • we fetch the custom cert through endpoint ImageServerTLSCert
  • we fetched it through built-in status-go before, now we need to fetch it through status backend server
  • we expect OkHttpClientProvider.setOkHttpClientFactory(StatusOkHttpClientFactory()) to be invoked early(will trigger fetching wrong custom cert via built-in status-go since StatusBackendClient is not initialised yet!) in MainApplication.kt before executing clojure code, otherwise we will get black screen after make run-android . After deep research, I found there's no way to update the cert okhttpclient used to the correct one return from status backend server