3-2: Create chains.json

Pocket nodes relay transactions to other blockchains. So, you'll need to configure the chains your node can relay to. For this guide, we'll just be setting up our node to relay to the Pocket blockchain - essentially, through itself.

However, to maximize the rewards you'll want to relay to other chains. We'll cover that in more detail later but here is a list of other blockchains you could relay to.

Generating a chain.json file with the CLI

tip

By default the chains.json file will be created in ~/.pocket/config. You can use the --datadir flag to create the chains.json file in an alternate location. For example: pocket util generate-chains --datadir "/mnt/data/.pocket".

You can use the Pocket CLI to generate a chain.json file for your node by running the following command:

pocket util generate-chains

This will prompt you for the following information:

• Enter the ID of the network identifier:

  0001
• Enter the URL of the network identifier:

  http://127.0.0.1:8082/

  Note: use http://127.0.0.1:8081/ if you're not running a validator node.

When you're prompted to add another chain, enter n for now.

Deleting the chain.json file

There is another command you can use to delete the chain.json file. That's the pocket util delete-chains command.

So, if you want to delete the chain.json file, you can run the following command:

pocket util delete-chains

Of course, you'll need to run this command before you run the pocket util generate-chains command again if you delete the chain.json file.

Now we have a chain.json file setup so we can move on test our node.