testnet.programmingbitcoin.com is down

[steelsparrow]

Like mainnet, the testnet block explorer appears to be down. Would it be possible for you to note the explorer you are running so users can bring up private instances to continue working through the exercises in the book?

[chanhosuh]

I suspect he's just RPC'ing to his own full node. It might be nice for the next edition for Jimmy to show readers how to setup a full node (pretty easy now using Docker) and RPC to it.

[MichelKansou]

@steelsparrow I used blockstream API and it works fine

        if testnet:
            return 'https://blockstream.info/testnet/api/'
        else:
            return 'https://blockstream.info/api/'

[MichelKansou]

@chanhosuh I'm currently in chapter 10 where you need to make a network handshake with testnet.programmingbitcoin.com but I guess the server is still down do you think I need a local full node to test this ?

[chanhosuh]

@MichelKansou you can find someone's node to connect to, but in the end, you'll just be spamming them (especially if you aren't doing the handshake correctly!), so it's better to just run your own node. I think it's probably also more useful as a developer to run your own node anyway.

It's not difficult to run a local node using Docker, exposing ports 8333 / 18333. Then connect a socket to localhost:8333 (or 18333) by initializing SimpleNode appropriately.

You can use this docker setup: https://github.com/chanhosuh/docker-bitcoin

[MichelKansou]

@chanhosuh thank you I already have a full node running so I will use it 😁

[MichelKansou]

@chanhosuh yesterday I was trying to use my remote full node but I'm getting a RuntimeError Connection reset! which mean my stream is empty or my full node can't be reached do I need to provide rpcuser & rpcpassword ?

[MichelKansou]

@chanhosuh I just found out I needed to configure my router to enable 8333 Port Forwarding and also add upnp=1 in my bitcoin.conf 😅
https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#port-forwarding

[marcdk]

Hi guys, I noticed that the testnet param is missing - adding that solved the problem for me

#193

[joelklabo]

#202

[lucidprojects]

I've been trying to get a alternative testnet going for the last week. finally got a testnet node running in docker. How do I access it and substitute it in get_urls?

like this http://127.0.0.1:8332 ?

Is not accessible in a browser but don't know if it should be

this is what docker container inspect says my exposed ports are

"ExposedPorts": {
                "18332/tcp": {},
                "18333/tcp": {},
                "18443/tcp": {},
                "18444/tcp": {},
                "8332/tcp": {},
                "8333/tcp": {}
            },

any help appreciated

[marcdk]

Hi @lucidprojects

Port 8333 is used by nodes to communicate according to the P2P protocol and port 8332 is typically configured for JSON-RPC. The node doesn't expose a web interface (via these two, or any other port).

IIRC, at the least the one exercise was to communicate according to the P2P protocol

[lucidprojects]

Thanks @marcdk

I'm clear on the port to use.

I'm more asking how to use it. specifically for the last exercise Chapter12 exercise 6. It connects with

node = SimpleNode('testnet.programmingbitcoin.com', testnet=True, logging=False)

which doesn't work

changing to

node = SimpleNode('https://blockstream.info/testnet/api', testnet=True, logging=False)

gives me the below get address error which is why I'm trying to connect to my own testnet node

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
gaierror                                  Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-16-faf9611714a8> in <module>
     43 
     44 
---> 45 node = SimpleNode('https://blockstream.info/testnet/api', testnet=True, logging=False)
     46 
     47 # bf = Bloomfilter(size=30, function_count=5, tweak=90405)

~/Documents/programmingbitcoin/code-ch12/network.py in __init__(self, host, port, testnet, logging)
    361         # connect to socket
    362         self.socket = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
--> 363         self.socket.connect((host, port))
    364         # create a stream that we can use with the rest of the library
    365         self.stream = self.socket.makefile('rb', None)

gaierror: [Errno 8] nodename nor servname provided, or not known

I'm also getting this from my docker so I don't think the port is being exposed properly

error: Could not connect to the server 127.0.0.1:8332
Make sure the bitcoind server is running and that you are connecting to the correct RPC port.

appreciate any help

[marcdk]

Just a couple of things from my understanding that can hopefully help:

• SimpleNode is trying to create a socket connection in the constructor: self.socket.connect((host, port)). The host can't contain an endpoint because this isn't HTTP. I think Jimmy recently switched to using https://blockstream.info/testnet/api only to fetch transactions
• I've tested testnet.programmingbitcoin.com without an issue. Here's the code https://github.com/marcdk/programmingbitcoin/blob/master/ex12.6.py

Hope this helps

[GKenu]

Reference in ne

Would you still have this code? I've been trying everything I found to fix this but couldn't.

The link you shared is not working anymore. Tkws

[marcdk]

Hi @GKenu, I've just had a look, but I don't have the code anymore. Sorry about that!

[GKenu]

Hi Marc! I just managed to do it. I sent an email to Jimmy and he got his server back up running - I managed to finish all exercises. Thanks either way!

…

On Tue, May 10, 2022 at 5:46 AM Marc ***@***.***> wrote: Hi @GKenu <https://github.com/GKenu>, I've just had a look, but I don't have the code anymore. Sorry about that! — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#151 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ATTYSDWB5X3TWQEHI3R4S6LVJIO6RANCNFSM4H2S7F6A> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[seccobit]

I think the node is still down, I tried to connect from a new node but connection is not stable. Any indication of what can be wrong would be much appreciated.

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/122126/intermittent-connection-issues-datastreamread-end-of-data-unspecified-i