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System Setup

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🐧 This tutorial is for Ubuntu Desktop 20.04.3

If you have a virtual machine running with the system already set up and the code downloaded, you can skip to the Setup the Project section.

If you already have a virtual machine setup and the code running, you can go to the Testing the Voting Process tutorial.

Setting up the System from Scratch​

Open a terminal and install the node package manager

sudo apt install npm

Install NodeJS version 16.13 and open a new terminal afterwards

sudo npm cache clean -f
sudo npm install -g n
sudo n 16.13
sudo npm install -g npm@8.1.4

Install git

sudo apt install git

Install truffle

sudo npm install -g truffle

Download the Code​

Copy the project's source code from the archive in the USB drive to the development machine.

Setup the Project​

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All the commands of the evotesystem need to be run inside the root folder of the project!

To install all the required npm packages and the cli tool, enter:

npm run setup
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The installation of all the packages can take a while!

Install the Registration Application​

To install the pre-built and packaged application, run:

npm run iregdeb

If you want to build and install the app yourself, run:

sudo npm i -g electron
npm run makeregdeb

Configure the Project​

Open the configuration file of the server and the contract at config/config.json . You can leave everything as it is, except the values for MNEMONIC and PRIVATE_KEY.

The value for MNEMONIC is the mnemonic for the Ethereum account that will be used to deploy the contract to the Ropsten test network.

The value for PRIVATE_KEY is the private key of the Ethereum account that will be used to relay the votes to the smart contract.

I already pre-funded an account with test Ether. You can use this account's mnemonic and private key in the configuration. The file should then look like this:

{
  "contract": {
    "LOAD_ADMINS": "TRUE",
    "PUBLICNET": "FALSE",
    "MNEMONIC": "anxiety siren cancel absurd panic memory alpha badge sleep pear spin limit",
    "UPDATE_ABI": "FALSE"
  },
  "server": {
    "PORT": 8080,
    "PRIVATE_KEY": "0xcb6a95d047e23d391cd8abcb14c6f1520c3f30342258bb4c5d72e02d33149af3",
    "NODE_ENV": "development",
    "PROVIDER_PROXY": {
      "TARGET": "",
      "ENDPOINT": ""
    }
  }
}

Optionally you can update the PORT value, if you want to use a different port than the preconfigured one.

Now distribute the contract and server config:

npm run updateconfig

Deploy the Evote Contract​

The accounts that will be set as the admins on contract deployment are located in the config/Admins.config.json file. If you want to replace the existing admins with admins you generated yourself with the cli tool, this will work, however, if you do not know how to fund those accounts with test Ether, it is highly recommended that you don't change the admins and stick to the ones already listed in the file. The file also contains the private keys of the accounts. In production, the file would only contain the addresses for security reasons.

In order to deploy a contract instance to the Ropsten testnet, enter:

npm run deployropsten
important

Truffle will first compile the Evote contract and then deploy it. The contract is very large, that's why the deployment might take several minutes. It is very important that you'll save the contract address of the contract instance (Truffle will first deploy a contract called "Migrations", whose address you don't need, and after that a contract called "Evote", whose address you need to save). Truffle will tell you the address during deployment. You will need to save the address somewhere for the next step.

Configure the Evote Contract​

Open the Evote contract configuration file located at config/Evote.config.json. You can leave everything as it is, except the value of address. This is the address of the deployed contract instance on the Ropsten test network.

Now enter the address that truffle returned after deploying the contract.

To distribute the Evote contract config and build the frontends, run:

npm run build

Start the Server​

To start the server with the relay and the frontends, enter:

npm run startserver
  • The admin app should now be available at: http://localhost:{PORT}/admin/
  • The voting app should now be available at: http://localhost:{PORT}/client/
  • The documentation should now be available at: http://localhost:{PORT}/d/
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The next time you want to test the frontends, you only need to run npm run startserver

You now finished the setup and can start testing 🥳