Federation Node Onboarding

This guide walks you through the essentials for provisioning a new Agrinet federation node, syncing with the Mycelium network, generating McEliece keys, and wiring up a UI contract.

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v14 or newer)
• Git
• Yarn or npm
• Access to the repository

Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/NTARI-RAND/Agrinet.git
cd Fruitful

Install Dependencies

# With Yarn
yarn install

# Or with npm
npm install

Sync with Mycelium

1. Create or update your .env file.
2. Add your node configuration:

MYCELIUM_NODE_NAME=your-node-name
MYCELIUM_PEER_URLS=https://peer1.example.com,https://peer2.example.com
MYCELIUM_PORT=7000

3. Start the Mycelium node:

yarn mycelium:start
# or
npm run mycelium:start

note

Monitor the logs and confirm that the node connects to at least one peer.

Generate McEliece Keys

Agrinet uses the McEliece cryptosystem for secure federation traffic.

node scripts/gen-mceliece.js

If no script is available, create one with node-mceliece:

scripts/gen-mceliece.js

const mceliece = require("node-mceliece");
const fs = require("fs");

const { publicKey, privateKey } = mceliece.keyPair();
fs.writeFileSync("keys/mceliece_public.key", publicKey);
fs.writeFileSync("keys/mceliece_private.key", privateKey);

console.log("McEliece key pair generated in /keys/");

caution

Treat private keys as secrets and never commit them to version control.

Define a UI Contract

The UI contract captures how frontend clients interact with your federation node.

contracts/uiContract.js

/**
 * UI Contract Example
 * Describes methods exposed to the UI for interacting with the federation node.
 */
module.exports = {
  authenticateUser: async (publicKey) => {
    // implementation
  },
  requestSync: async () => {
    // implementation
  },
  submitTransaction: async (transaction, signature) => {
    // implementation
  },
};

Integrate with the Frontend

• Call authenticateUser with the McEliece public key.
• Trigger requestSync to keep data in sync via Mycelium.
• Use submitTransaction for writes that require federation consensus.

Final Checklist

Run tests

• Execute end-to-end tests against at least one peer node.
• Confirm Mycelium log output reports a healthy connection.

Secure keys

• Store generated keys in a secure secrets manager.
• Rotate credentials on a regular cadence.

Wire the UI

• Ensure your frontend calls the UI contract methods consistently.
• Document the API surface for downstream teams.

Welcome aboard the Agrinet federation! For questions, open an issue or reach out to the platform team.