Running a Chainlink Node on MacOS

This document will walk through the steps to get a Chainlink node running locally using Docker on Mac OS in a few steps.

Note: replace any values [LIKE_THIS] with the appropriate value

Create The Docker Environment

1. Create a directory to house the image and settings

   mkdir chainlink-kovan
   cd chainlink-kovan

   Within this directory you need a few files.

2. Create .env — this will house the docker environment variables for the Chainlink Node

   ROOT=/chainlink
   LOG_LEVEL=debug
   ETH_CHAIN_ID=42
   MIN_OUTGOING_CONFIRMATIONS=2
   LINK_CONTRACT_ADDRESS=0xa36085F69e2889c224210F603D836748e7dC0088
   CHAINLINK_TLS_PORT=0
   SECURE_COOKIES=false
   GAS_UPDATER_ENABLED=true
   ALLOW_ORIGINS=*
   ETH_URL=wss://eth-kovan.alchemyapi.io/v2/[YOUR_API_KEY]
   DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:[PG_PASSWORD]@[DOCKER_IMAGE]:5432/chainlink?sslmode=disable
   DATABASE_TIMEOUT=0

   📘 [YOUR_API_KEY] can be found via alchemy

   

3. Create database.env — this will house the docker environment variables for the PostgreSQL Node

   POSTGRES_USER=postgres
   POSTGRES_PASSWORD=[PG_PASSWORD]
   POSTGRES_DB=chainlink

4. Create docker-compose.yml — this will house the configuration for your docker images.

   version: '3'
   services:
   pg_chainlink:
       image: "postgres"
       ports:
       - "5432:5432"
       env_file:
       - database.env
       volumes:
       - [PATH_TO_POSTGRES_DATA]:/var/lib/postgressql/data/
   chainlink:
       image: "smartcontract/chainlink:[CURRENT_VERSION]"
       env_file: .env
       depends_on:
       - pg_chainlink
       ports:
       - "6688:6688"
       volumes:
       - [PATH_TO_CHAINLINK_VOLUME]:/chainlink/
       command: node start --password /chainlink/password.txt --api /chainlink/apicredentials.txt

   [PATH_TO_POSTGRES_DATA] is the location of the PostgreSQL data directory. For me it is: /Library/PostgreSQL/14/data

   [PATH_TO_CHAINLINK_VOLUME] should be a directory that will house a few more items. I created it within chainlink-kovan

   mkdir chainlink-volume
   cd chainlink-volume
   pwd

   Use the results and use that for [PATH_TO_CHAINLINK_VOLUME]

5. While still in the chainlink-volume create a few files In password.txt add, feel free to change the password

   secret

   In apicredentials.txt add, this will be the username and password for the web UI

   your-email@address.com
   password

Prep Docker

1. Add the PostgreSQL and Chainlink volumes to docker

Start docker

1. Run docker compose up

   You will see the following error

   

   This is expected. The database for PostgreSQL has not been created

2. Create the PostgreSQL database for chainlink

   

3. Stop docker if it’s still running ctrl-c and re-run docker compose up

   You should see a flurry of activity and something like this 👇

   

Now that your node is running, open the operator interface.

Open the operator interface

1. Head to http://localhost:6688

   

2. Login with the credentials you set in apicredentials.txt