HTTP API for The Open Network

Since TON nodes uses its own ADNL binary transport protocol, a intermediate service is needed for an HTTP connection.

TON HTTP API is such a intermediate service, receiving requests via HTTP, it accesses the lite servers of the TON network using tonlibjson.

You can use the ready-made toncenter.com service or start your own instance.

Building and running

Recommended hardware:

• CPU architecture: x86_64 or arm64.
• HTTP API only: 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM.
• HTTP API with cache enabled: 2 vCPUs, 4 GB RAM.

There are two main ways to run TON HTTP API:

• Local (experimental): works on following platforms: Ubuntu Linux (x86_64, arm64), MacOSX (Intel x86_64, Apple M1 arm64) and Windows (x86_64).
• Docker Compose: flexible configuration, recommended for production environments, works on any x86_64 and arm64 OS with Docker available.

Local run (experimental)

Note: It is simple but not stable way to run the service. We do not recommend to use it in production.

• (Windows only, first time) Install OpenSSL v1.1.1 for win64 from here.
• Install package: pip install ton-http-api.
• Run service with ton-http-api. This command will run service with mainnet configuration.
  • Run ton-http-api --help to show parameters list.

Docker Compose

• (First time) Install required tools: docker, docker-compose, curl.
  • For Ubuntu: run scripts/setup.sh from the root of the repo.
  • For MacOS and Windows: install Docker Desktop.
  • Note: we recommend to use Docker Compose V2.
• Download TON configuration files to private folder:

  mkdir private
  curl -sL https://ton-blockchain.github.io/global.config.json > private/mainnet.json
  curl -sL https://ton-blockchain.github.io/testnet-global.config.json > private/testnet.json

• Run ./configure.py to create .env file with necessary environment variables (see Configuration for details).
• Build services: docker-compose build.
  • Or pull latest images: docker-compose pull.
• Run services: docker-compose up -d.
• Stop services: docker-compose down.

Configuration

You should specify environment parameters and run ./configure.py to create .env file. bash export TON_API_LITESERVER_CONFIG=private/testnet.json ./configure.py

The service supports the following environment variables:

Webserver settings

• TON_API_HTTP_PORT (default: 80)

  Port for HTTP connections of API service.

• TON_API_ROOT_PATH (default: /)

  If you use a proxy server such as Nginx or Traefik you might change the default API path prefix (e.g. /api/v2). If so you have to pass the path prefix to the API service in this variable.

• TON_API_WEBSERVERS_WORKERS (default: 1)

  Number of webserver processes. If your server is under high load try increase this value to increase RPS. We recommend setting it to number of CPU cores / 2.

• TON_API_GET_METHODS_ENABLED (default: 1)

  Enables runGetMethod endpoint.

• TON_API_JSON_RPC_ENABLED (default: 1)

  Enables jsonRPC endpoint.

• TON_API_LOGS_JSONIFY (default: 0)

  Enables printing all logs in json format.

• TON_API_LOGS_LEVEL (default: ERROR)

  Defines log verbosity level. Values allowed: DEBUG,INFO,WARNING,ERROR,CRITICAL.

• TON_API_GUNICORN_FLAGS (default: empty)

  Additional Gunicorn command line arguments.

Tonlib settings

• TON_API_TONLIB_LITESERVER_CONFIG (default docker: private/mainnet.json local: https://ton.org/global-config.json)

  Path to config file with lite servers information. In case of native run you can pass URL to download config. Docker support only path to file.

• TON_API_TONLIB_KEYSTORE (default docker: /tmp/ton_keystore local: ./ton_keystore/)

  Path to tonlib keystore.

• TON_API_TONLIB_PARALLEL_REQUESTS_PER_LITESERVER (default: 50)

  Number of maximum parallel requests count per worker.

• TON_API_TONLIB_CDLL_PATH (default: empty)

  Path to tonlibjson binary. It could be useful if you want to run service on unsupported platform and have built the libtonlibjson library manually.

• TON_API_TONLIB_REQUEST_TIMEOUT (default: 10)

  Timeout for liteserver requests.

Cache configuration

• TON_API_CACHE_ENABLED (default: 0)

  Enables caching lite server responses with Redis.

• TON_API_CACHE_REDIS_ENDPOINT (default: localhost, docker: cache_redis)

  Redis cache service host.

• TON_API_CACHE_REDIS_PORT (default: 6379)

  Redis cache service port.

• TON_API_CACHE_REDIS_TIMEOUT (default: 1)

  Redis cache timeout.

FAQ

How to point the service to my own lite server?

To point the HTTP API to your own lite server you should set TON_API_TONLIB_LITESERVER_CONFIG to config file with your only lite server.

• If you use MyTonCtrl on your node you can generate config file with these commands:

  $ mytonctrl
  MyTonCtrl> installer
  MyTonInstaller> clcf
  

  Config file will be saved at /usr/bin/ton/local.config.json.
• If you don't use MyTonCtrl: copy private/mainnet.json and overwrite section liteservers with your liteservers ip, port and public key. To get public key from liteserver.pub file use the following script:

  python -c 'import codecs; f=open("liteserver.pub", "rb+"); pub=f.read()[4:]; print(str(codecs.encode(pub,"base64")).replace("\n",""))'
  

• The config generated with mytonctrl > installer > clcf adds the public IP of your server in the config file. If there's an active firewall on your server, ton-http-api won't be able to connect to the local lite server. In that case, replace the value of lite server's ip in local.config.json with 2130706433, which is the integer equivalent of 127.0.0.1 / localhost.
• Once config file is created assign variable TON_API_TONLIB_LITESERVER_CONFIG to its path, run ./configure.py and rebuild the project.

How to run multiple API instances on single machine?

• Clone the repo as many times as many instances you need to the folders with different names (otherwise docker compose containers will conflict).
• Configure each instance to use unique port (env variable TON_API_HTTP_PORT)
• Build and run every instance.

How to update tonlibjson library?

Binary file libtonlibjson now moved to pytonlib.

• Docker Compose: docker-compose build --no-cache.
• Local run: pip install -U ton-http-api.

No working liteservers error.

Usually, liteservers from the config has already deleted the block, which specified in init_block section. To update init block, please backup your config file and run script ./scripts/update_init_block.sh private/mainnet.json. For testnet add flag --testnet.