How do I start a UI?

[corpix]

Tutorial is great. But how do I start the UI? boostd run successfully started, but it does not listen any port, did I missed something?

[LexLuthr]

@corpix I would need some details.

1. Boost version
2. Did you migrate from lotus-market or is this a new Boost node
3. If migrated then which documentation was followed for migration or installation?
4. I would need your build command used to compile the binaries.
5. Please also attach the boostd start up logs

[corpix]

1. boost version 2.0.0
2. no, I am setting up a local-testnet https://docs.filecoin.io/networks/local-testnet with lotus version 1.23.3+2k, also I have used this docs to build boost https://boost.filecoin.io/getting-started
4. thats could be a bit complicated because I am packaging lotus & boost for Nix package manager, here is how I build boost https://gist.github.com/corpix/cb6469a618c3222c4ab8fc13ba9e469b#file-lotus-boost-nix-L145-L155
5. I am not sure they are useful because logs spammed with:

Sep 07 23:08:45 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[117647]: [64B blob data]
Sep 07 23:08:45 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[117647]: State: idle; Current Epoch: 0; Todo: 0
Sep 07 23:08:45 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[117647]: Validated 0 messages (0 per second)

I think it could be me misunderstanding some concepts after reading the tutorial:

• How UI is started?
• Is this a part of boostd and I should expect it to listen on some port? If yes then should I configure something to achieve this behavior?
• While writing this I have discovered I haven't build this https://github.com/filecoin-project/boost/tree/main/react, but boostd has been build successfully, will check it

[LexLuthr]

That explains your missing UI. It listens on 127.0.0.1:8080 by default. This can be updated in the config https://boost.filecoin.io/configuration/ui-settings
You would need to build the react package to serve the UI and then rebuild boostd with react.
https://boost.filecoin.io/new-boost-setup is the correct tutorial to setup a new Boost node.

[corpix]

I have built a frontend, rebuilt and restarted boostd, but nothing changed.
Here is what I see in the logs (boostd run or boostd -vv run - output is same):

Sep 08 13:11:09 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: State: idle; Current Epoch: 0; Todo: 0
Sep 08 13:11:09 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: Validated 8 messages (0 per second)
Sep 08 13:11:09 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: [64B blob data]
Sep 08 13:11:09 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: State: idle; Current Epoch: 0; Todo: 0
Sep 08 13:11:09 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: Validated 8 messages (0 per second)
Sep 08 13:11:09 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: [64B blob data]
Sep 08 13:11:09 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: State: idle; Current Epoch: 0; Todo: 0
Sep 08 13:11:09 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: Validated 8 messages (0 per second)
Sep 08 13:11:10 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: [64B blob data]
Sep 08 13:11:10 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: State: idle; Current Epoch: 0; Todo: 0
Sep 08 13:11:10 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: Validated 8 messages (0 per second)
Sep 08 13:11:10 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: [64B blob data]
Sep 08 13:11:10 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: State: idle; Current Epoch: 0; Todo: 0
Sep 08 13:11:10 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: Validated 8 messages (0 per second)
Sep 08 13:11:10 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: [64B blob data]
Sep 08 13:11:10 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: State: idle; Current Epoch: 0; Todo: 0
Sep 08 13:11:10 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: Validated 8 messages (0 per second)
Sep 08 13:11:10 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: [64B blob data]
Sep 08 13:11:10 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: State: idle; Current Epoch: 0; Todo: 0
Sep 08 13:11:10 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: Validated 8 messages (0 per second)
Sep 08 13:11:11 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: [64B blob data]
Sep 08 13:11:11 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: State: idle; Current Epoch: 0; Todo: 0
Sep 08 13:11:11 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: Validated 8 messages (0 per second)
Sep 08 13:11:11 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: [64B blob data]
Sep 08 13:11:11 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: State: idle; Current Epoch: 0; Todo: 0
Sep 08 13:11:11 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: Validated 8 messages (0 per second)
Sep 08 13:11:11 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: [64B blob data]
Sep 08 13:11:11 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: State: idle; Current Epoch: 0; Todo: 0
Sep 08 13:11:11 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: Validated 8 messages (0 per second)
Sep 08 13:11:11 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: [64B blob data]
Sep 08 13:11:11 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: State: idle; Current Epoch: 0; Todo: 0
Sep 08 13:11:11 apollo filecoin-boostd-start[123587]: Validated 8 messages (0 per second)

No other messages. Is this expected to log messages such this so often?
Also boostd listens no ports:

$ ss -ntulp | grep boostd
tcp   LISTEN 0      4096       127.0.0.1:8042       0.0.0.0:*    users:(("boostd-data",pid=122395,fd=6)) 

[LexLuthr]

Few things so note:

1. Make sure to rebuild boostd after building the react app to embed it correctly in boostd
2. Your current problem seems to be from from the fact that you are running on devnet. Boost checked the sync status by default, we should avoid that in devnet with --nosync=true flag

Please take a look at docker devnet that Boost team is already shipping. https://github.com/filecoin-project/boost#running-boost-devnet-in-docker-for-development

But if your aim is to learn how to configure devnet manually instead of using it then you can carry on.

[corpix]

Running with --nosync made a trick.
But after starting I have discovered it tries to bind to port 8042. Which I haven't expected (because tutorial recommends boostd-data with yugabytedb). Let it be... probably tutorial is written for production grade boost installations, not devnet's. But I want to highlight: as a newbie with Filecoin this caused a lot of confusion for me :)

Thanks for your help, @LexLuthr !