Install Binaries, Docker Images, and Samples

You must download and install platform-specific-binaries and Docker images to set up your Hyperledger Fabric network on your platform. We also offers a set of sample applications with which you can start to practice the tutorials.

Note

If you are running on Windows you will want to make use of the Docker Quickstart Terminal for the upcoming terminal commands. Please visit the Prerequisites if you haven’t previously installed it.

If you are using Docker Toolbox on Windows 7 or macOS, you will need to use a location under C:\Users (Windows 7) or /Users (macOS) when installing and running the samples.

If you are using Docker for Mac, you will need to use a location under /Users, /Volumes, /private, or /tmp. To use a different location, please consult the Docker documentation for file sharing.

If you are using Docker for Windows, please consult the Docker documentation for shared drives and use a location under one of the shared drives.

It’s a good practice to start with installing Hyperledger Fabric samples before you install platform-specific-binaries and Docker images. However, you can choose to not install samples, but simply install platform-specific-binaries and Docker images.

Install Samples

Determine a directory on your platform where you want to place the Hyperledger Fabric’s samples applications repository and open this directory in a terminal window. Then, execute the following commands:

git clone -b master https://github.com/hyperledger/fabric-samples.git
cd fabric-samples
git checkout {TAG}

Note

To ensure the samples are compatible with the version of Fabric binaries you download below, checkout the samples {TAG} that matches your Fabric version, for example, v1.1.0. To see a list of all fabric-samples tags, use command “git tag”.

Install Platform-specific Binaries

Installing the Hyperledger Fabric’s platform-specific binaries is designed to complement the Hyperledger Fabric Samples, but can be used independently. If you do not install the samples above, simply create and enter a directory into which to extract the contents of the platform-specific binaries.

Open this directory in a terminal window and execute the following command:

curl -sSL https://goo.gl/6wtTN5 | bash -s 1.1.0

Note

If you get an error running the above curl command, you may have too old a version of curl that does not handle redirects or an unsupported environment.

Please visit the Prerequisites page for additional information on where to find the latest version of curl and get the right environment. Alternately, you can substitute the un-shortened URL: https://github.com/hyperledger/fabric/blob/master/scripts/bootstrap.sh

Note

You can use the command above for any published version of Hyperledger Fabric. Simply replace ‘1.1.0’ with the version identifier of the version you wish to install.

The command above downloads and executes the bash script to download and extract all of the platform-specific binaries that you need to set up your network. The script stores the platform-specific binaries into the cloned repo that you create when you install samples. The script retrieves the following platform-specific binaries and stores them in the bin sub-directory of your current working directory:

  • cryptogen
  • configtxgen
  • configtxlator
  • peer
  • orderer
  • fabric-ca-client

You might want to add this download directory to your PATH environment variable so that it can be picked up without fully qualifying the path to each binary. For example, you can add the directory to PATH with the following command:

export PATH=<path to download location>/bin:$PATH

Install Docker Images

The bash script above also downloads the Hyperledger Fabric Docker images from Docker Hub to your local Docker registry and tag them as ‘latest’.

After the download, the script lists out the Docker images that are installed upon conclusion.

Look at the names for each image; these are the components that will ultimately comprise your Hyperledger Fabric network. You will also notice that you have two instances of the same image ID - one tagged as “x86_64-1.x.x” and one tagged as “latest”.

Note

On different architectures, the “x86_64” would be replaced with the string identifying your architecture.