Tezos Clients
The tezos-client and Tezos RPC need to be connected to a Tezos node. You can connect to your own tezos node or you can use a community node on the Tezos mainnet or testnet.
You can find a list of community nodes here.
If you use a testnet you can download a free faucet file with test XTZ on it here.
RPC [1] is a client-server protocol where the requesting program is the client and the program providing the service is the server.
Tezos nodes provide a JSON/RPC interface to interact with the Tezos network. Note that although it uses RPC and is JSON based, it does not follow the JSON-RPC protocol.
A complete list of RPC calls is available here. Make sure to check the protocol version before using these calls. The calls available in the Edo protocol are available here.
Get block
This call is used to find all the information about a block. The associated metadata may not be present depending on the history mode and block's distance from the head.
GET NodeUrl/chains/[chain_id]/blocks/[blocks_id]
Example: To get the block number 1400114 from the mainnet using giganode, do as follows:
GET https://mainnet-tezos.giganode.io/chains/main/blocks/1400114
Get contract storage
This call is used to access the storage of the contract.
GET NodeUrl/chains/[chain_id]/blocks/[blocks_id]/context/contracts/[contract_id]/storage
Example: To get the storage of contract KT1Hkg5qeNhfwpKW4fXvq7HGZB9z2EnmCCA9 from block number 1400114 on the mainnet using giganode, do as follows:
GET https://mainnet-tezos.giganode.io/chains/main/blocks/1400114/context/contracts/KT1Hkg5qeNhfwpKW4fXvq7HGZB9z2EnmCCA9/storage
Tezos-client is the official client when interacting with a Tezos node via RPC. Let's take a look at some examples and how to use it.
On Mac OS with Homebrew:
$ brew install tezos-client
On Ubuntu with binaries:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:serokell/tezos && sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install -y tezos-client
On Fedora with binaries:
$ dnf copr enable -y @Serokell/Tezos && dnf update -y
$ dnf install -y tezos-client
Activate your account by replacing #accountName and #faucet below with an account name and the path to your downloaded faucet file.
$ tezos-client activate account #accountName with ~/Downloads/#faucet.json
Example :
$ tezos-client activate account user1 with ~/Downloads/tz1VH3sHQ5SNby95S9EtPQBqZrhgv2DqjPvy.json
For global options
$ tezos-client --help
For command options
$ tezos-client [global options] command --help
For version information
$ tezos-client --version
The full documentation on Tezos-client can be found here.
This is a non-exhaustive list of possible commands with tezos-client. To discover more commands please refer to the CLI manual.
Get balance
To get the balance of your account you can execute the following command:
$ tezos-client get balance for #accountName
Get timestamp
This call is useful to check if the node is synchronized. It returns the UTC time of the latest downloaded block, timezones may differ from your local time.
$ tezos-client get timestamp
List known addresses
This call lists implicit accounts registered in your tezos-client.
$ tezos-client list known addresses
List known contracts
This call lists all accounts (implicit and smart contract) registered in your tezos-client.
$ tezos-client list known contracts
Transfers and receipts
The command line below makes a transaction of 42ꜩ from the account user1 to user2 (you can also just use the tezos addresses directly):
$ tezos-client transfer 30 from user1 to user2 --burn-cap 0.5
Notice that --burn-cap specifies the maximum fee the user is willing to pay for this operation. The actual fee is determined by the network.
You can also add --dry-run if you just want to practice by running a transaction simulation instead of a real transaction.
The recipe of this command is as follows:
Current head: BM3smBpBVtHD (timestamp: 2021-03-12T09:42:28.000-00:00, validation: 2021-03-12T09:42:38.372-00:00)Node is bootstrapped.Estimated gas: 1000 units (will add 100 for safety)Operation successfully injected in the node.Operation hash is 'oo4745Q5mq8snHYAxUYWedBCVb7yQJ7jvFhKECPN9xqgwE4Ni8A'Waiting for the operation to be included...Operation found in block: BKnKoaYqCz3dTWr66x4X1mvXC95kuozRkdd23LDuM5ZA1ayF5mi (pass: 3, offset: 0)This sequence of operations was run: Manager signed operations: From: tz1gWQz5iTP6UDkWjm1jnKsCq1HHG4hgEmJn Fee to the baker: ꜩ0.000369 Expected counter: 1412932 Gas limit: 1100 Storage limit: 0 bytes Balance updates: tz1gWQz5iTP6UDkWjm1jnKsCq1HHG4hgEmJn ............. -ꜩ0.000369 fees(tz1aWXP237BLwNHJcCD4b3DutCevhqq2T1Z9,248) ... +ꜩ0.000369 Revelation of manager public key: Contract: tz1gWQz5iTP6UDkWjm1jnKsCq1HHG4hgEmJn Key: edpktpMjpmsK6fLKGrXzhp67tRdu2m5HyzGrp1tuS8ZJBc7dGqBeAq This revelation was successfully applied Consumed gas: 1000
You can observe your actions on the block explorers :
Mainnet: https://tzstats.com
Edonet: https://edo.tzstats.com
DelphiNet: https://delphi.tzstats.com
The admin client allows you to interact with the peer-to-peer layer in order to:
check the status of the connections
force connections to known peers
ban/un-ban peers
On Mac OS with Homebrew:
$ brew install tezos-admin-client
On Ubuntu with binaries:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:serokell/tezos && sudo apt-get update$ sudo apt-get install -y tezos-admin-client
On Fedora with binaries:
$ dnf copr enable -y @Serokell/Tezos && dnf update -y$ dnf install -y tezos-admin-client
Global options:
$ tezos-admin-client --help
Command options:
$ tezos-admin-client [global options] command --help
Version information:
$ tezos-admin-client --version
The full documentation on Tezos-admin-client can be found here.
This is a non-exhaustive list of possible commands with tezos-admin-client. To discover more commands please refer to the CLI manual.
Commands for the low level RPC layer
List RPCs under a given URL prefix:
$ tezos-admin-client rpc list [URL]
Get the input and the output JSON schemas of an RPC:
$ tezos-admin-client rpc schema [HTTP method] [url]
Get the readable input and output formats of an RPC:
$ tezos-admin-client rpc get [url]
Call an RPC with the POST method and input params:
$ tezos-admin-client list protocols
Commands for managing protocols
List protocols known by the node:
$ tezos-admin-client rpc post [url] with [input]
Inject a new protocol into the node: (given_dir is the directory containing the sources of a protocol)
$ tezos-admin-client inject protocol [given_dir]
Commands to report the node's status:
The last heads that have been considered by the node:
$ tezos-admin-client list heads [-o --output [path]]
Commands for editing and viewing the client's config file:
Show the current config file content and command line arguments:
$ tezos-admin-client config show
Update the config based on the current CLI values:
$ tezos-admin-client config update
A useful command to debug a node that is not syncing:
$ tezos-admin-client tezos-admin-client p2p stat
