Hyperledger Network Certificates & How to Create Them

This blog represents code samples and related concepts on how to create hyperledger network certificates. These certificates will be used by peer nodes in Hyperledger Blockchain network.

Crypto Config file for Generating Hyperledger Network Certificates

Following is a YAML configuration file which can be used to create certificates for different network entities in the blockchain network. You can save the file with name such as crypto-config.yaml

# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# "OrdererOrgs" - Definition of organizations managing orderer nodes
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
OrdererOrgs:
  - Name: Orderer
    Domain: example.com
    Specs:
      - Hostname: orderer
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# "PeerOrgs" - Definition of organizations managing peer nodes
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
PeerOrgs:
  # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
  # Org1
  # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
  - Name: Org1
    Domain: org1.example.com
    Template:
      Count: 2
    Users:
      Count: 1
  # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
  # Org2
  # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
  - Name: Org2
    Domain: org2.example.com
    Template:
      Count: 2
    Users:
      Count: 1

Pay attention to some of the following in above file:

• There are two high-level entries for organizations managing orderer node and peer nodes. They are OrdererOrgs and PeerOrgs
• Each org would be defined with attributes such as name, domain, specs, templates, users etc. Specs entry comprises an array of spec entry used to define attributes such as Hostname, CommonName etc.

Generate Certificates

One can generate certificates using cryptogen tool which comes with the downloadable package of hyperledger. Following is the command which can be used to generate certificates using the cryptogen tool.

cryptogen generate --config=path_to_crypto_config.yaml